MC Fireside Chats – December 21st, 2022

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl. Unfortunately, back with all of you, Cara, I know you were missing for the last two weeks. I was in [00:01:00] Europe. Everybody who watches the show already had your Christmas gift. Cuz now you have to have me back. I feel like, I wanna say very much thank you to Connor, who’s also on our show today, as well as Jenna Celmer, who were our two guest hosts while I was missing. I haven’t had a chance to watch all of those shows, but I’m told that everybody was happy with them and that I should probably vacate my position in 2023 and let the professionals really take over the show. . So we’ll see if we can do that. I feel like maybe I can launch a search like Elon’s doing, right? I’ll just step down whenever I find a replacement based on that Twitter poll. But , we’ll see. So super excited to be back with you. Grateful to have Cara back with us again. As always. We’ve got a kind of a special lineup of people here to talk a little bit about what they thought the end result of 2022 was, all the amazing things that happened during the year, and then maybe a little bit about what they’re looking forward to in 2023 as well. so I don’t wanna really talk anymore. Other than that, because I probably don’t have as much useful contributions to the conversation as all of these amazing people do. So Cara, where do you think we should start?[00:02:00] Cara Csizmadia: Oh my gosh. I feel like given that it’s the end of the year, we could maybe see how everybody’s 2022 was— some reflections. How’d it go for everyone? Brian Searl: And welcome Mike Harrison. Cara Csizmadia: Sorry, I was just sending you a link, Mike. I’m sorry. That’s why I’m scattered. welcome Mike Harrison: greetings. Brian Searl: Okay, so every how everybody’s year went, who wants to let’s have Jeff Hoffman start, because Jeff, I saw at the KOA convention and the Artic Convention and he’s had a jam back year, right? Jeff? So you’ve got this new company that you started, you’re consulting, you’re like basically everywhere. I feel like Jeff is, and he was with the recent Kampground Owners Expo. We were talking about that. So how did 2022 go for you, Jeff. Jeff Hoffman: Seeing how I retired Brian Searl: you did not retire Jeff Hoffman: the first day of 2022. The year’s been great. I found out I didn’t enjoy retirement, so that’s why I went into consulting because we had sold off all of our properties except the Sandusky KOA as far as the year goes, the KOA did pretty well for this [00:03:00] year. The overall Campground business I think was off about 4%, so we were ahead of that, so I was happy. My business seems to have taken off to the point where I am busier than I thought I would be. It was supposed to be a hobby and it’s turning into a business, so I think that’s good, but my wife does not think that’s good. Brian Searl: I think that’s a reflection of your years in the business and the knowledge you bring to the table and people are seeing the value in that is what I would assume. I think that’s a great thing. Jeff Hoffman: I would hope so. And that’s what I’m doing is over my, over the years I’ve spent in the business, I have seen owners struggle. And a lot of it is just because they don’t know accounting. They don’t know operations, they don’t really know business. They thought it was gonna be a retirement and kind of a hobby. And then they get into it and they find out, no, it’s a business that cannot only make you money, but it can also steal your retirement savings if you don’t run it [00:04:00] correctly. So that’s where, that’s of what I’m trying to. . Brian Searl: Now when you say, I’m curious just, and we don’t, I wanna focus on this, but just touch on it briefly. When you say you’re off 4%, I’ve heard from a lot of our clients specifically with Insider, Perks, that they’re up with ADR and overall revenue, but they’re down with camper nights. Is that what you mean? Or is it different for you? Jeff Hoffman: We were up 4% with revenue. We were down with camper nights, but our ADR was up. But also we had removed our full one whole section that we put new pads in, but we never got it open, so we lost all the revenue for that section, plus did not gain the revenue that we had expected. So being up 4%, I’m actually pretty happy. Pretty happy. Sure. Because yeah, we had projected about 400,000 for that new section I hope that I get that in 2023. Brian Searl: I think it all signs seem to point that people are still gonna be [00:05:00] very interested in Camping. We were talking about before the show started that k a did their latest monthly report that I think 87% of people have that in their New Year’s resolution for Camping. I dunno if they break that under private, public and all that kind of stuff, but it sure seems like people are still really interested in getting outside. Cara Csizmadia: So lots of RVs out there. Brian Searl: All Who wants to go next? Any volunteers? You can raise your hand. We’ve got fan pack show today is, this is the most people we’ve ever had on the show. I think there’s a 10 limit. Yeah. Let’s toss it to Phil. Let’s switch gears from Camping to RV industry real quick. RV DA had a lot going on Phil. How’d the 2022 go? Phil Ingrassia: Yeah 2022 final numbers aren’t done, but we’re projecting for RV wholesale shipments just under 500,000. For 2022 after a record over 600,000 units shipped in, in 2021. And, a lot of those shipments were front loaded the first half of the year. And retail kind of started [00:06:00] slowing in April on a year over year basis as the pandemic eased and people had other options for discretionary income spending in the travel sector. And, so there’s a lot of headlines these, last few months about RV shipments being down 25% or whatever. But it wasn’t anything that the industry wasn’t expecting, the buzz right now, if you look at some of the the way the manufacturers are spinning, it is, it’s a normalization of production. And I think that’s what we’re gonna see going into 2023. We had this big bump where manufacturers were trying to keep up with this pandemic caused demand. A lot of new buyers, people couldn’t spend money on anything else, so they’re buying RVs and now we’re gonna, we’re gonna shift back down into a more normalized demand situation. And again, I think we’re gonna have, if you look at it over the long term, last 10 years, more of a normal year in 2023, both on the [00:07:00] retail and wholesale side, but there is gonna be some adjustment there as we see what the spring show season is like. As far as the spring and, winter show season as far as the demand. And a lot of people are gonna be looking at, very closely at the F R V T A super show coming up. Some of the other big US shows Pittsburgh, Boston, Cleveland shows all kind of front loaded in the early part of the year, and we’ll see how that goes. Brian Searl: Yeah, I think that’s important to point out, as we’ve discussed on the show before, right? It’s not really, and you mentioned spinning and I think it’s fact that we had just, not only for campgrounds, but for RV dealers and RV, the shipments and all those kinds of things. It went way up to normalize. That’s literally what it’s doing. And so it’s very easy to cherry pick a headline and look at it from a negative perspective, but I think everybody who knows in the industry really agrees that’s not the case. I think it’s just, it’s normalizing, it’s flattening out. And we’ll see like where 2023 goes. It’s a mystery right now, right? , Phil Ingrassia: right? And I think, another thing I think that the industry will be looking at too is, okay, we’ve just pumped 2 [00:08:00] million RVs into the North American ecosystem, and so how do we support that product? There’s going to be. Continued use of the product. As some of the KOA studies are showing that people are still interested in Camping. They’re gonna be doing a lot of Camping in 2023, but those RVs are gonna need maintenance support. They’re need to gonna get fixed. Dealers will be very active in the aftermarket side of the business, the parts accessory side and the service side as well. It’s going to be a busy year. It’s gonna look different than 2021 and 2022, especially early in the year, but it will be a very active year for dealers as they pivot to maybe doing, spending more time on service and aftermarket support. Brian Searl: Okay. Makes sense. Cara Csizmadia: Do you guys have, oh, sorry, I apologize. I was just gonna ask Phil, do you guys have metric tracking for the use market in any way? At RVDA? Phil Ingrassia: Yeah. The used market was very active throughout this whole last couple years and stats surveys, [00:09:00] which is the retail scorekeeper for RV retail now has data on used. And it’s about for every new unit sold, there’s a, probably a unit and a half used sold either through a dealer or private sale. That market continues to percolate. And the affordability factor of used is very important as well, because especially for first time buyers, we’ve seen an increase in the average price of new units. , you do see new first time buyers gravitate to use sometimes just because they’re more, they’re priced less than new in many cases. Right. . Awesome. Thank you. Cara Csizmadia: I’m curious, I’m sorry, Brian, I’m hijacking this a little bit. Brian Searl: No, we’re no script, that I don’t prepare. Cara Csizmadia: Given Phil’s comments about the aftermarket, the service requirements and things like that, I’m curious if Curtis has any idea or input about, are we seeing dealers ramp up, training? Are they , are you putting higher numbers through courses? How does that look? Side. Curtis Hemmeler: Yeah. No I can’t thank Phil enough cuz he absolutely teed up. [00:10:00] Perfect. For the service piece of this and answer your question, Cara, straight out Yes. As as the new sales adjusted you can imagine, as Phil alluded to, they’ve put a lot of focus on service and in fact, this. We put by the time the bell rings on December 31st, we will have added over 1200 trained and certified over 1200 new people who are outside the industry coming into the industry to help support the deficit of trained and certified technicians across the country. Awesome. In addition to that we are in partnership with pretty much the top 10 largest dealership groups across the country. And they are teaching our program. So that wasn’t the case a year ago, and now we have you name it, Camping, world Blue Compass or RV Retailer General. All of them are partners teaching our curriculum. And that’s on the dealership side of things. We’ve seen the same interest in the mobile side. Mobile techs [00:11:00] with about more than half of the technicians we’re training are of the mobile type or independent tech. . And then also we focused heavily on campgrounds as well. We spent the year R V I A has been working with a lot of the campgrounds ARVC state associations this year to obviously keep the full circle of a consumer and enjoying their experience. And that does involve putting trained and certified technicians at campgrounds. And so we’ve seen a large number of them this year, training folks so that they can offer those services at campgrounds. The industry continues to subsidize. We just approved going into 2023 subsidizing of the cost of R VTI to operate. So this will equate to a reduced cost for consumer, dealer and mobile to be able to access and get the curriculum for training purposes. So yes we are the pandemic increased on the sales side, as you all know. Allowed us time to get the program completely ready to deliver, either in person online or in a [00:12:00] partnership situation, and then teed us up perfect. To go into this year, which was really a recruitment year to where we can just start pushing it out and delivering it. So all numbers are up. The number of certified tech is higher than it’s ever been, number of people taking the course. In fact, we’ve surpassed over 10,000 individuals either in training or certifying since we started three years ago. So yes, busy year Cara Csizmadia: given the need. I know we have a huge need up here in Canada with tons of shortage in terms of checks. I’ve got Campground owners now looking at taking the training themselves so that they can begin offering those services in their parks as a way to diversify. Yeah. Yeah, I very similar scenario up here. I wish we had a couple more programs spread across the country. Are currently are only in class, programs are in two schools. And so that’s tough to get lots of bodies through only a couple of spots. But I think dealers are the industry as a whole is doing a great job of trying their best to address [00:13:00] the significant charges. Yes, you’re Curtis Hemmeler: correct. And care. That’s, that was when I joined the industry three years ago. I came from the school business as a lot of folks know and , the days of people packing up and going to school distance is just not really reality. And so we created programs that can be delivered. Obviously if they choose that path, that’s fine, but we also had to put it online. We had to put in a hybrid format. And we also, these authorized learning partners, which we have, close to 50 now, where they can actually, they can do the face-to-face teaching, but it’s out of their facility so that they send a trainer, we get the trainer ramped up, we send them the, the curriculum. And that will continue to be the strategy cuz to your point we’re not gonna send everybody to Elkhart, Indiana. So it’s you gotta spread and conquer. Cara Csizmadia: Absolutely agree. Yeah. I love the ingenuity there, for sure. Brian Searl: Let’s keep this on the RV theme real quick and let’s let Rich give his thoughts on 2022 if we want before we pivot. Rich Schnippel: Yeah, thanks for having me on today. This was our first full calendar year because we’re only about a year and a half old. And [00:14:00] naturally when we started supply chain issues and just getting ramped up and licensed in some of the states slowed us a little bit more than what we anticipated. but we hit the ground running in January, so it took us about six months to really get production up and running efficiently, where we were putting out numbers that made sense. We had a really strong summer both with the dealers and through retail registrations and things cooled off a little bit just before the open house, which we took advantage of and built some open stock knowing that when we went to the show, we would probably pick up some new dealers, a little tough to anticipate what exactly to build, particularly when we had new products out that, that really weren’t completely in production yet. So we introduced at that show five new products, and we only had three at the time, so there’s eight right now. And the show was a big success for us. We were very fortunate. Took a lot of orders that’ll run us easily into the spring. So we’re really [00:15:00] excited about that when we see a lot of production being shut down for a month and a half or so at times just because of the the situation where some dealers are overstocked and naturally a lot of the manufacturers have got some inventory that they’d like to move. We’ve been fortunate in getting our inventory down creating what we believe are products that people want to purchase and the dealers seem to be in agreement with what they’ve ordered. It’s been a really bright 2022 for us. We’re anticipating some challenges in 23. Most of our supply chain issues are gone now. So that’s really good. We’ve got a very solid team building the trailers. What I was surprised at with some of the layoffs and some of the cutbacks is that we didn’t have more people putting their applications in with this. We’re not actively looking for anybody right now, but I thought I would see that go up a little bit. , . We had very strong registrations through Thanksgiving, and I thought they would slump off completely, but retail registrations have continued to be very strong, in my opinion, for that month between [00:16:00] Thanksgiving and Christmas. So that’s all really promising for us and our dealers. I think some of it has to do with our segment, that adventure trailer market is still very strong. There’s a lot of people that are attracted to that type of Camping. It puts you more outdoors. It’s fairly affordable. You don’t necessarily have to have a specific tow vehicle. These smaller units can be pulled with a lot of cars that are out there right now, so that makes the point of entry very affordable. But as we go into 23 we’re not really certain what’s gonna happen because of the economy. We’re hopeful that it’ll like stabilize has been said and. This will be, normalized shipments. But for us, we’re just out grabbing a little bit more market share everywhere we go. Introducing the right products and making certain that our dealers understand our product and are able to sell it. I would say that inflation’s probably affected some people. We’ve seen interest rates going up a little bit. It doesn’t really affect us because we’re a lower cost product than if you’re selling something really high [00:17:00] end. But in speaking to a lot of dealers, and I’ve made a conscious effort to do that in the last month and a half. Everybody seems to be doing better than I anticipated they would. They’ve just said, no, this is back to what it was. So I’m seeing a lot of good positive feedback. There’s a few segments that aren’t moving, like they would like ’em to, that they would like to get that inventory down a little bit over the winter. But overall we’re, we think it’s very promising. And we’ll just wait and see what happens this first quarter of 23. Brian Searl: It seems like you’ve set yourself up with a little bit of padding there. Cause you said you had, you’re set with invoices and orders till May. Into about the middle of April for us. When we got back from the Rich Schnippel: show, we were about two weeks till we could begin producing majority of those orders. And right now, everything through the middle of April from mid-October has been retail, or not retail sold, but sold to the dealerships. So we’re not building any open inventory and haven’t been for the last couple months. Okay. Awesome. Brian Searl: Happy for you. Thank you. [00:18:00] Cara, you have any questions before I switch away from RV? Cara Csizmadia: No, I admit I I’m a fan of Encore’s units. I just bought a little Jeep Wrangler and I’m looking for something to. To tow along with it. So I’ve been looking at them, I love them. Great product. They look good behind Jeeps. Brian Searl: , they really do. . If she had a different car, would you also say they look good behind those though? They look good. Rich Schnippel: They look good behind every car I’ve ever seen them behind forever. Perfect. And sometimes if you don’t have a really nice car our trailer makes the car look better. Better Fair. Connor Schwab: That’s point. Then I might need one. Brian Searl: Alright, I’m gonna switch topics to just Campground ownership and management here for a second. Connor, I’m gonna save you for last. Cause I feel like we had a lot of AGL discussion last week, even though I wasn’t here and didn’t get to see it, but I’m trusting that it was great one. So let’s pivot to Mike Harrison and Scott Knepp they can share a little bit of time here. For those of you who don’t know, Scott’s from IVEE which is the management group for Turnstone. So they own some properties, they manage some properties. And Mike owns some [00:19:00] properties and is gonna be managing some properties soon. He told me, I could tell everybody that and it wasn’t a secret. So they announced So Mike and Scott, do you guys have a preference of who wants to go first here and talk about your 2020 twos? Scott Knepp: Nope, no preference. I’d be happy to kick it off. Hey everyone. Thanks so much, Brian, for having us on. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, 2022. What a year. Entering the year, there was just a lot of excitement and buzz and new players. There was a lot of investments money that was developing parks or purchasing parks. To Jeff’s comment earlier, we saw a lot of families develop parks and get involved in park ownership and management and recognize that there’s more to it than that. So we IVEE ha has been doing very well with getting to collaborate with more park owners. And that’s been very positive. And 2022 really kicked off with the first quarter with a lot of the mo momentum that we saw from 2021, or at least that’s what we saw in our portfolio. So really came out of the gate [00:20:00] strong. And then, to be transparent, we had a the second quarter was tough between gas prices and market conditions, and especially diesel hitting what it did. There was some conversation around where do you feel that pain? Do you feel it in the rate or do you feel it in the occupancy? With inflation doing what it was at first it became a question mark of let’s try to keep up with inflation and let’s keep the rate at an appropriate level. But then when you see your occupancy dipping down you need to incentivize that travel somehow. So we solve a d r kind of do a bit of a tap dance as the year progressed. And of course, even thinking about it didn’t just impact the property in regard to how many guests we had and how much guests were paying, but it really impacted people. One, I think the consumer confidence really impacted folks. I think people there are a lot more cancellations this year than we’ve typically seen. People were slower to reserve. I think, eyes were on seeing how gas prices would would adjust and when we would see the break with that.[00:21:00] But we also see it with with delays for projects and things of that nature. Coming outta arvi in 2021, it, you couldn’t order a cabin, or if you did, you’re were probably gonna be waiting a year, and now all of a sudden you could order a cabin and have it in six weeks. And so even seeing some of those dynamics change definitely impacted how operations were happening at the park. All the park, Brian Searl: like you said, I think it’s some people who still are catching up. Cause we were at, I think it was at the K O A convention. And I can’t remember the name of the company, but they had a sign outside their big, huge cabin that said, order now for 2026 or something. Yeah. Yeah, there’s been a lot of variance in that. Scott Knepp: And I don’t recall that variance coming out of the 2021 Arabic show. It seemed pretty universal. Everybody’s delayed but it seems that there’s, you can make that purchase now. The other big thing that we saw, obviously utility costs was impactful, but having two hurricanes down in Florida, those were just a few weeks off of [00:22:00] each other. So that was something that at least the Florida market had. And, but, quarter our fourth quarter was very strong. Fourth quarter was really looking similar to 2021 20, 20 threes. First quarter is looking very strong. We’re seeing diesel prices fall. think it finally came below $5 a gallon. And so I think that the future does look bright and we’re excited about 2023. We all wish we had that crystal ball to see how things would be impacted, but I think I, I heard it said normalized and that would be if I were a betting man then that’s what I would hope for 2023 was the cease and that stabilization. Brian Searl: Yeah, I think it’s gonna be interesting to see. I obviously like you. That’s what we’re all, I think, hoping for. Obviously it could get better than that or it could get worse than that, but I think earlier, 2023 is gonna be a really good indicator for. , a lot of people start to see some of this data coming in, Mike. Sure. Mike Harrison: And I agree. Thank you. And happy holidays to everyone. Happy New Year almost. We’re very excited [00:23:00] to always participate in the Modern Campground and we had a great year. If we look back at 2022 we were able to get some great accolades for many of our properties. We won Park of the Year for ARVC. We won Landlease Community of the Year for our manufactured home neighborhood. We had some great openings of other businesses and our developments continued to get built out. So we were very excited about 2022 and how that ended up. Clearly as Scott had mentioned, we saw a lot of the same trends. Our Q2 wasn’t quite as bad. Our Q3 s softened a little bit. I think some of that absorption of what’s the right mix of rate and 80 of rate and occupancy and how aggressive can you be? And I think our mix changed, less transient and more long term, interestingly enough. And our booking window changed and our layering on the books changed. So it was just really interesting to see what happens. And I think Scott alluded to this as well, what we’re looking forward to is time to pivot. We I come from the hospitality world was there for about 30 years and I think I went through four different cycles. And so [00:24:00] we’re, seeing the same thing I think now, right? What does 2023 look? , not sure. But I think, what it always does is it, challenges us for innovation and for creative thinking and problem solving. And know, I think as we came outta Covid and what the last two years bring, okay, maybe the year’s a little bit down, but it’s still a record year if you compare it to any other year other than last year. Very encouraging, very exciting, very enthusiastic, outdoor hospitality world that’s going on. And we are about to open our next three resorts in the next 20 to 120 days. So we’ve got a pretty busy. Busy quarter ahead of us. And then we’ve got other stuff, geared up after that. So we can’t wait for 2023. And it wasn’t quite official. We don’t even have a press release yet but yes, we are entering. Brian Searl: Told me I could, I don’t recall that I asked you . Mike Harrison: But we are, we’re excited to enter into the third party management business. We own and operate all of our own properties, whether it’s hotel or resort or car wash or storage or, manufacture neighborhood. But we are entering into the third [00:25:00] party business as well. So send us all your contracts yeah if you got ’em but we’re really looking forward to 2023 and can’t wait to partner with a lot of you as well. Brian Searl: To be fair, I probably did ask if I could talk to somebody on the phone about it, not mention it live on the show in front of everybody, but , Cara Csizmadia: it’s a good thing nobody watches. Brian Searl: Yeah, that’s a good thing. Nobody, because I’m back, like everybody watched the last two weeks while I was gone. Yeah. So we’ve got a little bit of cover for you, Mike, but yeah, I’m super for that too. Just what’s gonna happen in 2023 with the adjustments and the things like, like you’re talking about the refinement, the opportunity to pivot, to think outside the box. It really fascinates me because that’s what I thrive on as little bit Mike and Scott knows too and some other people. Just that, one size fits all doesn’t work when you need to like, attacking everything with a scalpel and looking at everything from a deep dive and looking at data and metrics and figuring out problems and unique solutions. I think it’s gonna be I hope everything goes better than I expect in 2023. It’s gonna be really interesting from a challenge perspective to think through some of these things that I haven’t had a chance to do, cuz [00:26:00] we’ve been up for so long. Yeah. And. Cara Csizmadia: I think that’s part of why it’s so valuable to track metrics and stay on top of that stuff is because we don’t really know, like it’s hard to predict. And so you need to be ready for what’s coming and be consistently informed every day about potential changes. It’s we’ve, I’ve never experienced it before to this extent where, we were talking at the association level. We just did a strategic planning session a couple of weeks ago and we used to do a strategic plan for five years, and now we feel like that’s probably too long. Like we, who knows what things will look like in five years? Planning now for that is really tough. So I, and I think that’s indicative of the industry as a whole currently. Brian Searl: And I think the, like you said, the data and analytics and those people who know me know I eat that up for breakfast. I love that stuff. But even we’ve talked about it a little bit on the show with the RV side and the dealer [00:27:00] metrics and the things that aren’t finalized for 2022. But, lot of that stuff is gonna pave the way for what we do and how we react in 2023. And it’s so critical for us to have as much of that as we possibly can, whether it’s consumer survey data or actual hard data from what you call tracking or Google Analytics or things like that. Just the ability to have that stuff in front of us to say that, okay, well this is starting to turn, now I’m gonna pivot based on all this data that I have in front of me versus scrambling to get it when it’s a little bit too late. Yeah, absolutely. Proactive versus reactive, right? ? Yeah. What do we all think I want to give? Connor, this is actually a good segue for Connor, right? , Connor’s big into data, helped KOA release the glamping report and stuff like that. So Connor, why don’t you talk a little bit about data and the importance of that to the industry. Connor Schwab: Yeah. Thank you Brian. I appreciate it. I guess a little intro on myself, my name’s Connor Schwab. I’m the VP of Outdoor Hospitality at Sage Outdoor Advisory. We essentially help launching and expanding outdoor hospitality businesses, so whether that’s RV resorts, [00:28:00] campgrounds, glamping, I’m a little bit more focused on the glamping side, but I do a lot of work in RV as well. And we primarily do feasibility studies and appraisals, so that’s like our core product that we offer. And we’ve done over 150 in the US in the last few years. So that’s of the background that I’m coming from. And then to, to Brian’s point in in April, we started to put a big effort into tracking outdoor hospitality data first in glamping and now across all the different segments as well. And the reason that we do that is because we’re in the business of doing financial projections for. Launching or expanding businesses. So it’s really important for us to know what we think rates and occupancy are gonna be for a given offering in a given area. . So that’s the focus of what we do. Hugely important for anyone who is looking to buy a property and create a business. So anyone who’s expanding, someone who’s thinking about making a big investment in improving the amenities on their site, and trying to figure out, okay, what’s the roi, if I put in a [00:29:00] pool versus food and bev or private bathrooms in our units, or, whatever it might be. It’s been really eye-opening. The insights that we’ve seen re we released a couple of them to the glamp. We released a couple of ’em in the Camping report with K O A in October. We released more with the Glamping magazine and the issue we released last week. And then we’re hoping in Q1 to publish kind of a Investor owner operator report that really dives into the numbers. It’ll be more focused on the glamping side of things, but we’re hoping to do more RV Camping in the future. I guess Brian, is there anything, there’s a lot we could talk about. I was wondering if there’s anything I could go over some of the broad strokes, but I was curious if there’s anything specific you guys wanted to know about and I wanna be mindful of time. Brian Searl: Of course not cuz we don’t, I don’t prep for this. I’m sure Cara does, but I don’t prep for this . One of the things that really interests me right, is we’ve talked about for example, air DNA on the show before that you use and that, is very useful for short term rental pricing and things that cabins and glamping accommodations. And we’ve seen, and admittedly I haven’t had a chance to play around with that too much, but with Air [00:30:00] DNA specifically and some of the other things like price labs, they’ll do a forecasting model or what they. To happen maybe the next three, six months out in some cases. In some markets where they have enough data, do you feel like that’s been reliable over the ups and downs of the pandemic and do you feel like it’s reliable into 2023 or is it still an unknown? Connor Schwab: The, what are you asking if what is the future predictions? Yeah, the future predictions of where things might go like that, that lead booking window. Brian Searl: There’s only one metric that aird gives. Oh. Got it. We’re all wondering what’s gonna happen in 2023, yeah. Are there ways that data can help us look at that? Or is it still too uncertain? Connor Schwab: For Air DNA specifically, so they’re focused on. people, essentially, like in the glamping space, at least people putting glamping tents in their backyard or on their property. We don’t usually consider those like a legitimate glamping business. . So that’s really tailored more to folks who need a place to stay. And then the work that we do and the data that we track is much more on, on the glamping business side. They have a website, they have a brand, they have service amenities. It’s a [00:31:00] little bit more experiential, hospitality, and a legitimate business. I think on the air DNA market, Brian Searl: it can be anything. I don’t wanna necessarily narrow it to ad air dna. If you have better data, then just in general, I’m looking for, is there ways that we can use the data we already have to help us make business decisions for 2023? Or are we still waiting and seeing? Connor Schwab: Yeah, absolutely. I think get your hands on as much data as possible. And I think it’s trust, but verify, that kind of thing. I would look at as much data as you can and I think it’s all valuable. I think what Air d a has is valuable. I think what we have is valuable and then, but obviously, who knows what’s gonna happen. We’re a still on the whip crack from the covid recovery and so consumer behavior and, all these different forces with gas prices and the economy and inflation and travel and we don’t really know how it’s gonna go. But I would expect personally that we would be getting back on pre 2020 trends. So I might look at 2019 and think, what did a normal trend line look before covid? And then I might increase it a little bit for post covid times [00:32:00] for outdoor hospitality demand. And that’s probably how I would measure it. Brian Searl: Okay. Is there any specific metrics do you think, like park owners or glamping owners should be looking out for and paying attention to and following in early 2023 to get at this as soon as possible? I know that’s a hard question. Connor Schwab: Yeah. I think, RV sales is a great indicator of, future RV demand. And it’s been interesting, I think we’ve heard mixed feedback from the group today, which I thought was really interesting. My, my instinct would be that as inflation goes up and discretionary income goes down, people still want a vacation, but they want a vacation in a way that’s more affordable. And so you’ve already purchased your RV, Camping is one of the cheapest vacation options there is. And historically speaking, Camping in our is a very kind of recession proof segment. So I would expect to continue to grow. I would be curious to hear what the other guys think on that subject. Yeah, I’d love to hear Phil, if you have any [00:33:00] thoughts on that or. Phil Ingrassia: Absolutely. If you go back to the, the last downturn 2000 8, 9 10 Camping occupancy rates did not go down nearly as much as RV shipments and sales did during that time period. . So again, getting back to this point, and he made a great point. People have made that sunk cost investment into the unit. They’re gonna use it, they’re gonna use it more. So that has ramifications for campgrounds, it has ramifications for the service and fixed operations side of the RV business. And we found over time, and I think Kurt will, back this up a little bit, dealers who have made investments in the fixed operations side, not only in facilities, but also training of technicians and as well as their fixed operations managers, which the RV Learning Center. Educates, the service managers, parts managers, those types of frontline management folks, those are the dealerships [00:34:00] that are the most successful, that remain profitable over the dips of the selling cycle in RVs. And absolutely, park owners should expect people to use the units. It’s just that they’re not replacing them as rapidly perhaps as they, they may have during during the last couple years or during, the years where the economy was in, consumer confidence was a little higher. Brian Searl: But that’s honestly Okay. As we’ve talked about, you said there’s what, 2 million new units after the pandemic that weren’t out there before. So Curtis Hemmeler: yeah, there’s 11 million registered RVs out there. So Brian Searl: just how many unregistered are there, Curtis? We need to keep . Let look that up real quick. , find the metrics for that. I report on that numbers right after that. We’ll start our, I didn’t wanna, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to [00:35:00] cut you off though, Connor. I wanted to give you a chance to just talk open-ended about, what did, how 2022 go for Sage and two. Yeah. Yeah. Connor Schwab: I think what we’ve seen is, with Covid you saw this massive decline in, in traditional hotels and traditional hospi hospitality in tourism, in urban areas. And all of the recovery in tourism, for the most part has been at least led initially by outdoor hospitality. And that’s RV campgrounds and glamping. And I think it’s interesting all the demand indicators for everything in outdoor hospitality and experiential hospitality is very high. And I think all three of those segments have been growing. I think like price points and occupancy in glamping businesses has been growing the most the quickest that I would anticipate little supply in the space relative, there’s a huge amount of existing campgrounds in RV resorts in the country, but 60% of the glamping locations in the US opened in the last 10 years. It’s in its adolescence and I think there’s still a huge demand on the glamping side and the supply is catching up. We look at [00:36:00] the kind of seven industry leaders in glamping really closely to see what they’re doing and we’ve got some really interesting data on that. And that is of the seven glamping businesses that have more than five locations current. Their average founding year was 2013, and they have on average 11 locations, which means that those businesses are opening more than one l one new location per year, and they’re less than a decade old, which is pretty remarkable when you think about the speed of that expansion. I also think probably one of the biggest trends happening in glamping that will continue is traditionally it was more of a mom and pop industry and there was a lot of bootstrapping and there wasn’t a lot of institutional money and capital coming in. But what I can say is that’s starting to happen now. I’m having conversations almost weekly with. Bigger, more sophisticated investors, people wanting to do roll-up [00:37:00] strategies. , a group reached out to us about a roll-up strategy and glamping last week, and I was like, there’s, most of these businesses have been operating for less than, five years. I don’t know if, I don’t know if the market’s mature enough for that. And then the first ever re just made a purchase in in the glamping space as well. So I think as people become more wary of traditional hotel and as the customer is more interested in outdoor hospitality and experiential hospitality I think that demand is gonna continue. And I think one of my favorite parts about the glamping industry is that it is mom and pop. And I don’t think that’s gonna go away, but I think we’re gonna see more forces, more bigger, more institutional forces coming in from the development side, the capital side, the operations side. And it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. But I think as long as. As long as your business has a really good story. And it’s a unique experience where when guests come, they feel like they’re getting a really authentic authentic experience, then you’re gonna continue to do well. Cause you can’t just replicate that on a large scale. It’s gotta be an authentic thing [00:38:00] to the core of the property or the core of the owners. Brian Searl: That’s the thing. I think when we go, as we look at this from a marketing standpoint too, from our side, from Insider Perks is, you’re right. It’s that experience. It’s that something that makes you unique that not everybody can easily replicate at scale. And whether that’s service or, we talked about this on the show before, whether it’s service or whether it’s the cookies you hand out or whether it’s, special guiding people to sites or events or whatever it is. Experiential hospitality can take on thousands of different things, but the ability to do that is what’s really gonna set you apart. And the ability to use that data to carve out that niche, to target them appropriately, because it’s gonna get like a little bit more cutthroat. , it’s not gonna be aware. Everybody’s gonna have, you just asked, everybody’s gonna go Camping and stuff like that, but it’s gonna be maybe not as much of a rush as it was in for sure in 2021, but in 2022. And I think as long as you can understand your audience and that data and who you’re targeting and provide that, like you’re saying, that unique experience, whether it’s for glamping or Camping or whatever, camping, then you’re gonna be able to have a really successful 2023, I think. Mike Harrison: And there’s more [00:39:00] choice. I I think that’s what you know, is really apparent is there’s a lot more choice. Just two years ago, it’s much harder to find a Campground, or park, and the distribution, is clearly evolving quickly. The technology is quickly evolving. The various third party OTAs are quickly evolving. The different players that have come into the segment as Connor. Is evolving. So not only does it become more cutthroat, but it’s clearly gonna be much more competitive, for the various park owners across the country. So that’s something we just need to be cognizant of. And somebody alluded to it earlier customer focus and delivering this experiential hospitality is gonna be something that sets it apart. Brian Searl: Yeah, that’s a hundred percent. I completely agree with you. And that’s the beauty of data for me in looking at all that stuff, is figuring out how to set yourself apart because it is gonna be competitive. Connor Schwab: Hey, Brian, I was wondering if I could commandeer the floor for a sec cause I have a burning question that I would love to ask this group and get their opinion on if that Go for it. recently was working on a project, it’s a large RV resort development in Northern [00:40:00] California and they had a traditional RV resort with all the bells and whistles paved, full hookup amenities. But they had an area of the property that, about 50 acres that was more mountainous, heavily wooded. And they wanted us to do a market study or research on whether that would be good for more secluded sites, and these would be no utilities at the site. Basically like basic trash, picnic table, campfire ring, but only one to two sites per acre. Probably just dirt roads. And essentially it was this angle at we want a really low cost development on what would otherwise be unusable land. And we want to cater to the class B market, the sprinter vans, the truck vans this kind of growing segment. And I guess my question for the, and I couldn’t find any comps with this model where it was like you have these remote sites that are wooded. You have space, you have privacy, one to two per acres, and then essentially you have central utilities and amenities somewhere where you can [00:41:00] go dump your sewage, fill your water, charge your battery. If you need to go to a general store, go to the pool. But your site itself is secluded in nature. And what we see is we have this overlanding community that’s really rugged and there’s millions of BLM land and national forest that they can go to where it’s totally off grid and you have nothing. And then you have RV resorts, which have full amenities or very comfortable, you can take big rigs. They’re but I’m seeing very little in the middle where it’s hey, we want a private nature experience, but we don’t wanna necessarily sacrifice all the amenities or not be able to book and plan in advance. And I was just curious if you guys know of anyone that’s doing this, or if you think that’s a market worth investing in? Cara Csizmadia: I’ll say, as a former Campground owner, I could’ve dreamed of having that kind of real estate. Frankly. Not everybody has access to that type of, Topography and landscape and all of that. If you do, I think it’s genius to, to harness that. I also agree, I think there’s a huge [00:42:00] market for the overland camper or the, here in Alberta we have millions of acres of crown land owned by the government. But you can dry, boondock essentially on and there’s a segment of the Camping market here in this province that only camps that way. They only wanna camp that way. They look down at anybody who camps in a real Campground, like they’re not really Camping. Those guys are hardcore and I think it’s genius to try to capture that market in a way that, like you said, provides amenities and all of those things that they otherwise wouldn’t get. I think it’s genius. I think it is going to be tough to do a market study in that dynamic. You’re only real. Relatable. Properties like that are gonna be, at least in Canada’s case, are gonna be in provincial and federal Park. And that’s, yeah, capture that data. Mike Harrison: And I it’s interesting, we just had this discussion. I talked to my brother last night who’s coming from Colorado to Arizona, and he’s bringing his sprinter van and where can I, boondock and [00:43:00] Sedona? So I gave him all the spots and, but we have a thousand acre property that we are looking to redevelop that we’ve been sitting on for a little while. And we’ve been going back and forth what we want to do. And we’ve had this very discussion Connor about, it’ll be a glamping resort, but okay, we got another 950 acres. What do we do with the rest of it? And if it’s unused space I don’t know that it would work or that the industry has evolved to have just that. Property type. But if it is in conjunction with another facility that’s already built out that you can develop the separate part of the land for those sites, it’s becomes revenue generating with very little utility, outlay. Then, I mean we’re looking at it, right? Not that we’re the smartest people or that we make all the right decisions, we have this other unutilized land in several locations that we’re looking at. Connor Schwab: Exactly that thing. I love it. I’d be happy to shoot you the study that we did. You might find it interesting. Yeah, I’d love to see it. Yeah. And I’d love one more about that project. It sounds cool. Mike Harrison: Yeah. Gimme a ring afterwards. We can catch up. Cara Csizmadia: We’ve only got a couple minutes left, so [00:44:00] I wanna give Cara a chance too to talk about Canada 2022 Cara 2023. What are you looking forward to? I think the dynamic in Canada is very similar to everything everybody’s said so far today. We were, saw some reduced occupancy stuff in terms of a couple of variables. I I think Mike was touching on the longer stays, but, fewer bookings and things like that. Then also we were seeing, we are seeing consumers here not book as far in advance, and I think that goes back to the, difficulty to plan far in advance when you have Sony factors, gas prices and inflation and all those things. Folks are keeping their cards close to, closer to their chest to make those plans. So very similar dynamic up here. I think. I’ll echo again for 2023. I think we’re all expecting to see a return to pre covid Camping behavior and things like that. We have seen a shift, a significant shift in my opinion in the last couple years towards more kind of [00:45:00] commercial institutional ownership in parks. We used to be up around 98%, mom and pop, small family, business owned, and that is definitely shifting down. That’s creating a dynamic where, you know, like we said, it’s really does created a environment of competitiveness that benefits the consumer in my opinion. Really motivating everyone to stay competitive and strategic and all of those things. So overall things are good up here. We’re doing lots of work at the association level in terms of advocacy support and things like that. Related to a few initiatives that are being pushed from the government on the electrical EV side of things. We’re seeing federal grant funding provided from the government to campgrounds specifically to install ev charge stations. But we are having infrastructure issues and supply issues that make that a little bit of a difficult kind of conundrum to put parks in. We’re working on a few big things [00:46:00] up here that, I think will have impacts. It’ll be really interesting to see. I always say the next five. I think will be interesting as we see that shift to EVs really pushing up here. They wanna see by 2030, all EVs on the road. I don’t know what that will look like, our industry. And it’ll be really interesting to see those shifts here. I think that probably will have one of the biggest impacts on our industry over the next five years compared to anything else in my opinion. Brian Searl: All right. That’s awesome. I’m gonna take two minutes here real quick and say mine. Cause it’s not really important. I’ll just chime in and then you guys can give your final thoughts if anybody has anything. I’m super looking forward to actually being able to maybe cut prices for some of these people for some of our smaller clients. And in 2023, which I sound sounds crazy because everybody else, like literally I think I get two emails a day from software vendors we use, your prices are growing up, you’re, we’re increasing this the cost of, whatever is up, inflation, wages, whatever. But we’re like putting [00:47:00] hard . What? Cara Csizmadia: Mike? Thumbs up. He likes it. Mike, thumbs up. Yeah. Brian Searl: No, Mike, you’re a big client. I’m Oh, you don’t count . No. Really though. We’re . Where do you get I need those, how all these. Mike Harrison: they had to be part of the CRR leadership meeting. My apologies continue. Brian Searl: All right. Next year I’ll come to Brad. I just want, just for the thumbs up and thumbs sign but I’m really looking forward to ai, artificial intelligence. This is a if you know me, this is something I’ve been pushing into and using our development efforts into for years now. , in, in, in machine learning and stuff like that. But I’m really looking forward to 2023. We had a two days where we, I spent with the team recently where we looked at all these different solutions and working with the APIs and developing some unique tools to use this real true AI to start helping our clients do things that are literally impossible without a 200 person team behind you. Doing it in ways that are so much more affordable. . And I’m really excited to, to push into those kinds of things and use those for all kinds of [00:48:00] different stuff. Cara Csizmadia: So given the labor issues, I think we’ve all been seeing lately, that’s a probably a welcome shift. Brian Searl: Yeah. Yeah. I obviously we’re gonna continue to hire, we’re gonna keep growing. Like we have a bunch of plans at Insider Perks and Modern Campground for 2023. But just the ability to continue hiring, but not hiring as many people as we otherwise would, and maybe we can’t in a labor shortage issue. Cara Csizmadia: Yeah, you can wanna hire all the people you want Brian Searl: But I think we’re gonna be able to translate some of that stuff into not just marketing but tech, like technology and innovations at campgrounds and customer service and knowledge bases and support and live chat and studies and data. And it’s just, it’s really cool. See where some of this stuff is going. I’m a geek. That excites me. . Alright. Any final thoughts from anybody? Anybody wanna add anything? Anybody have any cool Christmas plans or anything you wanna talk about before we head off here? We got about two and a half minutes. I do think. Go ahead. Go ahead, Scott. Go ahead. No. I insist. All right. Rich Schnippel: I was gonna chime in on what Connor said. Our customers [00:49:00] is off grid as we make our trailers we still probably have 85, 90% of ’em that go into a Campground. And I think what you proposed would be right up the alley of our type of a customer, which is that overland off-grid person, where they just want some privacy. They want to feel like they’re more in nature, but they may not want to be completely away from the amenities that are there, that make ’em feel a little safer in case something were to happen or something. And it makes it easy, it makes that type of Camping easy for ’em because a lot of people don’t know how to get onto the government’s owned property. They have no idea or they don’t have any in their area. So I think that’s a fantastic idea. Brian Searl: Yeah, I do too. I agree. I agree with everything Cara said. I’m just curious about the numbers, right? Can you make that spread out of sites? With the amenities work from a profit standpoint. Cara Csizmadia: I was just gonna say, I think it really depends on the property and how much should cost you and what, so if you’re not installing infrastructure in terms of power and water and sewer, then the, you’re [00:50:00] overhead is pretty obviously, California real estate, it can have been cheap, but compared to as fully serviced sites and all of those things, I think that the costs benefit, obviously on a per case basis. Per case basis. You’d have to do those calculations, but Brian Searl: it’s a lot lower. Yeah. Especially cause you could do off grid stuff too now, saw those sessions. Oh yeah. Scott Knepp: I, and I was, I think that, that’s so interesting, Connor, what you were looking at. And I’ll be really interested to see what happens with your project and also Mike with yours. I think that the future, as we’ve said it, it relies on continued innovation and thinking about what gives that unique experience and having the right leader at that property, you know, we’re so fortunate to have so many great park managers and but I really appreciated what Mike also said because we’re talking about the challenges and kind of the learning points of 2022, but it didn’t hit me until we were preparing 2023 budgets where we’re actually looking at prior years and you’re going, it’s still a great year, [00:51:00] yeah. This is still, it’s still a great business to be in. It’s still a great year. And even though the future has a lot of question marks on it, one thing that we do know is that year over year, it’s looked great and 2022 might have had some kind of anomalies to it, but it was, we still, we saw great part performance. So it’s, I’m encouraged by the future. So Good. Mike Harrison: So you had asked Brian, what business indicators do you use? And I don’t want to finish up the call this way, one of the most important ones we determine is if we’re gonna have a great 2023, you gotta use the magic eight ball. It’s very scientific. Yes. Most assuredly. Hey, welcome Magic eight Ball, never let you down. Jeff Hoffman: All right. It’s gonna be a great holiday then. Cara Csizmadia: Yeah. Looking forward to it. Brian Searl: All right guys. Thank you very much. Sure. Joining us. Anybody have anything else? Sorry. Connor Schwab: Oh, I was just gonna say, Brian if I ever get invited back on the RV specific call, I would love to have a [00:52:00] conversation with this group about the Class B market Sprinter van. Let’s campers. Cause I, I think I saw in the R V I A trends that while most most of the segments have seen a pullback in 2022, that segment was still growing strong with double digit growth. And I would just be curious how the industry on, all on the operation side, the development side, the management side, is adjusting to that potentially new segment for just future . Brian Searl: Guests hosts get a free pass to be on any show they want. Yeah. But also Cara is really the boss. So you just have to ask her, just tell her you’re on honest. Cara Csizmadia: I say yes whenever you say, when all I love it. Connor Schwab: I love it. Brian Searl: All right, thank you guys. I really appreciate you. Again, this is our last show for 2022. Looking forward to coming back in January and talking about the year ahead and all the, continuing show ideas and guests and people we’re gonna be talking to. I’m super excited for that. Other than that, guys, I hope you have a great Merry Christmas. Have [00:53:00] some mold wine, have some eggnog, have some iris punch, which is eggnog in Germany. Super delicious. And just spend some time with family and friends and have a great happy New Year. We really appreciate you all and we will see you in 2023. Jeff Hoffman: All thank you, Brian. Care. Pleasure, holiday. Thank you.