MC Fireside Chats – February 15, 2023

[00:00:00] 

Brian: Welcome Everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name’s Brian Searl. I’m Brian Searl two. We’re testing out just two cameras here. We’re probably not gonna leave it on for the [00:01:00] entire show, but a new feature of our streaming software. So just wanted to see what it looked like. But super excited to be here with you for another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

We are missing car’s Madia today because she is right now. As we speak in the middle of the Canadian Outdoor Hospitality Conference at Expo, having its third amazing run is still a virtual conference, but that just means it’s more accessible for everybody and I really think they’re gonna try to drive to bake that in person next year.

So super excited to see where that goes. I just finished up teaching a class. I’m gonna teach another one tomorrow. I think Mike is teaching a class too. Who’s on the show with us here? . And we’re just tons of education and just really excited to see the whole industry come together and learn from each other.

There’s really no better way to do that. And we’ll talk to Joann about ways that she’s fostering that with her New Jersey Campground Owners Association in Florida coming up in a few minutes, but. Super excited to be here with Mike Harrison, one of our recurring panelists from c r Lifestyle really forward thinking, innovative company.

They own multiple campgrounds, developing stuff like that, doing some other cool things in the future here in the industry. We’ve got Joe Deg from at my [00:02:00] community Makes. Cool super apps for your phone where you can do all kinds of awesome things from activities perspective and just making, the whole guest process experience easier.

So those are two of our regular people that are joining us. We’re missing Duncan who had a last minute thing come up as well. And then we’ve got two special guests here. We talked briefly about Joann, who’s the executive director of this New Jersey Camp Runners Association, or is it Mid-Atlantic?

Joann, I always mess up. 

Joann: No, it’s, I’m the executive director of the New Jersey Campground Owners and Outdoor Lodging Association New. . Yeah, but New Jersey we are the ones that coordinate the Mid-Atlantic conference. 

Brian: So I almost maybe got it right, but thank goodness she was here to correct me. So we’re gonna talk to Joann and then we’ve got Joel Holland here from Harvest Host, CEO e Harvest host to talk about a new kind of innovative product that they have launched called Campers Card.

So I think we have a jampacked show for you here. Hopefully you’re not here and you’re watching the Canadian Outdoor Hospitality Conference if you’re in Canada. So we’ve only got an audience maybe of everybody else everywhere in the world. But where should we start guys? Do we wanna start with our special guest to you, to Mike?

Joe, do you have [00:03:00] anything? Really been on your radar the last few weeks that has come up that you wanna talk about? 

Joe: No, I think we should probably start with Joann considering at least for myself, we’re in the middle of conference season it’s probably a good place to start. For me.

Brian: Joann, what do we have? 

Joann: Hi. So the MidAtlantic conference for Campground owners is being held February 27th, 28th and March 1st. We are gonna be in Orlando, Florida at the DoubleTree at SeaWorld this year. We have 10 educational sessions 30 trade show vendors right now. The trade show is gonna be on Tuesday afternoon.

And we’re looking for a really great conference. Trade show floor is sold out. We’re still getting, registration for attendees is still open through February 19th for the early bird special. And then after that the price goes up. But for $250 you get 10 sessions. Trade show.

Lunch and dinner on Monday and Tuesday. And just a good time to be networking with other Campground owners from not only along the East Coast but across [00:04:00] the country and campers card. They’ll be there with us. So thank you for being a part of our trade show this year. We look forward to meeting you.

Joel: Yeah, we’re, yeah, we’re excited to be there and I, we have a good team going. I’m not gonna be able to attend personally, which I’m jealous because I imagine the weather in Florida’s quite nice. 

Joann: Oh, I keep watching the weather and it looks like it’s gonna be in the eighties and sunny every day that we’re there.

We’re excited and believe it or not, I’ve been monitoring the airfare down to Orlando. Anywhere along the East Coast and we’ve seen airfares as low as $37 to get from Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, down to Orlando. There’s still an opportunity for folks who wanna come down to jump on some pretty cheap airfares.

Brian: I’ll be honest, like when you said that, I was like, I don’t know if I wanna fly on the $37 airline. I definitely wanna come to your conference if I could, but I don’t know if I wanna fly an airline. It’s only show 

where they going? 

Joann: United American. It’s their regional jets, 

Joe: so it’s Oh, that’s fair.

And I’m pretty sure, Brian, that $37 isn’t from you or isn’t for you, Canada 

Brian: probably not. Look, my camera’s blurry too. That’s, I look better than me. 

Joann: So [00:05:00] someone’s asking what day is the show in Florida? Monday, February 27th all day are educational sessions, and then there’s lunch and dinner.

Tuesday we have educational sessions from nine o’clock in the morning until 12 noon. Then we have an exhibitor luncheon from 12 to one, and the trade show runs from one to five. And then we have our banquet and auction that night. And then on Wednesday we have more sessions from nine to 12 noon. 

Brian: It sounds like a really cool lineup.

Joann: Why? Why in Florida, again, like I, it’s clearly a. I’m no one’s arguing with you. . We actually why did we, how did you end up in Florida? 

It was during Covid. We went to Florida three years ago when Covid hit and everything was shut down in New Jersey and Delaware. In Maryland. The board decided that, they still wanted to have a conference to try to find a place to have it.

And Florida was open and we ended up going to Tampa the first year. It was a success. People were, they wanted to be together in person. We’d done virtual the year before, and so last year we were in Orlando, and this year we’re back in Orlando again. And people like being [00:06:00] together in person.

Brian: Yeah. Oh, there’s no doubt about that. Yeah, absolutely. Nobody’s arguing about that. Yeah, super excited to, to, I wish I could be there. Like I, I’ve moved to the city Calgary in Canada that is apparently on the opposite end of the continent from where Florida is. And every conference I try to go to here this spring is like $2,000 for a flight oh yeah.

I like you Joann, but not 

$2,000 like you. 

Joann: I understand. Brian, thank you for your support. We really appreciate. 

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. Anything we can do. I dunno what’s wrong with my camera. It’s a brand new one I just got today, but it keeps making you blurry and then not making you blurry 

Joe: I’m not, I’m actually not going to be at this show this year.

I I’m the only in our company that does shows and I have five of them next month. No . So there was two or three that I couldn’t go to last year, so I’m prioritizing those this year. But one of the things I always say about Joann show it’s the best, why are you willing? It’s one of the ones that all of the.

Attendees will come and talk to the vendors. It’s probably, I would say the percentage of attendees [00:07:00] that talk speak to each vendor, and this is obviously is for the vendors more so than for the owners. But most of the attendees, the high, higher percentage, comes and talks to each vendor. She does a really great job of getting them around.

And getting them to access to the vendor’s, access to the Campground owners. From a vendor perspective. Joanne, I love your show, . 

Joann: Thanks, Joe. And I really do stress that to the attendees. Yes, you’re there for the educational sessions and for the networking and the fun, the trade show, we appreciate the support that we get from our vendors and our sponsors and, I do wanna make sure that the attendees get to all of the vendors at the trade show.

we do hear that from year to year that the vendors are happy that, we’re not the largest show obviously, but our attendees do visit with each of the the trade show vendors and do their buying and whatever. I’m really happy about that. So thanks Joe for that comment. . 

Brian: And I will tell you again, just from my experience of going to so many trade shows, and I don’t go to as many as I used to just because of, again, time and distance, right?

But I will tell you that size really doesn’t matter when it comes to a conference like that, whether you’re just starting out or you’re established, [00:08:00] it’s really just making those connect. Obviously, it depends on your business goals, right? But it’s really just making connections with those owners, talking to them.

Seeing where you can fit in and provide value to them with either a service or a product as a vendor. And really, ultimately it’s just, you never know who you’re gonna talk to that may come back to you and buy a ton of stuff 3, 4, 5 years from now. 

Joann: , and I’m really careful about when we, the vendors that do come in we try to allow two vendors from.

Segment of the industry, so that everyone gets a fair chance. Yeah and we let the vendors know that, if there’s a, if there’s an extra one that wants to come in, that there are already two vendors. And we want everybody to be able to speak to everyone and not be overwhelmed by just one segment group.

So I do try to control that as best I can . 

Brian: This is a totally different conversation. I just, I’m, the first thing that popped into my head was how do you handle reservation systems? But we won’t make you answer that . Joe. Joe, what else is coming up for you? You were talking about some other shows that you were going to fill us in on the conference schedule here in the spring.

Joe: Yeah what we just got done two weeks ago with Camping Carolina, and I saw Campers card there as [00:09:00] well. Outside of the normal conferences. I also attended the Tampa Super Show in January. And again, I saw one on Joel’s coworkers and then Were you following him, Joel, or, yeah, 

Joel: I know anywhere Joe goes, that’s where we gotta be.

Joe: That’s right. It’s true. It’s a good, it’s a good metric to. So yeah, coming up soon is Ohio Ocus coming up. I will be speaking at that event. Then NCA on the Northeast Camping association. Then Wisconsin, the Waco Association of Campground Owners camp Michigan will be the week after that.

And then we’ll end March with Cal, o h a in California Sacramento area. Is 

Brian: that how you pronounce? . Is it Cal o h a or is it, I know Koha a whole, like I thought it was Kha or something. 

Mike: It’s co koha, California Outdoor Hospitality Association. Used to be Camp 

Brian: Cal now, correct? Yeah. We’re all, we all know the letters.

I was just unsure. Pronounce it. 

So I’m, no

Joe: I didn’t know it it was a single word, so 

Brian: I’m not saying that it is, I’m not saying that it is. I’m just saying it appears to [00:10:00] be that way 

Joe: and it’s got a better Yeah, the first time I went to that one was last year, so unfortunately last year I had to miss the three in the middle there, nca.

Waco and Michigan, and so I’m going back to those this year. But then California was my first year was last year and it was a really good show. This year they’re for the vendor side. They’re adding some dedicated time. They had sessions. Throughout the trade show last year this year there’s some dedicated vendor time but again, since it, it’s only it’s second year back.

So I, I expect there to be a good number of new campgrounds coming around. 

Brian: Awesome. Yeah, always a good time. I will admit I missed going to all the trade shows quite a bit, but. It’s gotta be a trade off somewhere until I figure out how to clon myself, which I will. And then I’ll come to your show every year, Joann, you’ll be the first show on the 

Klons list.

Joe: Just turn on your second camera again and you’re set. 

Brian: It’s good point. But alright, 

Joann: you can start. Listen, Brian, you can start a road trip now. Just get in an RV and just start heading south. 

Brian: I can’t afford an rV. I’m not looking up to afford an. [00:11:00] 

Joe: We have that’s actually what we’re doing this summer, is we have two conferences in June Arizona Arve, and then a corporate client of ours in both in Arizona.

And so we are packing up our six children into our RV and spending two months on the road how Plan on ranch. 

Brian: Much braver I would maybe be able to take three kids with me, . 

Joe: But what’s the fun in that? 

Joel: We’re currently trying to potty train our one child. And the, when you said six kids, I, you just made me feel lighter somehow. feel like I can float . 

Joe: We’re lucky. Our boy just went through it. And it, he went really quick, actually quicker than the girls for potty training. So we’re just about fully outta diapers. It’s been an ongoing thing for 10 years, so it’s gonna be nice. 

Mike: Modern, Campground, cutting edge in the outdoor hospital and industry with potty training, anecdotes.

Brian: You have to raise the younger generation, Mike. They have to be ready to go Camping, and it’s never too young to start ’em. 

Joel: And the best way to transport them because once they’re, once you need to stop every five minutes in a [00:12:00] vehicle. You realize having a bathroom on board’s pretty clutch. Yeah, I can imagine traveling without a motor home.

Brian: Now, and let’s be honest here too, like this is more critical than we know as Campground owners because there are some adults who go to campgrounds who still aren’t potty trained. , who know, who have cleaned up after them. You know who you are. So anyway let’s shift gears here. Let’s talk about, it’s a good segue because Joe is not about the potty training, but Joe is going on the road with his six children going across to probably stopping at a bunch of campgrounds along the way.

Yeah. Joe, yep. So how are you finding discounts? How are you finding this stuff? I think Joe might have. One solution that might enhance that. What do you have, joel? 

Joel: Yeah so we we touched on it briefly and we have been attending as many of the shows as possible and joining as many of the state Campground associations as possible as well.

Campers Card is essentially a free marketing program for campgrounds and it’s interesting. Before I purchased Harvest Hosts five years ago, my grand plan was to build campers. And I had actually, I’d owned it, built this website. The idea was to create a Perks program for RVers, so [00:13:00] you get discounts.

Nice little things like early check-in late checkout, essentially like the what the hotel industry does pretty well with their loyalty programs. I wanted to create that for RV campers. And the issue I realized as I got started was I had no. And so even though I could have reached out to a bunch of campgrounds and tried to get them on board, I didn’t have the RVers to communicate with at that point.

And so I put that project in the back burner spent last year at five years building Harvest hosts. And now we have close to a million RVers who we communicate with 250,000 paid members of Harvest hosts, but then hundreds of thousands additional between RV Hacks and humor. Our magazine, our podcast.

We basically do, we have a large list and we’ve spent, close to 30 million in the last five years building that list through marketing and advertising. So now we have the scale and so this is why now, right? This is why campers cards coming out now. It also felt like the right time.[00:14:00] 

To start helping campgrounds fill excess inventory. I think last year was the first year where we started seeing a little bit of a normalization in traffic and in some campgrounds, midweek may have spots they wanna fill. That’s my goal, right? Our mission as a business is to help campers, but also communities.

And in communities, we throw all campgrounds, right? Small business owners are, it’s one of my favorite groups to benefit. So what I love about Campers Card is it’ll always be free for campgrounds because we have already invested in this in the database of RVers. We don’t have to charge campgrounds anything.

And so that’s the main thing. And as we’ve been going to these trade shows, we’ve been talking to campgrounds and saying, Hey, If you have, if you want more traffic, we are essentially gonna be telling our 800,000 RVers in April. Here are the campgrounds in our program. Go check ’em out. So that, that’s the quick pitch.

And it’s a very simple program. Really it’s very simple. Our RVers are already spending on average, 30 plus days a year in traditional campgrounds, and we’re just trying to help them connect [00:15:00] to great campgrounds wherever they’re. . 

Brian: So couple hard questions, right? I’m gonna, I’m gonna act like a journalist, like I should act right now, right?

No cost to the Campground. But what does the Campground have to give the camper to incentivize them to come to their Campground as part of the program? 

Joel: Great question. And we were very, I think, thoughtful about that. It’s up to the Campground. I’m a big fan of allow. The business to choose what they wanna offer.

And there are some other programs in our industry that, that force certain types of discounts. And that’s what, that’s their prerogative. Our approach is, Hey Joe, you’ve got a Campground. You tell us what you wanna offer. If you wanna offer a 20% discount. A 10% discount, early check in, late checkout.

These are some ideas. We’ll essentially just put that together on a page and tell our members, here’s what Joe’s Campground offers. You decide so obviously, if the more compelling you can be, the better. So if you find that midweek, you’ve really got a bunch of openings and you’re willing to give a pretty good discount to, to attract people, we’re [00:16:00] just the middle man.

We’re just gonna tell our members here’s the option. So totally up to the Campground is a long. ,

Brian: is there a way that and maybe you’re already doing this, but is there a segmented way where you’re gonna communicate some of these people who are offering the discounts through campers card to RVers who are closer to their region or closer to their home, instead of a blanket email to everybody about every Campground?

Joel: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the first things we’re doing is incorporating these campgrounds into our map. And so we have, our members are using. Our app or our website. To do a lot of like A to B route planning. And right now on that route planning, you can pop in, harvest those locations, golf courses, boondockers, welcome locations, dump stations.

We added, recently 7,000 dump stations and now you’ll be able to add a layer of campgrounds. And so as people are traveling in route planning, they’ll see the campgrounds along their route, but they’ll also be able to search regionally and we’re gonna give the members the option to get updates [00:17:00] based on their go.

So you could say, Hey, Brian. Do you want us to tell you anytime we, have a new Campground in the program, in the mid-Atlantic region? And that could be a flag. But yes, we’re, we’re working hard to come up with good ways to, to show people where these campgrounds are located. 

Brian: And it’s not me like trying to hassle you or give you a hard time.

It’s just my marketing brain working like, targeting and good drilling down into niches and locations and just making that content not only more valuable to the RV or, but then. Likely are resulting in a higher conversion for the Campground that’s part of the program. So totally forgive me for, I’m not trying to uncover any secrets or give you a hard time.

Joel: No. You’re spot on. D Discovery, I think as an RV. Campground, discovery, attraction, discovery. These are some of the biggest challenges. And so we’ve invested a lot. We’ve 10 engineers full-time on our team that are building good products to help with that discovery across the board.

But everyone here probably knows, like we all use different tools to try to find things, and some are better than others, but discovery’s important. 

Brian: This is fascinating. We’ll talk about [00:18:00] this at the end of the show. I wanna circle back to discovery. Mike knows what I’m gonna talk about already, but while I’m remembering though, I wanna thank our sponsor for the episode Firefighters reservations.

We’re gonna take a just a brief little video play here for our sponsor, firefighter Reservations. We are back. 

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Brian: So thank you to Firefly Reservations for being a sponsor of this episode of the show.

We’re grateful for their support and helping you continue the show going and we can chat with all these amazing people that we have on the show today. What else do we have? Is there anything we need to talk about about Campers, card, or anything else that, do you guys have any thoughts?

Mike? Joe? 

Joe: [00:19:00] First Jim asked if that was available in Canada and the us Joel? 

Joel: Oh, yes. And the answer is yes. We are, our network of locations with Harvest Us and Boondock is about 8,000 and about 10% are in Canada. But we’re working, to make sure that they’re everywhere.

We, it’s every province campers, cards, the same way we’re adding campgrounds everywhere we can. So far we’ve only started recruiting campgrounds in the last few weeks. We have about 400 on board. Our goals get to a thousand campgrounds before our April launch to members. And the only other thing I would add, and it’s important is not only is it free for campgrounds, there’s no, you don’t need any special software.

There’s no contracts. We’re not pushing reservation software of any kind. It’s simply, hey, tell us if you wanna be in the program, submit a short form. It’s that simple. So it’s a, it’s, we’re trying to keep it easy for Campground owners because I understand how busy. And the last thing that they want is yet another complicated program.

So it’s supposed to be extremely low lift. 

You think so? 

Mike: As a [00:20:00] Campground, I was on your website right now, so it’s not launched yet. So right now it just says listed Campground. So there’s no way to search for it yet. It’s not up and running yet. 

Joel: Correct. So we have intentionally not released this to our viewers yet.

Joe: We are just focusing on getting the campgrounds on board. And then actually we have a gorgeous new website, the current websites. Just a little WordPress website, but we have a great website in the background that’s gonna launch with the product in April. And then we’re gonna do the big splash which will both be obviously marketing to our 800,000 RVers, but also paid advertising and marketing campaigns are gonna kick off in the spring.

Mike: So how does this integrate with I, I obviously know the Harvest Host and the Boone Dockers, as a Campground it’s something we’ve never been able to participate in cuz we’re not, a harvest host eligible. So if I think about, reach and, as a Campground operator and owner, there’s probably.

30 or 40 sites. Brian and I have talked about this now for a couple years of, where do you go to look for nrv site, right? There’s not one centralized expedia.com, if you will. So what, [00:21:00] and I don’t make mean to make the sound interviewee, but what sets your. Sites, why should I list on your site as opposed to Passport America, good, Sam Compendium, RV Park, all the, yeah.

Other 30 that we play with. What, what’s your reach and what’s your strategy? 

Joel: Totally. So it’s, it is, it’s really interesting cuz I just had this conversation the other day. I don’t know. I think it’s gonna be a long time before there’s a kayak for the RV. And it’s because as a traveler, we’re not necessarily just searching for show me hotels in, Chicago.

We’re looking for a longer route with dates and it’s just different. So we all have different tools for how we approach it. So that’s the other thing with Campers Card, it’s not an exclusive program. And what we’ve been telling Campground owners is keep using the other programs if they’re working for.

It’s gonna be up to us to show you that we’re gonna also be beneficial. And by the way, if any of the others you’re paying for, like maybe we end up giving you traffic that makes your life a little easier for less. But we’re not trying to be exclusive. So the answer right now, the short answer is I say join ’em all.

So I’m an investor [00:22:00] in four campgrounds here in Colorado, and. As we try to get them up and running the best way to do that is to get on all 30 places, right? And that’s just, that’s it. Now luckily most of ’em are free. I’m a little more right, selective before I join something that’s paid.

But Campers Card is also free. And I’m excited to prove our value. know, I think the biggest difference we have just a massive, we already have a massive reach and. We now get to use it. And what’s neat is we’ve had a good, as Harvest hosts, we’ve had a good relationship with campgrounds over the last five years through a lot of like education saying, Hey, not, we’re not trying to be the enemy, we’re not trying to be a competitor.

We’re just boondocking. 24 hours, we’re competing with Walmart and rest stops. We’re not trying to hurt campgrounds. This is finally our way to say. , we told you like, we want to help campgrounds. And so this is, we can use our traffic now to come to, to support it. So I’d say join ’em all. It doesn’t hurt.

And once we start pushing traffic, it should be very beneficial. 

Brian: So I think that my instant question to that is I agree with you. . There’s no, there’s nothing wrong [00:23:00] with being listed on another site as long as you have the time to manage it. And that’s the big caveat, right? If I’m a mom and pop owner, or I only have one or two staff where I can’t hire because staffing is tough across all of North America, how do I decide where to spend my time in general?

And then, and I don’t know if that’s maybe underlying an underlying question in your mind, Mike, how do I decide what is most important if I can’t?

Mike: Yeah, I think when we, obviously we just opened the other property and we’re about ready to open the other. Two campgrounds the next 69 days. And we have, to Joel’s point, a checklist of all the different sites. We need to make sure that we’re scrubbing and listing. And part of it’s an evolution and just gotta find the balance of, and as you open, you find out, where your source of business comes from and what works.

You know where the traffic comes from and every property will be different, every park will be different, every location will be different, just depending on the traveler, depending on, what type of segment you’re getting. So short answer is [00:24:00] you just gotta do ’em all. . 

Joann: And Joel, I’ll tell you, speaking from an executive director the more simple that you make the sign up for the Campground owner, the better off you’re gonna be.

Because if it becomes too cumbersome, , the, with 30 other, entities out there doing the same thing. That’s really important. You’ll see, I think that you’ll get a lot more traction by making it as simple as possible for them and streamlining it as, as easy as it can possibly be for them.

Joel: Totally. And I appreciate that feedback and I completely understand it. My guess is that as a Campground, the hardest thing every day is figuring out, where am I gonna get that extra five minutes to help the business. So with cameras card, it’s, it is just a form you fill out. Very simple.

Joe: And then we have a team, we have a team of 10 or 15 full-time recruiters who will then take that and run with it. So they’ll do all the work, building the listing. So the Campground doesn’t actually have to do anything. They don’t have to log in, they don’t have to build their listing. They don’t have to manage anything.

So it was, to your point, Ryan, like intentionally supposed to be, Like an afterthought. [00:25:00] It should be as easy as just clicking, submitting one form and being. ,

Brian: do you feel like and again, I promise you, I’m not trying to give you a hard time, Joel. I’m just saying No. I like, 

Joel: Hey, I, hey, let’s keep it hard.

The harder, the better.

Brian: This is not really a harvest host campers card specific question, but, and maybe Mike or Joe, you all wanna weigh on in, on this too. , is there a certain point where RVers get too much stuff from too many places? If there are 30 places who are all emailing the same RVers on the same list about different promos and come to my site.

And is there a point where RVers start ignoring some of that? 

Mike: For sure. It’s no different than the rest of the spam that you get and the rest of the marketing that you get. And we’ve had that discussion at nauseum because, we subscribe to some of our competitors, marketings and how much is the right amount, how much is too much?

And one of our competitors, they send out a daily update to their email list daily, and I’ve. Block them. I’ve unsubscribed, I can’t take it anymore. And so I think there’s that balance of finding which marketing [00:26:00] messages and Yes. I think at some point, , the industry I think’s in a revitalization is, lot of new capital has come into it as the industry has become more popular and profitable and, much more institutional ownership has come in and at some point it will consolidate, right?

At some point, all these different sites, know, will be bought up by each other and then major company might, buy it up and, I think it will. Just like what happened with the OTAs originally, right? There was a bazillion of them 20 years ago, and now there’s really three or four main ones.

So short answer is yes, Brian. It’s gonna confuse the client, but for the customer. But at some point it will, it’ll integrate and mesh. 

Joe: I kinda had take a little bit different stance on it. I think that H RVers kind of found what they like to use and to Joel’s point is he has a large amount of RVers that use something specific already.

He’s just adding a new set of inventory onto the product that they use to find what they’re looking for. So for myself, I know of all of the different services that are out there. I typically use. . And that’s the service [00:27:00] I use to find because, cause Joel isn’t necessarily in service. 

Brian: Tell us, Joe.

You have, you can’t just leave it as a mystery. 

Joe: No, I’m not gonna talk about competitors or anything like that, , but and mine is not the same one that most people use. I’m looking, I have specific things I’m looking for. I’m looking, cuz I’m doing this for business. I’m looking for a number of sites.

Brian: So I, you were talking about your app, I thought you were talking about a site. 

Joe: That’s why I asked. No, I’m talking about a site. So so in particular, I use RV life most of the time. It has a lot of reviews, so I can see what type of resort it is, and it also has the number of sites, and for me, that’s very beneficial, but that’s only because of I’m doing it for a bus for my business to figure out who would be a good customer for me.

So that’s my need. And so it’s a little different than other people’s needs. But I think that all campers work that way. They find one that they stick with. I think my father uses RV parking, and so they find something and they stick with it. My aunt uses Harvest House and so she, I don’t know.

She very rarely stays at campgrounds now, and she would definitely. Stay at Campground. She’s not against it by [00:28:00] any stretch, but she uses harvest ghost speakers. Normally when she’s traveling, she’s trying to find just an off the road spot. And it really works for her. She loves wineries.

So it’s it’s perfect. And in, in kind of contrast to what you’re saying is I don’t think Joel’s pitching a marketing engine for you just to be sending out a bunch of email blasts about your property. It’s a. You’re, when people are already looking here, you’re gonna be one that pops up.

And so yeah, it’s definitely 

a benefit. I didn’t mean to imply that he was gonna spam anybody. . 

No. General question. 40 places that exist, right? Oh, for sure. But the thing is a camper probably only uses one of them. If you’re, if you are looking at, there’s 40 of ’em 20 of them have almost no.

And so now you’re looking at 20. And of those 20, who has the highest reach, basically? And that’s I should say who of your cohort has the highest reach your client? There’s different ones. One of the things though that I didn’t know cause I haven’t talked to the guys from camera card.

I like the concept that you allow them, the Campground to decide what they’re how they’re helping out the camper. I’ve heard, a [00:29:00] lot of issues about Campground owners not wanting to give discounts. I pay a fee and then I give a discount to all these people. And I know there’s pushback on that.

you can treat it as a reward system where you’re giving away amenities that you would normally charge for that have no marginal cost to you. Things. , mini golf or kayak rentals, things like that, that you can decide, bring in the door, right? And then you can also play with it, just I’m sure what Brian would suggest is you try this for a month and see how that works.

Then maybe we add a discount and it starts working. Or if a discount’s working, maybe you pull it back to something else and you can play with it. I like that idea that the Campground owner has control over, over how they. How they use it. 

Brian: Do they have to give a discount or something free or can they just list and 

Joel: they need to offer some perk of some sort?

Okay. Cuz, cuz it, we are calling it basically a Perks program. But it can be simple. It, I think it’s interesting. That early check in and late checkout has been such a huge thing in hotels for so long, and it’s just finally starting [00:30:00] to maybe get to campgrounds because it’s a lot easier to turn a campsite than it is a hotel room.

Agree with that. Yeah. I, so I, and I’ve been at campgrounds and we’ve probably all been there. We call a front desk like, Hey, I’m running late. Do you mind if I like check out a little later? And usually it’s fine but you feel guilty. Or we’ve gotten the call from the Campground.

I was like, Hey, check out was at 11. And you’re thinking I know, but check-in’s not until three. So if I’m outta here at 1130, like he’s at a really big problem. And every campground’s different, but that would be a huge. As an RV, if I knew I could go somewhere and they said you can, you can get a noon checkout.

Awesome. I’d probably prioritize that Campground because I need to do some business calls in the morning. 

Brian: So what is your view on this, Mike? From a, what he is talking about perspective, right? Let’s say you do late check-in checkout, which I think your resorts offer right now, but for an extra cost pending availability of course, but what is your view on that versus maybe building.

A loyalty program. Obviously that doesn’t work for individual parks, but a CR loyalty program, is that a benefit that could be shared? Is that something that has to be exclusive to one or the other? What are [00:31:00] your thoughts on that? 

Mike: I think it’s, this answer is gonna be different for everybody, right?

Our parks are larger, right? And if we’re 400. 20 site RV spot. Our RV park, our 75% is very different. Where if you’re 150 site spot, you have no availability and you’re revenue managing the hack outta your park. For us, we, have a lot of inventory to fill. You know the answer to your question, I think two things.

Yes. One is we are building ACR loyalty program for across the country. That includes the RV resorts, the storage car watch, et cetera. In general, however, we want as much reach as. And I’ve gotten tard and feathered and eggs thrown at me for talking about passport America.

But, it’s, it is no different than the third party, opaque sites that started with the hotel industry, with Priceline and all those other ones where you need it, when you need it. . And if you’re a larger park and if it’s off season and you want as much reach as you can to get heads in beds or fill your empty spots.

I think we would leverage both. And as I’m not sure that was your question as to, what kind of Perks would we offer. I think it depends, right? Is it a discount off? [00:32:00] Is it a particular site type that we’re trying to, to and I think that would be a question for Joel is, is it one blank and I submit my listing and my discount and I’m done.

Or can you change it seasonally based on. Yeah. Yeah. Can you change it seasonally based on what you’re, what you have available, so to speak or, be flexible to, to drive, need areas 

Brian: and how do you make sure that the camper doesn’t have outdated information if you do change that, 

Mike: or they booked it and you’re offering free kayak rentals and now you’re four months later, and they saw free kayak rentals, but your discount or your perk, I guess is the better way, isn’t the same. 

Joel: And that’s the benefit of us, this being app driven. We’ll let you, our members are gonna be trained from the beginning that you need to check the perk of the debt.

This is not, this isn’t the listing on a website that has been there for months. This is dynamic and the Campground owners can change it anytime they want. 

Brian: So then that’s fair. That makes complete sense and that’s a great answer. The follow-up question that is the four month reservation that Mike said, what if they reserve it in advance?

Joel: I suppose if Mike knows, someone reserving today for June [00:33:00] He would just have to be comfortable with what he’d be confident he could offer in. Okay. Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah. Brian, I was thinking to your side, things that they could offer would be even free mugs. There’s a lot of people, I’m not necessarily one of ’em, there’s a lot of people that love just getting a free trinket, and if they have your branding and they’re taking ’em to other campgrounds and using your mug when they go to another Campground in the morning, but around the fire, that’s a, that’s a.

Which to you, it’s more marketing though, even though you gave away something that was $5 for free. It’s nice. 

Joann: Again, I could just talk from listening to my members. I think one of the things, Joel, that you’ll find is the flexibility that you allow the Campground owner to have, to determine what it is his perk is gonna be, is gonna be important.

Whether, like you said, whether it’s a, a discount or a trinket, or you. Early check in, late checkout for them to be able to manage that for their own individual Campground is gonna be really important because not everybody’s needs are the same. 

Joel: That’s right. And I’m guessing, [00:34:00] Mike, that’s the issue that you’ve probably gotten feedback from for Passport America is that they’re asking for a lot. Is that right? 

Mike: Yeah, and obviously from a revenue management standpoint, it’s really, very difficult. And it isn’t necessarily. . Our prices are so high that sometimes the traveler and our offerings don’t match.

But, you want to, you wanna generate business when you wanna generate business. So I think what you’re describing, the flexibility of what you’re offering, can be is a lot more attractive, so to speak. And I think it’s something that, that we’ll for sure explore and especially since knowing that, obviously your reach.

With the other sites and basically cuz because I assume they’re all gonna integrate. And so the reach with the other sites, also opens us up maybe to a new customer that we have never experienced before through Harvest Host that we don’t have reach to currently. That maybe they’re exposed to us.

And so I think that’s very interesting. 

Brian: Yeah, and I think that’s what all my questions were geared toward is what really sets this apart. And I think we found it right. It’s the flexibility and that’s what really sets it apart and makes it easy to adopt.

Joel: Yep. Flexibility in the audience that we have is probably closer aligned with Mike’s properties [00:35:00] than than not, right?

80% of our members are 55 and older, 60% retired, and most of them have a six figure disposable income. So it’s a wealthier segment of retired traveler. And I think that the resort properties fit really nicely. . 

Joe: Yeah. I think I think a lot of people see Harvest hosts, people that are just wanting to get free nights.

And I’m sure that there is a a section of Harvest hosts like that. But of the ones that I know, that’s not necessarily the case. They’re going experience to wineries already. They like wineries or they like breweries or they have an experience that they wanna wanna do most of a lot of these are people that would boom, knock otherwise, and so they.

Typically nicer rigs. I would imagine there’s a ton of luxury motor coaches that are on harvest hosts, and so , those places would be right up your alley. 

Mike: Yeah and the, the industry is changing. I’ve had this conversation with Connor Schwab, a couple times just about class B campers, 10 years ago you look at the Class B camper as piece of crap, get off my property. My brother has a class B and he is, you know very well to do and [00:36:00] he likes to go, boondocking and he is, but he also likes amenities. And so I think to your point about harvest host and some of these other, the boon dockers, just because you’re boondocking doesn’t mean you have no income.

Brian: That you always want to boondock, 

Joel: yeah, that’s right. And that’s the other stat is that our average member only stays at Harvest host locations three or four nights a year, and then they’re staying at traditional campgrounds, 30 to 60. . 

Joann: So Joel, I’ll tell you why. I think that’s a really important statistic for you to get out to the campgrounds, because I’ll tell you, I would agree.

Campground owners are obviously not a fan of harvest’s host because of, people are staying in a winery, whatever, and. Or a brewery or a farm or whatever. And they’re, those places are not they’re not regulated like a Campground is. And there’s definitely a disparity there.

So that information I think is really important for you to get out to the Campground owner. 

Joel: Totally. And we’re trying to do a better job of that. It’s interesting in locations where we. Harvest hosts around campgrounds. The campgrounds are always on our side because they always see more traffic and so [00:37:00] we never, I’ve never had a complaint from a Campground near a harvest host location cuz so many of our travelers come off the road and end up going to the Campground before, after.

Because. Harvest Host is just dry Camping and just for 24 hours. And so these are the things we’re trying to educate campgrounds on. But it’s interesting, there’s one down the road here for me in Palisade in the middle of a bunch of wineries, and they’ve seen so much more traffic from Harvest hosts that they actually joined as a Campground, which is interesting.

Like I, I don’t think we’ve ever had a Campground join Harvest Host, but they basically said, we’ll offer some free spots for Harvest Hosters, knowing that what they end up doing is. Hooking up. 

Mike: We tried that and I guess that was a couple years ago and we tried to list ourselves at Campground.

We, there was no, as we were trying to attract it. . 

Joel: Yeah, totally. It’s interesting. Like I just, it wasn’t a use case that I had foreseen. , but we’re totally open to it. I That’s the nice thing is we play really nicely with campgrounds. The only times those that don’t know us or don’t have any campgrounds around us, I completely understand the hesitance.

And that’s why I’m always trying to say we are not competing with campgrounds. And now I’m really excited [00:38:00] about the campers card program cuz we can finally prove like through our actions, like we’re gonna actually send traffic to campgrounds. 

Brian: Are you able to tell us or give us an idea?

Or do you have any data on. are some of the Perks that people are offering besides straight up discounts that you’ve seen come through with a sign up so far? 

Joel: Yes. And we offer some options as suggestions that can of course come up with their own, but, so it’s a discount, typically a discount, like a 10% discount for the full stay or summer doing like a 20% first night discount.

Someone’s high as 30, depending on when they’re trying to fill inventory. for Perks. This early check-in late checkout is one of the biggest ones. That’s the largest take. 

Brian: It’s the low barrier, to give it away too.

Joel: I think so. RV and the value to the RV is massive. Yeah.

So we surveyed all of our members and asked them like, what are the Perks you wanna see? Early check-in lead checkout. It was the biggest thing because so many people are now working from the. that being able to get to a Campground a little earlier to take that call or leave a [00:39:00] little later to take that call.

Like it it’s really, it’s more important now than ever. So that’s huge. Some are offering things like free firewood as an example, or a discount in the store. That’s an easy one. They’ll say here’s a, a percentage discount in the camp store. So it’s things like that.

It’s just taking the stuff you already have and. Figuring out what’s pretty low lift or low cost, but has a high benefit. And I think that early check-in checkout is one of those that doesn’t cost anything really. Now in Mike’s case, since he offers it for sale there, there is an opportunity cost, but a lot of campgrounds don’t do that yet.

Joe: And that’s true. But I will tell you when I camp, I’m I, we always try to get out at our checkout time. Sometimes meetings happen or whatever, and you a camper, I feel I can feel nickel and dimed if if it’s five minutes after they’re like, go we gotta charge you the $50 fee.

and I completely understand. I understand the business and that need to turn those, but also knowing that stop whining also knowing there’s a two hour window there where no one’s supposed to be there. And you’re not actually doing anything to turn the campsite most of the time . So you just, I would be more inclined to pay a [00:40:00] higher fee to not have to worry about it to be.

Like that’s me. I don’t like the nickel and dime, the little things adding. 

Mike: Then, Joe, that’s a great point though too, as part of the member discount, right? If you think about the hotel programs, which are the most evolved, right? If you’re a, premier tier, one of the perch you get is early check-in, right?

Or a late. Complimentary, late checkout and it does have value, right? And and that costs, costs nothing in essence, to the Campground, so that’s a big value to the customer and really in no cost to the property. 

Joe: And as Joel said, 

Brian: it’s growing unless you, with Marriott and you missed Starwood.

Then you maybe get a late checkout if you beg. 

Sorry. Anyway

Joe: but Joel said that, and that’s a growing subset, people that are working from home and I don’t know I don’t know if it’s still growing. I would expect that it still is of people that are working from their campers and, oh, I just had a meeting scheduled.

I wonder if I can check in a little bit early. Yep. And early check in even more so because then you know, you might have them buying lunch or spending money on your amenities earlier in the day, 

Brian: it’s interesting too to think about how this feeds other things too. So if you’re on, like just use Harvest Us as an example, [00:41:00] planning your journey, right?

And you’re going even private compound or private Campground. It’s interesting how all this feeds each other. If the Campground before offered you late checkout, you don’t need to arrive early at the next one cuz you can stay later at the. And so it works. It’s a chain too when people are traveling cross country.

So then if you’re staying later at the Campground, maybe you’re buying more things in the store or drinking coffee or whatever, right? So it all has an effect on the entire ecosystem. It’s interesting to, to think about how that changes camper’s behavior overall. 

Joel: totally. Also, Joe with six kids. I don’t know how in the world you get them up and outta there in time.

I that’s like incredible . 

Joe: Oh we, it can be done, it can be done . We we have a decent setup with ours. We have a class, a toy hauler. And so we have a lot of distinct areas that we can do things in. And so it’s not it’s not too difficult . 

Brian: What are your thoughts on this from a technology standpoint, Joe?

And what I mean by that is obviously you’ve got your app, you’re doing some integrations with some of the reservation systems and trying to push some data over there on the campers. Is there an opportunity in the future to [00:42:00] integrate with, the PMs of the Campground property to know that they’re a Harvest hosts campers card, loyal and they’re entitled to late checkout and to push that notification, even if they don’t want it and say, Hey, your, late checkout is for your stay and surprise and.

Joe: And that would depend, right? That obviously depends on how the technology, the technology obviously exists. It just depends on if. Campers card as well as us or any of the PMSs would open up those technologies to, to speak to each other. So that, that’s what it boils down to is how much they wanna talk.

And, yeah, we’ve actually talked about that ourselves. Once we have our integration with PMSs, there’s really neat things we can do there to try to bring people in and get them spending money a little. And so that’s some of the things that we’ve been working on. And I know I talked to Mike about it before, and, one of the concerns is that we charge for early check-in.

Yeah. But if they weren’t asking for it and they weren’t gonna pay for it anyway, and your site’s open, bring them in and get them to buy lunch. That’s that seems like a pretty useful use case. And then from Joel’s side, yeah, if we can grab I think it would be, I don’t know, I don’t know how the Campground owner would feel about it, but if we can.[00:43:00] 

The PMs is online reservation. with the fact that they are a campers card member and just push the notification of this is what you get now that’s gonna get more of those benefits are gonna be requested. And so that’s kind the negative that you have there, but also your camper will be delighted.

It’s a trade off that you have that each Campground would have to decide on their own. 

Brian: And I think it would have to be a manual trigger, right? Based. Maybe it’s based on availability versus, like I was talking about Starwood, Marriott, Starwood, it was guaranteed, didn’t matter what the hotel said, you got 4:00 PM 2:00 PM Marriott’s kind of iffy.

So is it a guarantee or is it a based on availability thing for you? 

Joe: Not bitter. 

Brian: I’m not bitter. I’m very bitter. I spend, I’ve spent, I spend a lot of nights in Marriott but anyway I think that’s a thing too. So whether you offer it as that or not, and I would say, I would think it would have to be based on availability.

unless it was your own loyalty program. 

Joe: Everything’s based on availability, right? Yeah, totally. Campground discretion. 

Joel: I think members would understand that. 

Brian: I’m asking it’s your choice as the [00:44:00] Campground owner, right? So is it better for you as the Campground owner to say, based on availability?

I think the answer is definitely yes. Yes. . Definitely. What else have we gotta talk about? We got about nine minutes left here, guys. 

Joel: I got a question for Joann. Joanne, how are your campgrounds feeling about 2023 compared to 2022? Does it feel like that? 

Joann: Yeah, 2023. I think 2023 is gonna be probably the same as 2022.

We’ve done, we do Camping and RV shows and we’ve been to five of them already this year. And definitely people are still out there. The interest in Camping is still there. They’re looking for new campgrounds, they’re looking to travel. I will tell you the RV dealers have done very well at the shows, even though there’s a lot.

A lot of used RVs on the, the secondary markets out there, but the RV dealers seem to be doing okay. So I think 2023 is gonna be probably similar to where we were in 2022. Obviously. 20 and 21 were incredible for us, at least in New Jersey. And again, it’s all weather dependent, Joel, if it rains or we get some storms [00:45:00] coming up, that could kill us.

But I’m, we’re very positive and optimistic about the season coming into 2023. 

Joel: Awesome. That’s great. 

Brian: Is everybody else here too, 

Mike, Joe, from what you’ve heard,

are we optimistic?

Mike: ,we are cautiously optimistic. I think, there’s so many indicators of concern. I’m at, I dunno if you can hear the background noise, but I’m at the storage conference right now and Moody’s just spoke and. Talked about obviously state of the economy, state of the industry, state of the, finance business and so much of what’s going on.

And obviously, you know what happens. Is it a slow session? Is it a recession? All those things factor in. And know, the flip side, you can see all the statistics about, RVing certainly as a lower cost vacation options. So will that boom again, in a situation like this, it’s a wait and see.

I think, we’ve definitely seen a little bit of change and mix over the last six months of far less transient. And our parks, our current parks are heavily transient, weighted so our long-termers and full-timers have increased as a result, which means our ADR goes [00:46:00] down.

So I think that’s an, it depends an answer, right? If you’re in Florida, if you build it, they will come, right? They’re all still full. They’re gonna be full for the next. If you’re a transient property, I think that’ll be a little bit different. It depends on where you are in size of property too.

So we’re cautiously optimistic. We are not. Doom and gloom yet at all. 

Brian: Go ahead. Yeah, please.

Joe: I’m just gonna say from our side, I have not really heard any pessimism. And, customers we don’t have customers that are looking to cut expenses right now. . We haven’t seen that. And we’re bringing in more customers.

We keep seeing more and more luxury RV, like luxury Motor Coach properties built still. A lot of luxury properties are coming online and I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like they’re pulling back any too much. Yeah. 

Brian: All right. I’m gonna do some uncharacteristic here unless you guys have something to add.

I’m gonna end a couple minutes early cuz I have to go teach a session at CBC again or join a main stage panel. So does anybody else have any final thoughts before we leave? Or 

Joann: Brian, can I just say if anyone’s interested in getting more information on the conference, they can email me at joanne j o a n camp and [00:47:00] nj.com or go onto the website, go Camping nj.com and pick up a registration form.

Brian: So awesome. Absolutely. Yeah. Make sure you attend Joanne’s conference. Make sure you attend all these other amazing conferences are coming up in the spring. Really appreciate you and sign up for Campers Guard obviously. Of course. 

That’s another 

Mike: thanks for all the info, Joel. Appreciate it. Yeah, appreciate you having me on the show.

This is fun all. Thanks guys. We’ll see you later.

[00:48:00]