MC Fireside Chats – February 18th, 2026

[00:00:00] Brian Searl: Another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Back from my deathly illness that I was suffering from last week. Appreciate Joe Duemig filling in for me as the guest host there. I haven’t had a chance to watch the whole thing but did catch a little bit of it on LinkedIn Live. Sounded like a much greater discussion than would have happened if I was present, as always. But excited to be back with you guys.

I have a couple of recurring guests here. Sandy stuck in during the intro. Welcome, Sandy. Mike Harrison, Robert Preston. We’re missing a couple people this week who didn’t cancel on us, so we’re just gonna kind of maybe stare into the camera and give them a sad face. We’re not doing it. No. And then we have Saurav, am I pronouncing that right?

[00:00:30] Saurav Ghosal: Yeah, my name’s Saurav.

[00:00:32] Brian Searl: Saurav. Okay. All right. I won’t forget it again. Saurav from Sojourn Lodging is here as one of our special guests. So welcome, sir.

We were also supposed to have two other special guests who did not show up either. So today is just the Wednesday for nobody keeping their commitment to the show, but we’re gonna have a good discussion anyway. So excited to have you all of you guys here. Do you want to briefly go around the room and just introduce ourselves? Mike, do you want to start?

[00:00:55] Mike Harrison: Sure. Mike Harrison with CRR Hospitality. We own and operate and consult on luxury RV resorts, parks, glamping, manufactured home, storage, and hotels.

[00:01:07] Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, Mike, as always. Robert?

[00:01:10] Robert Preston: Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Robert Preston with Unhitched RV. We own, operate RV parks and campgrounds.

[00:01:18] Brian Searl: I think you’re underselling yourself a little bit, Robert, but that’s okay. All right. Sandy, you want to go?

[00:01:22] Sandy Ellingson: I’m Sandy Ellingson. I named myself an RV industry and campground advocate because I sold a technology company and then started working with campgrounds just on the side because I loved it and kind of fell into this job.

And so I just get to do what I love to do, you know, every day, just working between the two, the industry and the RV… and campgrounds.

[00:01:43] Brian Searl: And you evolve a lot, right, Sandy? So you’re preparing for the AI future and all that stuff. Do you imagine that there’ll be a time where you teach robots how to walk through campgrounds? Like, you’re like, “Mimic me, watch me”?

[00:01:52] Sandy Ellingson: I think I’m already doing that.

[00:01:53] Brian Searl: All right.

[00:01:55] Sandy Ellingson: I learn from the best, Brian. I’m ahead of… I’m right there with you.

[00:01:59] Brian Searl: Saurav… I almost pronounced it wrong. Saurav. Please, introduce yourself.

[00:02:04] Saurav Ghosal: Yeah, so as I mentioned, my name is Saurav. I’m with Sojourn Lodging. So I’m the owner and property manager. It’s like a family kind of owned and operated business. We have 40 tiny home units in Sevierville… Sevierville, kind of Gatlinburg area.

And we have some nice on-site amenities as well, like pickleball court, welcome center, and whatnot. But we’re… we’re kind of new to the glamping space. And so we’re kind of building this business out.

[00:02:28] Brian Searl: Awesome. Excited to have you here and learn more about Sojourn and what you guys have going on there. As we typically do for our recurring guests here, is there anything that you guys have seen come across your desk in the month or so since we’ve all been together that you guys think we should be talking about? Robert or Mike or Sandy?

[00:02:46] Robert Preston: I think, you know, kind of some interesting big news for the industry, the portfolio closed that John She put together. That was kind of some cool, cool stuff. 1,500…

[00:02:56] Brian Searl: The Blue Metric?

[00:02:57] Robert Preston: Yeah, Blue Metric.

[00:03:00] Brian Searl: Yeah.

[00:03:01] Robert Preston: 1,500 sites. What was it? 97 million? Pretty interesting.

[00:03:04] Brian Searl: Yeah, I think it was 97 million. I don’t know the site number, but it was 97 million.

[00:03:08] Robert Preston: It’s interesting…

[00:03:09] Brian Searl: Go ahead, please.

[00:03:10] Robert Preston: No, no, just something we can discuss and chat about. That’s certainly a data point for us all to think about.

[00:03:15] Brian Searl: Yeah, I’m interested to see how much I think acquisitions pick up more… acquisition opportunities pick up more in the back half of 2026 leading into 2027. What do you think, Robert?

[00:03:27] Robert Preston: Yeah, I think, well, and then also interesting fact, right? Just got an email this morning from a lender that’s in the space that does a lot of lending. And, you know, basically the email says, “We’re getting ready to take back an asset. Who’s interested in buying it?”

[00:03:43] Brian Searl: Yes.

[00:03:44] Robert Preston: So I think we’re gonna see a lot of that. And I think we’re gonna see… well, I think… I think deal flow will pick up, but I think it’s gonna be probably more creative distressed stuff than the typical on-market. That’s my hunch.

[00:03:55] Brian Searl: Yeah, I think that’s why it’s gonna pick up back half of 2026. Like, I… I hope that what I’m seeing in the economy flips around and changes, but like, you’ve seen… and I don’t know if… I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but ELS reported in their reports that they’re expec… expecting, based on advanced reservations, down 13% year over year at their properties.

Now ELS is a different type of animal than most small mom and pops. That’s obviously macro, it’s not micro. It’s gonna be different everywhere and it’s still really, really early with a really shortened booking window. So like, nobody should panic.

But there are going to be certainly cases like that, I think, that there… people… a lot of people overbuilt and overpaid during 2021, 2022. And I think those opportunities are gonna come to fruition for people like you, Robert, or other, you know, like to manage properties that are just not doing as well as they once did.

[00:04:43] Robert Preston: Right.

[00:04:43] Brian Searl: Or lived up to their potential. So yeah, it’ll be interesting to watch that. Mike, anything on your…?

[00:04:50] Mike Harrison: Yeah, we’re seeing similar. I think Q4 was quieter just in terms of volume and inquiries and transactions and, you know, heading into January, I had three separate consultants reach out to me and say, “Hey, you know, do you have business?” You know, we refer a lot of business out to consultants that we don’t want to, you know, handle from our side.

And then I would say the last three or four weeks, the volume has picked up considerably. And some portfolio, you know, perspectives as well as, you know, some of these other types that Robert’s, you know, mentioning.

You know, we’ve… we’ve been predicting this for a while that, you know, the properties that were built or acquired in ’21, ’22 and then over proforma’d that either opened ’23, ’24, ’25, you know, for sure are missing their numbers, for sure are missing DSCR. And, you know, either gonna have to go back to the bank or, you know, need to have new management come in and long term, whatever it might be.

You know, and so we certainly saw that back half of last year, but that’s also now continuing into this year. So, I mean, good and bad. You know, bad for the, you know, current owner/seller, but, you know, it does spur growth. You know, hotel industry has been through numer… this is probably one of the first ones for the RV industry, but hotels been through this cycle numerous times.

You know, it’s always a good thing. It just spurs continued growth afterwards because usually capital reinvestment, it’s usually more sophisticated buyers, you know, it’s always a lift when you get through some of these… these transition periods.

[00:06:16] Brian Searl: You have to imagine there’ll be some properties though that should just never have been built, right?

[00:06:22] Mike Harrison: Oh, of course.

[00:06:23] Brian Searl: Yeah.

[00:06:23] Mike Harrison: You know, if… if you built based on your demand… I mean, look at… look at Texas, right? I mean, that is such an overbuilt market and there’s, you know, such low barrier to entry. And everybody was building a property in… in… in, you know, Hill Country. And I think, you know, they’re seeing, you know, a glut of supply. And so, you know, there’s not as much transient demand as there was four years ago. And, you know, either pivoting hard to long-term or just not… just not filling.

So… so yes. And obviously a lot of buyers got into the space that had no idea about an RV park. “Hey, I got 10 acres. Let’s put 200 spots.” You know, and building 15, 20, 25 sites an acre… you know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago was normal. Now it’s not, right? You want to have a little bit more space, etc.

[00:07:11] Saurav Ghosal: Yeah, we see a lot of that in our market in the Smoky Mountains. A lot of overbuilding, a lot of oversaturated… saturation. And so, you know, there’s definitely some… some small business owners… single… single owners that are definitely struggling. So.

[00:07:27] Brian Searl: How is your business doing through… like, through the ups and downs of 2021, ’22? Obviously I assume that was up, but…

[00:07:34] Saurav Ghosal: Well, we’re… we’re very new. So we just opened last year. Last year, like in… in the May/June… we kind of had like a rolling window where we… where we slowly started opening up new units as they came online. We did really well in the summer and in the fall, like October time frame. Those are kind of like the peak seasons anyway, and it kind of matches really well with our like customer demographic.

But, you know, right now it’s the slow season here. I mean, a lot of the attractions, a lot of activities… Dollywood’s closed. It just kind of starts, you know, slowing down around this time. So we’re… we are definitely experiencing a little bit of the struggle as far as filling our calendar for January and February. Aside from, you know, like little spurts here and there for like Martin Luther King, Valentine’s Day and whatnot.

But we’re hoping to recoup that in that… in the… the, you know, peak seasons. Like the summer. March is also really busy as far as spring break and whatnot. But, I mean, it is just a fact that there is overbuilding in the area and in an oversaturated market. So we’re trying to figure out strategies to kind of differentiate us from some the competitors. Focus more on groups, things like that.

[00:08:37] Brian Searl: Yeah, it’s a good… how do we… how do we reset this? Like, if you’re… if you’re a property owner, and I know a couple, right, who have… I’ve worked with for years, long before 2021, 2020, when this boom came around and people started building. If you’re one of those legacy property owners and you’ve done a good job keeping your property up to date and you’re thinking about activities and amenities and what the guest wants and you have a good location, whether it’s along the river there in Hill Country or, you know, in… in Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge near the national park and Dollywood and all those attractions there… you’re gonna get the people there.

But even if you have then a distressed asset because it was overbuilt and it ends up getting, you know, foreclosed on by a bank and then somebody takes it over, purchases it, whatever else… you still have too much inventory in a market. Some… in some cases. Not all cases, right? How does this end up resetting itself? Do you guys have any thoughts on that? Like, ’cause there long term has to be a… does… or maybe there doesn’t. Maybe there doesn’t have to be.

[00:09:32] Robert Preston: There’s no… I mean, there’s no such thing as too much inventory. There’s just too much inventory for the basis, for the cost. So the reset is just reducing the… the basis. Which means someone will lose money. And so the reset, like Mike was talking about in the hotel industry… bank takes it back, gets resold, lowers the basis, someone puts more money into it, better asset, etc.

The occupancy… I guess the… my short answer is that demand is demand and supply is supply, right? But you can’t control basis, you can’t control the cost. And so that’s where everyone’s in trouble or a lot of people are in trouble is that it’s overbuilt for the occupancy that you can achieve, for the demand that you can achieve. But if you take any property and for the right cost, it can still be a great investment.

[00:10:24] Brian Searl: Because there’s a different type of demand that you can go after than the…

[00:10:28] Robert Preston: No, it’s the same demand. Like you… you surely can achieve a… a better occupancy or whatever. But in… and find margins here. But from a global perspective, it’s just that the too much money was spent on these properties. There is no solution to that except for someone taking a hit and resetting those bases. And then from that point forward, then you… you know, the… the occupancy, ADRs, etc. would support the correct basis that should have been entered at the… at the start. That’s my… my thoughts on it.

[00:10:58] Brian Searl: Well, so recognizing I’m… Go ahead, please.

[00:11:00] Mike Harrison: Yeah, I think there’s… Robert’s exactly right. You know, there’s a reset of the basis, which is part one. You know, and you know, call that the bottom line, right? And then there’s a reset of the top line, which is certainly demand.

And again, not that this follows the hotel industry completely, but, you know, if you look at the… let’s call it three different cycles in the last 30 years in the hotel industry… and, you know, 2008 obviously being the most prevalent and then COVID… you know, every time, you know, the… the… the… the industry would bottom out and then it climbs. And then it climbs. And then it climbs. And then it hits record numbers by a point or two from occupancy and ADR. And then, you know, after 10, 15 years, whatever the cycle is, you know, it resets itself.

And so I think this industry… you know, if… if you look at the RVIA, which is always kind of the impetus, you know, the front end of it, you know, and Sandy’s certainly the expert in that world… you know, when their numbers, you know, start to steadily decline year after year, then we’re in trouble. You know, but their numbers are not and they continue to rebound and grow.

And so, you know, I think what will happen is, you know, there’s… and there’s no data on this because there’s no STR. But what I suspect is, you know, people say demand is down. I don’t know that demand is down. I just think there’s more supply, right? And so it’s spread out over to more, you know, sites.

And so what will happen over the next year, I believe, is the demand… you know, will continue to grow. Maybe it’s by a half point or by a point and then next year will be by a half point or by a point. And you know, in a year or two or three, some of those properties that certainly were over proforma’d, A, will reset their basis, as Bob said, but then also that demand will fill in and fit in to, you know, and that’ll be the new norm, right?

And then the industry will grow, be super healthy five years again. We’ll all be like, “Ha ha ha ha.” You know, and then there’ll be another cycle. And so it repeats itself if it follows, you know, the law of the hotel industry world. Which it… which it likely will.

[00:12:49] Robert Preston: And multifamily, right? The… super sophisticated asset class of multifamily… exact same cycle, right? Overbuilt, oversupply, all building stops and it takes three or four years and supply catches up, demand catches up.

Then there is no supply because it takes three or four years to get a development through and then the reality is, “Oh, there’s occupancies, vacancies are way down, rates are going way up. We need to start building again.” Takes three or four years to get that through. So it’s… it’s a constant… I think… I think the… the big takeaway point here is this is probably the first realistic cycle for RV parks and campgrounds that… because of the… because of the new capital, essentially.

[00:13:29] Mike Harrison: Ever. Ever.

[00:13:31] Robert Preston: Ever.

[00:13:31] Mike Harrison: You know, I mean, when was the last time, you know, 30 or 40 years that a… an overabundance of campgrounds had been built? Probably never has been. You know, COVID, you know, basically exploded. You know, and the same thing happened to let’s call it the Home Depots and… and the Lowe’s of the world, right, 25 years ago.

You know, when those started to expand, when the home market started to… you know, so it’s… it’s a newer industry with fresher trends and fresher cycles, but it will… it will follow. You know, and the glamping that continues to be infused into it will… will help, you know, build it up and… and… and buffer it. So, you know, while there’s some headwinds, you know, it’s still an encouraging and… and exciting industry to be a part of.

[00:14:12] Robert Preston: Yeah, I would… I would use the illustration like we’re finally teenagers, right? You’re getting some… some pimples and zits and some things that are popping up, but it’s a sign that… that you’re growing up as an industry. This pure cycle that we finally stepped into the development, supply, oversupply cycle that exists for all other assets.

[00:14:32] Mike Harrison: But if I still have zits, Bob, what if… what if I’m…

[00:14:36] Robert Preston: You know… You still look great, Mike. Don’t worry about it.

[00:14:39] Brian Searl: If I’m an owner though listening to this, and you bring up a good point, Mike, like we don’t know… like I… I tend to think like ELS is a bellwether like we know at a macro level, like that 13% is not micro. But I agree with you, and again, for all the reasons that like it’s still too early to call that or anything else, right? Just that’s their quarterly report.

I agree with you that there is a difference between oversupply in Hill Country causing a perception of lack of demand which is not real lack of demand. There are certainly areas of the country that that’s happening in, but there are also probably areas of the country where… because otherwise the macro of 13% across the board that ELS reported… some were probably down 20, some were probably up five, some were right? But that median or average that they reported is down 13%. Like it’s not oversupply everywhere, is it?

[00:15:27] Robert Preston: No.

[00:15:27] Mike Harrison: No.

[00:15:28] Sandy Ellingson: Go ahead, Sandy.

I was just gonna say that’s something we’ve already talked about in the past too, is about how even during COVID everybody was like, “Oh, there’s no supply, there’s no supply.” And that wasn’t true. It was there wasn’t supply in certain areas, but in other areas there was huge supply.

And, you know, back then we did this industry… I mean we did this research and we came up with two terms. We said there wasn’t enough known or desired sites. Known meaning we still had so many parks that had no online presence. People couldn’t find them. Especially young people, right? They did… they weren’t using the right technology.

And then desired meaning we had so many long-term stay neighborhoods. And people, you know, a person who’s just getting into camping would go into this neighborhood and they’re like, “If this is camping, I’m not interested.”

And I think two things are happening right now. I think we’ve got a lot of people who are going back to Egypt. And they’re seeing their occupancy down and they’re going back to this long-term stay model instead of trusting where we need to be and where we’ve gone. And so I’m real concerned about that. With so many of my parks trying to do this literally not just saying I’m going to do seasonal or a portion, but all, everything. Sun is selling off a lot of their properties to do nothing but long-term stay in all of their parks. And… and some they need to do that and some that’s, you know, I don’t agree with it. The other thing too…

[00:16:59] Brian Searl: Well, hold on, hold on, because I want to touch on that one point there because you’re talk… you’re… you’re not wrong. There are a whole ton of people that are converting to long term.

[00:17:06] Sandy Ellingson: Right.

[00:17:07] Brian Searl: And some of these are doing it for the wrong reasons. Some… but… but there are a whole lot of really smart people… Sun leadership… insert name of other big company, big company, big company that are like have really smart people that are looking at this and saying, “We should be long term.” So there must be some data behind what they’re doing, right?

[00:17:26] Sandy Ellingson: I think it’s not data, I think it’s financials. They’re saying we can guarantee income in a season and we can make our bottom lines. I don’t think they are truly looking at it through the vision of what could be and will be if… if you’ve got to prepare for it if you want it to come.

And so like what Saurav is doing… I’ve stopped saying campers. Everything I do, everything I communicate with now says traveler. Because we’ve got to engage that younger generation and I don’t think we’ll ever have in the future a large percentage of people that say, “I’m a camper.” They’re going to say, “I’m a traveler,” because they want to be able to travel in all different types of ways. They want to Airbnb, they want to hotel, they want to, you know, glamp, they want to camp. They want variety.

And what’s interesting is we’re already seeing this begin to happen in a lot of the research that’s being done in early 2026. You’re seeing, you know, rental RVs nudge up more and more where everybody thought they were not and now they are. We’re seeing like other numbers in other areas where we’re fishing in the same pond so like the demand may not be increasing but the demand is shifting to different locations.

And so I just feel like there’s so much opportunity and instead of… and I… I steal this from Toby O’Rourke all the time. She did a… a… one of her sessions one time was called “Reimagining Your Space.” And I feel so strongly that we need to reimagine our space right now as an industry.

It’s super exciting what happened at the Tampa show. I’ve never seen or felt the energy was… that was there between the industry side and campgrounds and literally wanting to build bridges. And we’re in the early stages of doing some of that. And it’s… it’s rocky and it’s not easy and there’s some bumps in the road, but it’s happening and everybody is committed to it. And I’ve never seen that before in 10 years. So… so I do, you know, I think that there… it is not all gloom and doom.

I do think that yes, there are people that were upside down during COVID, they paid way too much for parks, and there has to be a reset on that. But in general with a lot of my mom and pops, they just need to be able to have someone help them reimagine their space. Get out of what they’ve always done, right? And start looking at a new way of doing some things.

[00:19:57] Brian Searl: Which is what? What’s your like 20,000 foot view of reimagining a campground for what is to come?

[00:20:03] Sandy Ellingson: So I think reimagining your space doesn’t… doesn’t look like renting a space. I think it looks like filling a need. So find out what is that potential traveler looking for, right? And a lot of that is going to come out this year, I believe, in educational type things or, you know, whether it’s, you know, doing an event where you bring in everybody and they learn how to choose the right rental module because I’m scared and I want to rent it.

What we know about Gen Z is they want to participate but they’re afraid of a barrier of lack of education, looking stupid, all these things. If we provide those resources for them and make an… create new onboarding methods, then we’ll meet their need and they’ll come.

So we’re not just selling a site. We’re selling experiences, we’re selling education, we’re selling community. And that’s the mindset change I really think we need.

[00:21:00] Brian Searl: I mean I agree with that. I just think you can get trapped into the “I want to deliver an experience” without defining that experience very clearly.

[00:21:08] Sandy Ellingson: Oh I don’t… I think that experiences are as unique as campgrounds. And that’s funny because I… I still have people calling me all the time saying, “Hey, you know, will you help me with my park? Do you have a template?” I’m like, “No, there is no template.” I mean because every park is so unique and every park has an opportunity to do something unique and special.

And, you know, I… like I said, I can go back to lots of examples where I… we worked with parks and they’re doing amazing now and sometimes they’re working less than they were working before. Like my park up in upstate New York. I mean, he only is open from Thursday to Sunday and he makes more money than he was making before only open part time during the summer and when they could for weather. And he’s doing ice fishing. That’s all he does is he teaches young people how to ice fish at his park. And they are booked year round Thursday to Sunday.

[00:22:01] Mike Harrison: So I… I think there’s two different conversations, you know, that we’re having encapsulated into this one, right? What is state of the industry and… and kind of, you know, what does the business mix look like? And the other is the service deliverable.

Right? And… and so to your point, Brian, you know, and look, Sandy’s… you know, her market is very different than Bob and I’s market, right? You know, she says mom and pop campgrounds, right? That’s not necessarily what we’re looking at or what we’re measuring, you know, which is more larger campgrounds, more corporate campgrounds, or multi-property campgrounds. And there are different perspectives. But at the same time, I mean, you know I agree with you Sandy from an experiential hospitality standpoint. That’s what we focused on for six years, right? Before it was ever a thing here because obviously coming from the hotel world, that’s been in that space forever.

But I referenced that intentionally because no matter how hard the hotel industry has tried to differentiate itself and they’ve been doing it for years with lifestyle hotels, experience… at the end of the day, they’re still called hotels. And they’re still called guests.

And so I think what you’re saying is all true. But categorically, they’re still RV parks, RV resorts. They’re still campgrounds and they’ll still be, you know, guests, customers. And so while they may… I agree with everything you said. And Brian, Scott released an incredible report about, you know, Gen Z and… and millennials. And if you haven’t read it, you should. We used it at our leadership conference for some training on generational evolution.

And you know, I agree with everything you said, but I think, you know, the industry almost needs to aggregate more in order to grow, sort of like we’ve been talking about, to standardize, you know, some of the terms so we can get more data and we can get more collaboration and we can get more funding, you know, while still delivering those personalized experiences and the experiential hospitality. To the point.

And to your point earlier, Brian, you know, and I always hate to refer to the hotel industry. I know people get tired of me doing that sometimes, but, you know, you decide: do I want to buy a corporate hotel? Do I want to buy a leisure hotel, you know, at a beach destination? Do I want to buy a government hotel, a group hotel, you know, etc.? And RV parks are no different, right? Is my RV, you know, resort transient based? Is it long-term based? Is it a mix? Does it have glamping?

And so, you know, depending on your market and depending on your… your model, you know, that can absolutely work, right? But most hotels are not one thing, right? If you are one thing and then there’s a downturn, you know, you always say don’t put your eggs in one basket. And you, you know, the… the term in the hotel industry is diversification. You know, making sure that you have multi-segment, you know, backbone to make sure that if one segment’s down, you can build it up with government or corporate or SMERF.

And I think the RV park industry, the most successful parks can, you know, flex. They can pivot, right? And so maybe you were 70/30 transient, you know, four years ago. And you know, maybe last year it was, you know, 60/40. And maybe this year it’s got to be 50/50. You know, you got to, you know, bolster, you know, some of those other shortfalls, you know, because, you know, the long term is more reliable. It is predictable cash flow that goes into the bank.

And so I do think those that are doing that… you know, they’re… they’re… they’re smart to make sure that they’re offsetting some of these misses. And you know, as an owner perspective, you know, we would be irresponsible to not look at, you know, making sure that we’re not offsetting. And Bob, I don’t know if you have a different perspective, but at least that’s how we approach it.

[00:25:24] Saurav Ghosal: I… I wanted to ask about… so because that’s something that we’ve… we’ve tried to do is some of that experiential kind of based marketing. You know, we tried like bringing in performers for events and whatnot. We, you know, tied in with some of the local events like Rod Run and some of those types of things.

How do you sell and market that? It seems like we’re running into an issue with like commoditization of our… of our product where they just consider, “Okay, how many guests does it sleep? How many beds does it have?” And they’re just… and at that point it’s just a race to the bottom because there’s no differentiating factor between us and competitors.

It’s just that we’ve really struggled to actually communicate that as like a value-add to customers. It seems like they’re not really… maybe they just… it doesn’t resonate with them, they don’t care. How do you… how do you sell and market that? The experiential based piece.

[00:26:13] Robert Preston: I think I would… I would tie that question in as… as well as what Mike just mentioned. I think there’s… the part of it that matters is you can sell it and you can sell it during the holidays and you can sell it during the summer and you can do sell it when there’s competition for the entertainment.

But like Mike… probably people get tired of me saying, “Well, what about Tuesday in February?” Right? What about Tuesday when it’s cold and it’s 35 degrees outside and it’s raining and nasty? Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter what experience you provide that day. You’re not… the… you’re not going to get the demand.

So… so I think that’s where the sort of the dilemma here is that Sandy’s talking about like how do we… how do we still build a lifestyle, because that’s what camping is. That’s what RVing and camping is, it’s a lifestyle. And then your product there with… beautiful property by the way, I have it up on the website. And Sevierville is an amazing market. Very well done there. But you are competing for hotel… lodging. It’s a lodging play, right? And so you can provide a unique or different experience for sure, but at the end of the day you’re competing for that.

And then you know, an RV park is a lifestyle and… and camping is a lifestyle. So we’re competing against for that experience. And so there’s a differentiator. There’s a big differentiator between hotels and RV parks and campgrounds because one is a…

[00:27:45] Mike Harrison: Sorry.

[00:27:49] Robert Preston: Don’t worry, I’m not calling you, don’t worry. You can hang up. And one is a… you know, is an experience but not a lifestyle, right? Lodging is an experience that you’re looking for, but it’s not a lifestyle. People don’t say, “I’m a hotelier.” “I’m not a…” you know, “I’m a traveler.” To your point, right? That’s… that’s really smart. Whereas an RV or camping customer, they are RVers and they are campers because it’s a lifestyle component.

So I don’t know if that provides any clarity, but the… long-term short term discussion will be something we discuss forever. You know, we’ve got properties now in Iowa that we are up over 100% in revenue in the winter months because in the past no one ever camped or stayed there in the winter. And now we’re open and now it’s all long term and there’s, you know, some type of construction thing going on. And so a property that last year made $6,000 in January is now on track to make $45,000 in the month of January.

All right? So you have to look at… for any one person to say any specific point, like “this is the ratio you should do” is just missing the point, I think, of the conversation. Have to be able to look at everything. But I don’t… my opinion… to your point, Saurav… probably very similar to Mike’s. The experience component of it is really important, but it is not going to solve the problem.

[00:29:06] Sandy Ellingson: Saurav, I’m up in your area all the time and I… I tell you, I’m coming to Sevierville twice a year regardless of what the weather is like, regardless of what the dates are, I’m coming. That’s once for the car show and two is for the changing of colors. We go up there religiously, twice a year at least.

That finding the right people that are already coming, because you… you’ve got such a small number of units to fill, right? And in a lot of ways you’re not just looking for RVers or somebody who’s got an RV, right? You’re looking for those travelers. And a lot of times for me, because I’m three and a half hours from Sevierville… I do choose to go and stay in an Airbnb instead of my RV, especially if I’m only going for a couple of days. Right? Because… you know, gas and driving up all those small roads, that big RV. But being someone who goes there all the time and I know it a lot, we can have an off… off channel call and I’ll give you some tips that I follow as a… as a person who actually comes there and stays.

[00:30:11] Brian Searl: Why don’t you just book his place, Sandy? And then…

[00:30:14] Sandy Ellingson: I am going to! I was looking… I’ve already…

[00:30:16] Brian Searl: There you go.

[00:30:18] Sandy Ellingson: I was checking it out.

[00:30:21] Saurav Ghosal: We would love to take the conversation offline.

[00:30:23] Sandy Ellingson: But I can book incognito because you know if the RV parks find out I’m staying at a… at a glamping site…

[00:30:35] Brian Searl: Jeff, welcome.

[00:30:36] Jeff Hoffman: Hey, Jeff.

[00:30:37] Brian Searl: Are you… are you… were you busy? You look like you’re in a hotel maybe. Are you in a hotel?

[00:30:40] Jeff Hoffman: Actually, I am at home recuperating. I just had to… I got online to show that I did make it and I’m in rehab so.

[00:30:48] Brian Searl: What were you re… you don’t want to share? You can say I don’t want to share.

[00:30:51] Jeff Hoffman: No, I had to open heart surgery about three weeks ago.

[00:30:56] Sandy Ellingson: Oh, I thought you said they gave you a heart.

[00:30:58] Jeff Hoffman: No, no. They just…

[00:31:02] Robert Preston: I can’t tell if that’s a new filter or…

[00:31:05] Jeff Hoffman: They just made one a little smaller.

[00:31:08] Brian Searl: So you’re doing well?

[00:31:10] Jeff Hoffman: Yes, I am getting… getting ready to get back to work.

[00:31:14] Brian Searl: Good to hear, sir. Do you have… I know you jumped in a little bit through this conversation. We were talking just a little bit about forecasting for the year and then we were talking a little bit about, you know, experiences at different RV parks, how we draw people there, some of the supply and demand… maybe their issues, maybe they aren’t issues depending on the macro versus micro. Any… anything you’d like to add to that conversation as you were listening to us or?

[00:31:37] Jeff Hoffman: Just… demand this year is so far tough to peg. Looking at the normal indicators, it looks like a good year, but I… you know, what bothers me is what… what’s gonna happen in the next two to three months. I think although no… you know, the numbers are good on the economies, it just seems there’s a lot of pressure on the economy to slip back. But right now, if everybody looks at the numbers, everything looks rosy. So.

[00:32:15] Brian Searl: You’re talking about the economic numbers or you’re talking about campground numbers?

[00:32:18] Jeff Hoffman: Economic numbers.

[00:32:20] Brian Searl: Okay.

[00:32:20] Jeff Hoffman: Campgrounds are… reservations are from what I can see just about even. A couple of areas that are somewhat new are going up a bit. But established campgrounds are pretty much hitting their marks. They did have some increases in pricing. So we do expect some revenue growth. You know, mainly it depends if… if we can keep the camper nights up.

[00:32:52] Brian Searl: Right. Anything else you guys want to add on that discussion before we talk about Sojourn for a second?

[00:33:00] Robert Preston: Give him the floor.

[00:33:01] Brian Searl: All right. Tell us about Sojourn. What do you have happening in Sevierville?

[00:33:07] Saurav Ghosal: Yeah, so as I mentioned, we’re… we’re new. So we just opened in like May/June. We kind of had that rolling window. We have… right now we have 36 units, but we’re permitted for 40. So we’re gonna be adding a couple more. They range in size… we have a couple different styles. They range in size from 20 to 28 foot, all on trailers. They can accommodate anywhere between two to four guests.

We’ve seen… as I mentioned, as far as bookings go, it’s been slower during that… the slow season has been the biggest kind of struggle for us. And also kind of determining like… trying to figure out like our brand, you know? That’s kind of one of the things that we’re going through is like a brand re… rework, like a brand audit.

The… the… the vision behind Sojourn was it… it was all about connection. All about like, you know, bringing people together. We have like community fire pits, there’s pickleball courts, there’s a welcome center. But, from what we’ve seen, a lot of the people that stay on site as I mentioned, they don’t utilize all of those amenities and they don’t… we don’t… it’s very much like they, you know, book it and they stay there and then they go ahead and go out and do whatever they need to do in the city and then they come back and they…

So that… that’s been our biggest struggle is we’re trying to… we’re trying to, you know, make sure that, number one, our brand aligns with our product. It’s also, you know, aligned with our customer and the customer demographic. And then we’re trying to kind of brand all of our… our marketing material around that… around that customer… profile.

But the… the kind of our ideal target is… it’s more that like kind of Gen Z, you know, between like 20 to 30, you know, kind of younger. Looking for something kind of different and kind of a unique stay. More on that glamping kind of side where, you know, it’s not dealing with like an RV or anything or… or actual traditional camping. So that’s kind of where we’re at right now.

We’re still, as I mentioned, we’re still kind of… we’re figuring ourselves out. But we… we did see great success in the summer and fall of last year. And so we’re hoping that we’ll see that, you know, moving forward and kind of re… recoup some of the… some of our revenue like, you know, that we haven’t hit in the January/February during those months. So it’s still definitely a… a kind of work in progress, we’re building it out. But we’re… we’re really happy that it… it… really happy to go live with it and whatnot. So we’re pretty proud of… of how it… how it has all come together. So.

[00:35:28] Brian Searl: And you said you were new this year, right? So you haven’t been through a January or February yet in Sevierville?

[00:35:34] Saurav Ghosal: No. No, we haven’t. So you know, and this… this is that’s the thing. It’s like coming up with the targets on revenue, we… I mean we… we had to model it based off of something. We had to have something. And so we’re probably… we’re going to have to readjust our models. And we’re seeing a lot of consolidation of revenue just overall because we have cabins as well. The tiny home concept is… is kind of an additional thing. It’s a separate business from our cabins. But we’re seeing even with our cabins consolidation or revenue in those high… in those peak seasons. So like October, summer season, things like that. So we’re probably gonna have to revise our… our revenue targets and… and, you know, have that for future years.

[00:36:11] Sandy Ellingson: If you can get your hands on any of the research that Scott Bahr has been doing in the last year or so, that will really help you because a lot of what he’s been doing focuses on your target.

And what’s interesting, like even when you talked about your pickleball courts and your fire pits, statistically you can have those, but unless you have somebody who is leading those activities, whether it’s somebody that’s an activity person on… you know, on site or you just found somebody in the group that’s coming in that wants to be the ring leader… they will not come out unless there is something scheduled and they’re invited and it makes it easy for them to connect. And so like a lot of my parks, we’ve started doing that with them and saying, look, you need… just bring in a weekend activities person. That… that’s young, that will bring them in, you know. And so that’s helped.

The other thing that was… I forgot the other thing I wanted to tell you now. Su… Oh! The thing that was super interesting about Sevierville and that area… we did just do a study for a… a… another location. And some of the stuff that was coming out was that like in January… December, January and February… December they focused on all the decorations for Christmas coming up, right?

January, they shifted and started focusing on health and digital detox. They use a lot of the… the key words, you know. Nobody says, you know, health anymore. They say a digital detox, right? Mental… mental health is not, you know… you got to get the right words. But… but focusing on the sessions where they bring people in and even doing it with businesses where they come in and do their retreats during the week and then you have individuals on the weekend. But you’re mirroring the exact same sessions. You… you can bring the same person in to lead those sessions. So that’s a really good area that they responded well to.

And then February, you know, people spread out October for… for all of their fall events. Well, we tried spreading out February in a couple of parks and it worked really well. I mean, we did get the biggest demand on the Fourth of July weekend, but there were a lot of people that went, “Oh, we’re probably not gonna be able to go and we’re getting a discount if we go the weekend before or the weekend after.” We spread that out over three weeks… weekends instead of just one.

[00:38:31] Mike Harrison: You know, Saurav, I’d actually agree with you. You know, looking at your website and you know, your… your website’s beautiful. Your pictures are beautiful. To your point, you know, what’s your identity? Are you a hotel or are you outdoor hospitality? Because your website says “Outdoor Hotel,” right? And so what is the customer looking for or what customer are you trying to attract? You know, who are you trying to be? You know, because your marketing will dictate, you know, which one you are. Right now, there’s nothing there that says outdoor hospitality. There’s nothing there that says escape. There’s nothing that, you know, it says outdoor hotel. And even things are titled as rooms, you know, not, you know, cabins or suites, you know, etc. So you may want to look at that.

Also, you know, like you said you haven’t experienced your first season. This is a highly transient market. Do you know what a STR report is?

[00:39:22] Saurav Ghosal: A STR? No.

[00:39:23] Mike Harrison: So if you’re a hotel, which it looks like you’re a hotel, you know, you can sub… you can get a market report, they call it a STR report, for the hotel occupancy report. But that’ll tell you what the lodging occupancy is. I almost promise you in January it’s probably somewhere around 25%. So your expectations of what’s going to happen December, January, February when your top demand generators are closed… you know, why are people coming you know, otherwise? So you’ll have to pivot. So the discussion we had earlier, you know, if you’re only relying on transient, good luck. You know, you got to kind of say what else can I fill my cabins with? Is there any construction? Is there any long-term? Are there any rentals? etc.

So my suggestion would be you connect with, you know, a consultant, somebody like a Jeff or a Sandy or even a hotel consultant. You know, depend… you know, you got to figure out who you are first. You know, are you a hotel or are you an outdoor hospitality pro… property? And then all the things that Sandy described which are true, you know, those come after. You know, but you… you got to start bigger picture first about who your identity is and then determine what you want to do.

And understand if that’s the market, you know, your peak occupancy in January… it only might ever be 35%. If there’s just… you know, Coachella, we have a property there for example. And… and there ain’t no way we’re ever running 40 or 50% in the summer. You know, it’s 115 degrees. You know, there are many properties that close. You know, so we buffer the rest of the year and build around knowing that the summer is going to be slow and make sure that we offset with long-term.

So just a quick glance at your website which is beautiful and your pictures are beautiful and your units look beautiful. It looks like you’ve built a very nice property. You just got to figure out who you are and then pivot your strategy.

[00:40:57] Robert Preston: Did I would add onto that, as you think about it, right? You guys br… have a brand new construction place. You have all this stuff in here. At some point you’re going to have to take a hard, harsh reality look at it too of how much money do you have into it? And as you go, well what is your identity? What is this going to be on and off season? Is it a hotel? Is it a campground? etc. And compare that to what’s in the market and you know, hopefully you find a path through there.

But if not, then you’re going to have to say, “Well, actually financially none of these paths work. So should we… should we sell these homes? Should we condo them? Should we set them up? Should we replat this property?” You know, maybe that is a… the exit path, right? So at some point it’s built now. So you got to find… you got to find the path forward, but the data is the data. What the STR report says what the occupancy is going to be for hotel and lodging is what it’s going to be. Same thing for the RV park, right? Which you can… there’s some data out there to see what occupancy rates and stuff are for Sevierville.

And then ADRs are the ADRs. Yes, can you be 10% better than everyone else? Sure. But you’re not going to be 100% better than everyone else. And so if the math doesn’t work, then… then you got to figure out the pivot from an… from an investment standpoint of what does this need to happen? I assume you guys own… do you own all the homes?

[00:42:16] Saurav Ghosal: Yeah, we own everything.

[00:42:17] Robert Preston: Yeah. So there’s a lot of it… a lot of ways to be very creative on the investment ownership structure, capital structure there too to think about it. But that… I… that’s… that’s a critical point for you guys to think through. Hopefully you thought through before you built it. But… but if not, now’s a good time to really dig into that. Start building a long-term exit strategy.

[00:42:37] Jeff Hoffman: But I do believe that because I was going to ask Mike to speak to this because he is actually a… a hotelier also. And when we have people in hotels, they don’t talk to each other, they don’t do things together unless they came in as a group. But if you notice the new trend is having bars and greeting meeting spaces and bigger breakfast areas in hotels. And those are the clients I believe that you’re going to try to reach.

So you… what I would do is dig into the dynamics of that market. And then with your marketing, either your marketing or a marketing firm, I would pander to that crowd. The name of the brands escapes me right now, but like the Embassy Suites and some of those have bars and restaurants now. And that might be where you want to look at, where they… they do want to socialize at a hotel atmosphere. It’s…

[00:43:42] Mike Harrison: Well the life… the lifestyle hotels. I mean that’s certainly…

[00:43:45] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. That’s…

[00:43:46] Mike Harrison: …space. I mean… I mean I ask the question, right?

[00:43:46] Jeff Hoffman: …what I would think.

[00:44:02] Mike Harrison: I agree with everything Sandy says about glamping. If he wants to be glamping in Smokies, then that’s okay. Then you have to pivot your entire strategy because your website doesn’t say that and your con… tent doesn’t say that and your marketing doesn’t say that. So for a glamping person, they’re not going to find you. And they’re not going to be looking for you and you won’t resonate with them. So that’s… that’s… that’s kind of how I’d start is if that’s the customer you’re going after, then yes, you’ve got to reposition, you know, your beautiful property. I think it is a glamping only property, looking at it online. But you’re marketing to a different customer in your… your messaging. So look, I… this isn’t a… a coach Saurav, you know, session. You know, so… so my apologies. I was just curious when I was looking at it and as you were talking I was like, I can’t help myself.

[00:45:12] Brian Searl: Well, I mean it’s a good session because what you’re saying is also applicable to probably lots of people who are watching the show too, who may not be in Sevierville and who may not be Sojourn Lodging, but may have similar identity issues or trying to figure out the market or switching from short-term to long-term or whatever else, right? Adding glamping or not. So I think it’s good advice.

I think the first thing I would do and again, I mean this is me, I… I obviously I’m an AI guy. I would take it to AI and say, “Listen, you know, every… like I… I want to reach people who want to come to Sevierville and want to go glamping. This is what I want my identity to be, I think. Here’s my existing website. Go look at it and tell me what are some basic fundamental options that I have to switch to pivot to reach these people?”

Is that the finish point? No. But it’s a starting point to spark some ideas in your head about the basics that Mike’s talking about because Outdoor Hotel is not glamping. It’s kind of a mix, right? Is it outdoor hospitality? Is it glamping? Then is it cabin rentals versus rooms? What do I call people? How do I do the messaging? How do I write it to Gen Z that are 20 to 30 if that’s what I want to be my target audience to be?

And then, after that, you decide, okay, can I implement this myself or do I need a marketing company? Or can I… and then… or can I implement this myself or do I need a Sandy or a Jeff or a consultant, right? To help me go that… take that step further. And I think that’s going to give you a really good idea of a starting point and a path to take and then go from there, right?

[00:46:35] Saurav Ghosal: Yeah, I do want to also mention so majority of our customers do come from like the OTA platforms like Airbnb, VRBO. And so, you know, the… I mean, they’re… I mean… the… our website mar… messaging and whatnot, they don’t really… a lot of them don’t end up seeing it. They actually see it through Airbnb, VRBO first and then they like search us up online. But that’s one of our things too is that we want to build our like brand identity outside of just Airbnb and VRBO because over-reliance on those OTA platforms can be a little dangerous.

[00:47:07] Mike Harrison: A direct… direct channel is far cheaper and higher convert… I mean there’s a million statistics and research on direct booking versus OTA channels. So there’s a lot of reasons to do that. Are you a member of the AGA? American Glamping Association?

[00:47:23] Saurav Ghosal: I… no, I don’t think so. Mm-mm.

[00:47:25] Mike Harrison: So the first thing you do is go sign up for the AGA and talk to Ruben. Get… get into the glamping world. Everything you’re going through is not new, right? This is exactly what they do. They’ll consult with you. They’re… they’re the association for the country that, you know, are the experts in glamping.

[00:47:41] Saurav Ghosal: Do you… do you actually host a glamping… cause… so it’s a family thing. I actually didn’t end up going to the glamping show last year, but my… the rest of my family did. Are they host of the glamping show?

[00:47:51] Sandy Ellingson: Yeah, in Colorado?

[00:47:52] Saurav Ghosal: Yeah.

[00:47:53] Brian Searl: Yeah, they don’t… they don’t own the show but they’re a big part of it, yes.

[00:47:57] Saurav Ghosal: Okay. Yeah, so… yeah, we did at… attend that, but I don’t know if we’re actually part of the association. That’s something to look into for sure. Yeah, that would be helpful.

[00:48:06] Robert Preston: Hate to be… hate to be like the harsh, crucial CEO corporate person… but… th… those things are all true, but first you gotta figure out what the revenue and… and expense objectives you have. And you might find out that glamping ain’t the right way to go. Maybe it is. True. You gotta kind of start first with like, what do I need to achieve here financially?

And then who is the best target to go after? Glamping, hotel? Are you going to be the best glamping? Are you going to be the best hotel? Are you going to be the whatever it is? Then work backwards from there. But kind of arbitrarily deciding what you want the property to be and to whom you want it to be… unless you just have the financial ability to just build a passion project, great. But if not, then you gotta look to see what… what the area needs.

[00:49:01] Saurav Ghosal: Yeah, we’ve actually already done that analysis prior to even building. We set like certain targets as far as like ADR and whatnot and occupancy. Our issue right now is with it being slow, you know, we’re not hitting a lot of those occupancy percentages. But…

[00:49:16] Robert Preston: That’s the… that’s the…

[00:49:17] Saurav Ghosal: It also hasn’t been a full year.

[00:49:19] Mike Harrison: And that’s now what Bob’s saying though, Saurav. He’s saying what can the market bear? Meaning, is it more profitable to be a outdoor hotel? Or is it more profit… profitable to be glamping? Like was there a feasibility study done? Like did you just build a glamping property because you think it’s cool? Or because you have numbers and data and research that support that, you know, the glamping ADR and occupancy would be higher than a hotel?

Or to… to, you know, to Bob’s point, is a hotel a better fix? Right? And so if you didn’t do any of that research or you didn’t have a feasibility or you don’t have that, you should probably start there. You know, and there are companies that can help you with that too. Like, you know, Sage Outdoor Advisory. They do both hotels and glamping, you know, and… and can do the research and pull the STAR reports for you and… and you know, those kinds of things.

But… but I think that’s kind of what Bob meant is that… not that the targets for what, you know, you want to do, but is… are those numbers realistic for the product that you’re, you know, performing?

[00:50:13] Jeff Hoffman: Well, especially now that he has some actual data of running the park, knowing actual expenses, payrolls, other things. You can now come up with a more realistic budget. And you know, cross reference that to yes, we do hope to grow, but budget to what you did so that you don’t overspend.

And you know, the biggest thing on a startup is if you want to be successful, if the market and the demand is there, you’re probably not marketing to the right people. So part of your budget has to be in the first few years increased on marketing. And then it can be switched as you start building a base. But I don’t know what your percentage of spend on marketing is, but for any new business, it’s got to be higher than an established park.

[00:51:16] Brian Searl: I mean, I would qualify his spend on Airbnb as marketing, honestly.

[00:51:20] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.

[00:51:20] Sandy Ellingson: Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:51:22] Robert Preston: Yeah, so… so you would be tracking like for us when we launch a brand new new construction property, that marketing component is I would say sometimes the magnitude of five times what we’d want to normally be spending. And we think about that really like a CapEx part of it when you’re launching a property.

And then the flip side, you know, one of the metrics that… that you would certainly want to be tracking is the delta or difference between OTA reservations per month and per year versus your direct, right? And so like everyone’s saying, that needs to be inverted relatively quickly. And as a… really a key… well what would be one of your KPIs from your effectiveness of marketing in general is that you start to see that ratio of direct versus OTA change significantly. Faster the better, of course.

[00:52:12] Mike Harrison: I… I would caveat. I mean I’m sure the horse is dead somewhere on the floor. I would not allocate any market spend until you determine that it’s the right customer. Like… like if you’re gonna blow through a hundred grand for glamping but you really should have done hotel, then you just wasted them. So… so to me, the very first thing you got to do is decide: am I outdoor hotel or am I glamping?

Do the research, you know, get analysis, make sure you understand who you are. Then I would go through your rebranding and then you can do your marketing budget and everything they just said is true. But if you do that in a vacuum without, you know, figuring out first who you want to be, then you know, your… your spend isn’t gonna be effective.

[00:52:49] Saurav Ghosal: Yeah. I did want to ask a quick clarifying question. What is… what is an outdoor hotel? I mean, I actually am not familiar with the term. And how does it differ from glamping?

[00:53:00] Mike Harrison: I don’t know, you put it on your website.

[00:53:04] Brian Searl: Well, or a marketing person did.

[00:53:07] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.

The other thing… So, are you doing exit surveys on your guest? Are they… are they one-time… one-time renters or are you getting repeat business? Because a lot of… a lot of glamping I’ve found is a one and done. But if you can build that customer base and run specials during the winter and some of that, you may increase your occupancy in those off seasons. But what you’re doing right now and what Robert and Mike… you know, part of what you have to do is build your customer base of your own customers that you build off of. That’s going to take a while. You know, you… you can live day to day off of OTAs but eventually you have to have your own people that are in love with your property.

[00:54:04] Saurav Ghosal: Yeah, absolutely. We do… we do do exit surveys. Yeah. And so we’re working on consolidating that data to get like suggestions on improvements and whatnot. So, yeah.

[00:54:14] Mike Harrison: An answer to your question, an outdoor hotel is really, you know, maybe a broad term for like hospitality accommodations that are connected to nature, right? And if you think of like, you know, maybe Ben Weprin’s property, you know, the Oneras, the one he’s building in Miami, you know, AutoCamp, you know, those are more like, you know, you know, outdoor hotels. Someone who has the exp… you know, and… and they’re either very clear or they’re very confusing, right?

Glamping, people have a certain expectation of an escape. You know, and we’ve had so many discussions on this show of what glamping is, right? Is it two yurts on the side of the Grand Canyon? Is it park models in an RV resort? Is it 30 glamping units only? You know, but… but Outdoor Hotel can be confusing. You know, it’s a fact that you… you know, like you just asked what is it, right? And so to your customer, you also got to define that as well.

But an Outdoor Hotel is a newer term for sure. And it’s a really, really specialized market. And I’d be careful with that term. You know, I… I think you’re either marketing yourself like an outdoor hotel or glamping. You know, but again, I think if you’re outdoor hotel then you got to follow the, you know, the STAR reports and market like a hotel. If you’re a glamping, then you got to pivot to outdoor hospitality and… and you know, leverage that.

And you also got to think about what’s coming to your customer’s mind when you see that word too. Because the first time you said it, Mike, I thought about motel by the side of the road with the door open.

[00:55:33] Robert Preston: Yeah, think about the expense side of it too. If you sell… sell someone you’re a hotel, does that mean you’re providing daily room service? Does that mean you’re providing daily, you know, cleaning? Where that’s not… that’s not part of the… the glamping industry or RV industry for sure, right?

There’s no expectation that housekeeping comes in daily and restocks and stuff. But maybe if you’re an outdoor hotel, it’s possible that that expectation exists and which would drastically change your, you know, expense modeling and staffing and stuff. So it’s a tricky situation. Sandy’s been on… this is one of her tasks is to give definition to these terms.

[00:56:13] Sandy Ellingson: Exactly. And yeah. And give definitions to the terms and have classifications for parks so that we know because to me, you know, a long-term stay park is not a… is not a hosp… outdoor hospitality camping park. It’s not transient. Camping is… is a vacation rental kind of thing. But I do have… I have loved this conversation. To me, it has felt more strategic than any of the other conversations we’ve been a part of. I love… I love how we’ve kind of collaborated to come up with ideas for our guest.

I like… I want to propose a topic for us. As you guys were all talking in my head, you know, I’m constantly thinking reimagining space. But today I was thinking about reimagining the proforma. Like what would it look like if we were building a proforma for a park that said in January and February 60% occupancy is what we’re planning for. So that anything else is gravy.

And when you build that out, you know that you’re not gonna reach 100%, right? You need to reach more in the other months, which you know you’ll do, right? But at least I think setting expectations is so important. And I think especially during COVID we… we created this expectation that every park ought to be 100% occupied all the time. And… and I kind of believe the old adage from the church, when your pews are 80% occupied, you need to build. You need to always have 20% occupancy for people to come in at the last minute.

But I would love to dive deeper into how do we create a proforma? And are we just always doing it the same way we’ve always done it? Or are there things we need to take into consideration now with the advent of all the different varying types of stays? Does that need to change? That’s to you, Brian.

[00:58:08] Brian Searl: Well, that’s to my other guests here. You guys want to have a discussion on that next month?

[00:58:14] Robert Preston: No prob. My opinion will be pretty short on that one. But we can dive into the details.

[00:58:19] Sandy Ellingson: Now, I listen…

[00:58:20] Jeff Hoffman: It gives us a month to rebuild the whole accounting system for the… the nation. It’s… it’s doable.

[00:58:28] Sandy Ellingson: Well we don’t have to rebuild the whole thing. Just sections of it. And now that we’ve got AI, we don’t even need to do that. We just tell it to do it.

[00:58:37] Jeff Hoffman: Okay.

[00:58:37] Sandy Ellingson: Right? No.

[00:58:40] Brian Searl: All right. We gotta wrap the show. We’re a couple minutes late. We have no outro today. Scott Bahr is traveling. So we’ll be back next week, but other than that, we’ll see you on another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Thanks to Sandy, Robert, Mike, Saurav, and Jeff for joining us. Appreciate you guys and hope you have a great day. See ya.

[00:58:55] Jeff Hoffman: Thank you.

[00:58:55] Sandy Ellingson: Bye everybody.

[00:58:56] Saurav Ghosal: Thank you.