MC Fireside Chats – February 22, 2023

[00:00:00] 

Brian: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name’s Brian Searl with Insider Perks here as always with Cara Csizmadia from the Canadian Camping & RV Council. [00:01:00] We’re super excited to be here for our fourth week of the show where we regularly have the RV industry and outdoor recreation guests on to talk about those specific topics, what’s coming across our desk, what’s happened recently and obviously have some special guests as well.

So we’re pleased to welcome back our regular guest Eleonore Hamm from the Canadian Recreational Vehicle Dealers Association, right? , I always, there should be an acronym for that, the RVDA or something, but that Shane evidence from the CRVA Canadian Recreational Vehicle Association is joining us as well as Susan from the RV Women’s Alliance, and I’ve got a couple of special guests here who have never been on the show before.

We’ve got Breanne, is it Acio? Am I pronouncing that right? 

Breanne: You got it.

Brian: Awesome. I never get that right for anybody’s name, but Breanne Acio from Sekr is gonna tell us a little bit about her company and what they do. And we’re also pleased to welcome Chris Perkins from the Outdoor Recreation Round table, which is an amazing group that does a lot of good efforts and lobbying and all kinds of things that really are really important to what all of [00:02:00] the rest of us do.

So Chris is gonna talk about some updates on legislation and things like that as well as what R does. So where do we wanna start guys? Is there anything that’s really pressing that we wanna talk about first or should we turn it over to Breanne and Chris and let them begin the conversation? 

Cara: I think we should shout out to Brian for winning supplier of the year to year at last week.

We shouldn’t do that. An outdoor hospitality conference in expo, which was an awesome couple days full of education content for Kampground Owners . 

Brian: There’s somebody at your door. 

You gotta stop talking about me, . Sorry. No, I appreciate it.

As I said, it’s as I said on the, during the conference and in my LinkedIn post and all those kinds of things, it’s not about me, it’s about my team. They’re the ones who do all the hard work and all that kind of stuff, but it’s also about the entire industry without good associations, without, people who do the work on the behalf of the campgrounds, who provide the great experiences for the guests.

And there’s no chance for me to be a supplier for campgrounds who need me to reach their guests from a marketing standpoint, right? So it’s all a full circle thing for me. But anyway, let’s move on. But while we have the [00:03:00] pause I do wanna, we should thank our sponsor, right? Because I always forget to do this.

So we’re just gonna take a minute and watch a brief commercial from r m s and we right back and talk about some awesome things. 

Announcer: To maximize your business potential, you need the right hospitality software solution. RMS can give you exactly that, an innovative property management system tailored to your business strategy that lets you pick the right tools to effectively manage your business, including contactless guest facing features, our revenue generating tools, and built-in channel manager, let you connect with and distribute to online travel agents.

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Brian: All right, so we’re super excited. Thank you, rms, for being a sponsor of the show ipo. They’re a little graphic here at their suite being a sponsor of the RV Industry Outdoor Recreation Show. So again, we’re very grateful for their support. And if you’re looking for a Campground reservation, Big in Australia, big in North America, probably big other places that I can’t think of and don’t know right now.

But definitely put them in the [00:04:00] mix as one of the software providers that you want to consider. Let’s have Brianne and Chris, maybe just give some a brief introduction about themselves and then we can dive in a little bit. Breanne, do you wanna start with Sekr? 

Breanne: Yeah, sure. I’m Brianna c I’m the CEO and founder of Seeker.

I’ve been in the outdoor recreation space for the past seven years about, and mostly in the van life and overlanding space. I started by building Class B, custom Class B vans, had a rental fleet and then transitioned over to technology to make outdoor spaces more accessible to more people.

Brian: Awesome. Thank you for being here, Breanne. I definitely wanna dive into that more. Chris, do you wanna jump in? And I know we’ve had guests from Outdoor Recreation Roundtable before, but not you specifically. I wanna recap what o R is and why it’s so vital, and then maybe what specifically what you work on.

Chris: Happy to, my name’s Chris Perkins. I’m a senior director at the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, or ORR. The best way to think of ORR is as an [00:05:00] association of Association, so all of you might have an industry segment that you’re most familiar with, whether it be biking, hiking, or being Camping, boat, fishing, climbing, you name it.

And each of those segments likely has an industry association that represents that interest. Yeah. Or actually unites all those trade associations under one umbrella. The whole purpose, the org is to provide a central conduit for communications, advocacy, messaging related to the outdoor recreation economy with members of Congress, with federal agencies, state leadership and more.

And it allows us to unite around issues that 99% of outdoor recreationist. Agree on high quality infrastructure to support modern outdoor recreation needs or new sources of funding for staffing and infrastructure on public lands and waters increased access, especially for underserved communities, rural economic development healthy [00:06:00] climate, et cetera.

So it’s great to be here and great to be with this esteemed group. 

Brian: Thank you, Chris. I appreciate your time definitely for being here. Let’s go ahead and just while we have you here, let’s dive into you. First we’ll just pick on you. I’m gonna be a little bit picky and I’m gonna say let’s just throw away all the other segments right now and talk about campgrounds.

Cause that’s what we’re primarily focusing on the show, right? Not that anybody else is less important, except for the next hour. Maybe you are. Good then. This isn’t live and nobody’s watching this. They can hold me to this later, but Chris tell us specifically what, and I know there are several members of, I think there’s a member of avic.

Who is on your board. And then we mentioned Phil, who’s part of the ORR as well, on the board, I think. . So can you tell us what specifically is the involvement level from the RV industry, our direct Campground space, and then maybe what your guys have done or see on the table or anything related to the work that you’re doing that might have an impact on us?

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. So our membership like I said, spans the whole recreation spectrum, but definitely a [00:07:00] founding we’re the founding segments of the organization as the rbn Camping space. That in the RV Industry Association, RV Dealers Association and Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds, and a couple others that deal with both public and private Camping opportunities around the country.

And what our org is really doing is bringing transparency to. Decision makers around the country. Just what an unprecedented groundswell of interest. There is an outdoor recreation right now at this point. It’s a familiar story. The pandemic hits and after a difficult couple months where most of us were spending most of our time indoors or quarantining for fear of transmitting covid to friends and family, started realizing outdoors was actually a relatively safe place to go.

And millions more got outdoors than ever before in 20 20, 20 21, and 2022 and beyond. And you don’t just see this in the millions of new [00:08:00] participants getting outdoors many for the first time, but you also see an economic impact of the industry. So every year, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis does an economic impact study on the outdoor recreation economy.

And they found last year that in 2021, the outdoor recreation industry was 862 billion. Industry. that created 4.5 million jobs across the United States accounts for 1.9% of gdp. So our organization’s goal is to make that clear for policy makers that the outdoor industry, not just the passing fad, it’s actually a core part of American society.

It’s values in the economy and within that Camping are being, in particular are for many people their first introduction to the outdoors. We’re working on a lot of things and one thing I can talk about is the America’s Outdoor Recreation Act, also known as the recreation package. Throughout history, there have been a handful of high profile bills [00:09:00] benefiting, recreation and conservation that have passed the US Congress.

But this is the first time that a recreation specific set of provisions has all been bundled together in consideration by the US Congress. This bill was introduced in the 117th Congress, which is the last one. and it passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee via unanimous consent. So to say that another way, you have Senators Bernie Sanders and Senator Mike Lee voting in use actually agreed on something, agreeing on something, which is pretty refreshing in today’s political climate.

And the reason they agree is because it puts forth a lot of common sense revisions to recreation regulations that haven’t been updated in many years. When a lot of these laws were initially written, there was no way to anticipate just how many millions of Americans would be getting outdoors.

And I could talk for a while about the bill, but there are several provisions that would benefit RV and Camping [00:10:00] specifically. One really good one is actually focused on public private partnerships to help bring new investment into RV parks and campgrounds. , as those of you on the call might know it, it’s actually quite difficult to work through the federal funding process.

And oftentimes, federal agencies don’t have great authorities to work with, private partners to bring in funding to support new projects. And there are many infrastructure projects. There are billions of dollars in deferred maintenance across public lands. So this provision specifically would expand authority to bring new opportunities for private partnerships, to bring new investment and fast track new investments in RB parks and campgrounds.

There’s also provision on expanding broadband internet in certain places that either lack broadband internet or just the demand for that internet exceeds the supply provided by the existing infrastructure. It’s clear this is not at all about putting internet in the back country because that’s an important part of the [00:11:00] outdoor experience.

This is about. Expanding broadband internet to places that need it. Like at the point of service at an RV park Campground, or at high use places where people might want to know what trail to access on a certain day, where to park their car, where there might be Camping availability. Anyone who’s gone to public lands and waters probably has a story about how frustrating it can be to try to pull up that availability on your phone.

So there’s another provision in this rec package that would expand broadband connectivity. And a third one I wanna highlight is actually the rural gateway communities to our public lands and waters. An unintended consequence of all this unprecedented interest in outdoor recreation has been that some rural gateway communities are dealing with so much visitation and interest that their infrastructure is having trouble supporting it, whether it be water, utilities, healthcare, search and rescue, et cetera.

So this provision would expand the authority for federal agencies to work in partnership. With those gateway communities and come up with [00:12:00] new solutions to help support the level of recreation interest that’s going on right now, and make sure that we’re looking just as closely to the recreation infrastructure itself as we are to the gateway communities that support it.

This bill is under consideration again in the 118th Congress, which is the one we’re in now and we’re feeling really good about its prospects in both the Senate and the House. 

Brian: Awesome. Timeline. Oh no, go ahead here please. 

Cara: Can I ask about the timeline for passage? 

Chris: Timeline is a little different in the Senate versus the House and it just has to do with how they bundle the pieces of legislation together.

It’s likely to take several months longer in the house because the leadership over there likes doing things more compartmentalized and then bundling them at the end. Whereas in the Senate, they might bundle it earlier. So we could see this bill passing both Senate and the House within the next six or seven months.

Obviously so many variables in today’s political climate Yeah. That affect, that sort of thing. But feeling optimistic about its passage this year. 

Shane: You guys have so many good things going on in, [00:13:00] in your work with the government and that the Outdoors Act is a tremendous achievement.

I’m curious who who does your associations lobbying? Is it do you guys use your own or who does most of the legwork? 

Chris: It’s a very small part of our organization, like most of our, so we’re a 5 0 1 . Most of our work falls under C3 status, so education, communications rather than lobbying in certain rare instances where we’re actually taking a position on a bill, we have a C6 element that might advocate for that bill, but it’s really like less than 10% of our work.

We also have some lobbying partners in DC that. Might help take positions or provide intel on hill happenings. But again, it’s actually not the majority of our work. Most of our work is about broadening the awareness of the outdoor recreation economy, especially those economic impact statistics that I cited earlier.

Most people just aren’t aware of that. Most people see outdoor recreation as a nice to have a sweet, fluffy thing that they might go to a ribbon cutting every so often, but then get back to the real [00:14:00] work. And what we’re trying to do through our research, through our data, especially around the economy, is show that outdoor recreation is worth further investment and is a core part of American society.

Brian: And I think that’s one of the things that, in one of the things that interests me is that entire big picture story. And it’s one of the things that we try to focus on in this show is how, it’s why we have, primarily we started in the Campground industry, but I’ve tried to expand the show to include glamping in the RV industry and people like you from outdoor recreation because there’s a whole story behind it.

As I say jokingly in the beginning, we wanna narrow it down to just campgrounds. But there is a tendency, right? If you work in campgrounds or you work in the RV industry, you work in boating or you work in hiking trails or national parks to only focus on your segment and say why don’t you just talk about campgrounds all the time cuz that would help me more.

Or why don’t you only talk about boat dealerships? Cause that would help me more. But it’s really just, it’s a big, huge story that all feeds each other as you’re talking about just gateway communities being one example of hundreds that all relate to each other and all help everybody succeed. Is that right?

Chris: Yeah, that’s right. And the other thing I’d add there is, each of [00:15:00] us on the call probably has a recreation activity that we identify with most, like my love mountain biking or love paddling on the lake or going fly fishing or whatever it might be. But the reality is, modern recreationists don’t just do one thing.

They might have four or five different activities that they enjoy doing even in just one season. So we have to have the education and advocacy efforts in alignment with modern recreationists. people don’t exist in silos. People aren’t just a climber, people aren’t just a biker. People do a lot of things and so we’re in charge of finding that common ground that everyone agrees would be beneficial to the recreation community.

Brian: Awesome. I think we got Breanne back here. Maybe we want to, Breanne, we gotta talk to you about two seconds before you drop off Again. I think you have a bad bad connection wherever you are, but do you wanna just briefly tell us while we have you about Seeker, if we can get you in there? 

Breanne: Yeah. 

Can you all hear me?

Brian: We can, yes. 

Breanne: Okay. So at [00:16:00] Seeker, our primary audience is the full-timers and part-timers. I call them like the super campers. They’re Camping at least 60 nights a week. Most of them do really long trips on the road. And I started this company because I was full-time Van lifeing it with my wife. and we realized that finding a place to camp is really hard.

We were using dozens of resources driving like five miles down a dirt road only to realize there’s no campsite or dispersed campsite on national forest or b l m land. So we built Seeker to help people find campsites on the road. And specifically we have about 70, 80,000 members now. And most of our members find a campsite within two days of Camping.

And . Yeah. So that’s our whole mission is to make the outdoors more accessible to more people. We see Van Lifers as the gateway to to the [00:17:00] outdoors. As like the influencers, the people who are sharing about the outdoors, they’re like moving the new wave of outdoor recreation and the trend.

So that’s who we serve. 

Brian: So let me ask you a rather, we had Joel on here from Harvest House last week, or cameras card, right? And we were asking him a few hard questions, but I’m gonna ask you one semi hard question, right? Probably it’s easy for you to answer. But from your perspective, with all these new sites that are coming up, that are saying, I’m targeting this niche in Camping, or that niche in Camping, or this type of guest, or this type of person who owns this type of motor home, what sets Sekr apart?

Why is your site, and I know Van Life a little bit, right? But what sets your site apart for those van lifers? Why are they, why should they come to you versus the other sources that are out there? 

Breanne: Van lifers and especially millennial, full-timers and younger full-timers don’t want the traditional campsite.

And they don’t want a glamp site. They want something different. They’re self-contained. They have everything they need in [00:18:00] their rig. What they want is community and a safe place to park that is outdoors. That’s not a Walmart parking lot. This niche is a really large niche, but most k o a and a lot of these other Campground associations have not figured out the needs or the consumer really.

And ultimately our goal, so we started with the Van Life niche. We aggregated the largest database of free campsite and dispersed Camping in the nation. And now we’re actually expanding into private operators. We’re starting to integrate with the R I DB database and some other APIs of, with PMs property management systems and things like that to expand to more professionalized 

inventory.

Brian: So I have question for you, and maybe it’s related to see her, maybe it’s not, but I feel like it’s definitely related to your expertise. You look like you’re someone who enjoys the van life too. Yes. Is that a fair statement? Yeah. Yeah. 

Breanne: I’m in my van . 

Brian: Yeah. From your perspective, and we talked to Joel about this too last week, and I don’t mean to keep [00:19:00] bringing up Joel, but he brought up some of the same points as you do.

Harvest us obviously usually is geared toward people who don’t, at least stereotypically stay at private campgrounds. Is there a crossover between someone who enjoys the van life, who maybe likes to moon dock and likes to be self-contained, but also once in a while, likes to stay at a private Campground?

And if so, how do you feel like, cause that’s where our audience is primarily is private Campground owners, right? In the RV industry in places like that. But how do you feel like private campgrounds can best appeal to these van lifers? 

Breanne: Yeah. So just one clarification is that all these people, sorry, I got my puppy here.

He’s on, he’s a little meet you. So these people who like to boondock and like to stay on dispersed Campground like disperse Camping in national forest, in blm, stay at campgrounds more often than the average American. They’re still staying at professional campgrounds like four, four to six nights a month, which is [00:20:00] often more than the average American.

So they are in between these longer stays on national forests. They’re going and recharging at these professional campgrounds that have the amenities that they’re looking for. 

Shane: Is that re recharging their unit and themselves or, 

Breanne: Make sometimes their unit themselves doing laundry, getting access to fresh water like getting into the city so that they can shop.

And on the more so the vanlife industry has been evolving really quickly as most of you have probably seen on social media, Archie, sorry. He’s it’s 

okay. I’m trying to get something 

Brian: totally fine all the time.

Breanne: So what I’m seeing is that as more Class Bs are being made by manufacturers like storyteller over the land, Winnebago you’re seeing more of these Class Bs want professional. Campgrounds, but they don’t wanna pay for the traditional site. They don’t wanna pay like $50 [00:21:00] for a plugin. They don’t need the plugin.

They don’t need access to a sewer, they don’t need, what they’re looking for is community and like basic facilities. So maybe a restroom or a place to wash their dishes or laundry. So I think that the van lifer and that, that sort of niche is looking more for a communal space.

If you compare a traditional Campground to a hotel the space that a Van Lifer is looking for is mo more like a fancy hostel, like one that’s really centered around connecting people and the experience rather than the Campground itself. . 

Brian: Okay. So I have two questions related to that and I’m gonna ask Shane and Cara this Shane and Kara, is there a place for private Campground owners to cater to, to adjust to, to add new sites to, that would help attract these people who enjoy the van life?

And then the second question is, after you guys answer that, is to Chris specifically with ORR, does ORR do anything with [00:22:00] demographics and breaking that out? And is that a part of what o r does to show the value of different segments when we’re trying to advocate for the industry or, so I’ll let Shane and care go first, cuz that was related to what Breanne was just talking about.

Shane: You go first. . 

Cara: I’ll say a few things to that. Firstly, yes, I think there are I know of operators who are who offer potentially like different pricing models. So maybe you’re parked on a full service site, but you only have access to certain. Features of that site. And your price is a little different, the things like that.

We’re also seeing new developments specifically that are essentially modeled after more randomized Camping setups. So the sites are less, in line structure, those kinds of things. It’s more free flowing. And I saw a park recently with a new development plant and their site layout really coincides with kind of the topography of their property instead of really overdeveloping their working with the incredible natural features that it already [00:23:00] exists there.

And, definitely doing fewer sites on the property than they potentially could, but really maximizing that natural aspect because I, we really are seeing demographics looking for. sites in that way. We’re also seeing a lot of parks start to do things specific to, we have a Campground here in Alberta that only their whole Campground is a group Camping space.

So when you book a site there, you can fit four to 10 RVs on the one site. So Campground owners, I think are being strategic and trying to diversify their strategies and things like that. I also think, we’re seeing, I don’t know what I’m allowed to say, but I think we’re seeing lots of sales in terms of Class Bs, tho those numbers are looking nice compared to a lot of other unit types.

I just spent time at Calgary and Edmonton’s RV shows and watched, the types of sales going on there and there’s a lot of appetite for that type of RV. And so I think that’s where the [00:24:00] associations can come in support of Campground operators and, and why it’s so vital and valuable that Shane and Eleanor and I and across all the provinces are working together so that we can stay on top of those numbers and communicate them to Campground owners so that they’re aware this younger demographic is purchasing models that need a different set of amenities and have different priorities than maybe we’re used to in our parks as they exist today.

And I think in my opinion, we’re doing a good job of addressing that stuff at this point so far. Shane. 

Brian: Do you concur? And would would a trip would a fam trip we need to send you in a van to familiarize yourself with this demographic, Shane? 

Shane: Oh, thanks. That’s another shot at my young age.

Is it right? No, it’s not. 

Brian: No, there’s no Breanne there’s no demographic on age with van Lifers. Is there Okay. It, yeah. 

Shane: Yeah. The only the only thing, and I echo a lot of [00:25:00] what Kara says, that campgrounds are looking to develop more experiences. But having said that of van conversion unit versus a Class B motor home, the industry kind of considers to be different one’s, right?

Ones that certifies an RV. Another one is a, a could be a homemade. 

Cara: But the consumer doesn’t unders or know necessarily that barrier, right? 

Shane: No, but I guess my point is Campground owners, a lot of them only allow RVs. Like I know a lot of campgrounds, like a converted school bus for example, they may not allow.

Cara: And that’s not always because of an operator’s choice. I, at the park I owned, my county would not allow us to host a conversion. It had to have the Zed two 40 stickers and all of those things on them. If I got inspected by my county and they came across a unit that wasn’t approved, it wasn’t following the standard I was in trouble.

I, [00:26:00] and so a lot of times that’s not about operational choice. So I’m.. 

Breanne: Gonna think there’s a huge 

Shane: No go on Breanne. Cuz I was gonna ask you on that. Yeah. 

Breanne: I think there’s a huge missed opportunity. The Class B, like the manufactured Class B market is only about 20% of the entire, like I would say the van life or the overlanding sector.

So based on our numbers we’ve we’ve interviewed or send out surveys to hundreds of thousands of people. Only about 20% of them who have Class B or have a van or some sort of, of overlanding vehicle have an actual class manufactured Class B. They’re mostly DIY. And this is a segment that nobody knows about and that there’s really no numbers on.

Because they’re not registered, it’s not, insurance doesn’t cover it. So this is a gigantic market segment that operators are missing a lot of opportunity with because they don’t [00:27:00] need much. So we work with like landowners as well, and one of the most. Accessible ways to start operationalizing or making profit on your property is through these self-contained units.

It’s just getting to them. That’s the con the consumer side is like, how do you get to them? But yeah, the barrier to entry as far as becoming a real estate investor and doing short-term rentals, this van life niche is a huge opportunity that not many professional operators look. . 

Eleonore: It’s interesting that you say that because we know that, we need more places to camp, right?

It’s as representing the dealers. I That’s always one of the issues is that there are fewer campgrounds, fewer places, and we always look at the traditional model of, having infrastructure and everything in place. And, the units are becoming more sophisticated. They need more power.

The electrification, these all areas that we’re working on. And it’s true, I think as an industry, because we represent, the manufactured RVs according to, the CSA definitions. But as Campground [00:28:00] operators, there’s, I can see the potential there because you’ve got.

People who don’t necessarily need that. And then the operators might not have to go through as much red tape, to try to develop, because it’s very costly and cost prohibitive and regulations to get a new Campground up and running or expand your Campground. So this might be somewhere for them to market more for that and develop in that way.

Now how would someone start marketing to the van? Life people. I We don’t really address that. We really, in our marketing or from the dealer perspective, I don’t know. I don’t, 

Breanne: yeah, that’s the whole, that secret covers. So we’re, we we’re positioned on the consumer side where our customer is the consumer making the Camping planning experience as easy as possible.

, so taking. , 20 different platforms that you have to use currently to find a campsite. And bringing that all into one is our ultimate goal. So we do the marketing for the van life. And honestly, you have a [00:29:00] bunch of operators who have acres of unused land that they’re not monetizing, and it’d be pretty inexpensive to, to turn that into something that could make money.

You’re not charging the same $40 a night, $75 a night, but you’re charging maybe $25 a night. And it’s more like this undefined group setup, but it’s just wasted land otherwise. 

Brian: . Okay. So Chris, I know I asked you a question a long time ago and we got off in a different direction, and I still want you to answer that, but my question is first is are van lifers, for lack of a better term are they included in the numbers in the economic.

Data that you present and that you gather, or is it an untapped segment that could further increase that number? If we were able to see them more in campgrounds and things like that 

Chris: they would be, if it was like a certified Class B motor home, I don’t know that they are, if it’s a conversion, but like the economic impact captures the whole entirety of sales from the RV industry and uses [00:30:00] private sector data to estimate that economic impact.

Brian: So what really what we’re saying here is if that’s, if that statistic is right and obviously we lost Breanne sorry. If that statistic is right, and she says that only 20% of people are using manufactured class B motor homes, right? That means there are 80% of people who are not.

But those 80% of people are buying lumber and nails and tools and all the things that are right that are contr. And so maybe that’s not an outdoor recreation impact, but in some ways it is because it’s caused by their desire to recreate in the outdoors, right? , 

Chris: They the Bureau of Economic Analysis uses a variety of use surveys from businesses.

So this is totally hypothetical, but let’s say they go to buy some lumber and the Bureau of Economic Analysis has a statistic that says 5% of people who purchase from a lumber store use it for outdoor recreation purposes. Then 5% of the sales from this lumber store would be assigned [00:31:00] to the outdoor recreation economy, which is basically a bucket of industries.

Yeah. A BA has identified that contribute to outdoor recreation at large. 

Brian: So there could be maybe an argument where that’s a little bit higher though, right? Because you’re talking about, again, outdoor recreation. You’re talking about people building slips at marinas and everything else, right? 

Chris: Yeah. It’s an imperfect 

science, of course, but they’re, always trying to refine their methodology to. Guys close. A good example of this is like a bike. If I buy a bike, when am I using it for outdoor recreation versus when am I using it for commuting purposes? They have to use user profile surveys about how a bike is used to understand how much of the value of a single bike sale to assign to outdoor recreation versus how much to assign to commuting and other purposes.

Brian: And this is the, yeah, this sounds like the best way we have, unless we wanna go China’s method and supervise everybody all the time. 

Chris: Yeah. I don’t think that’s the plan. 

Brian: Probably not a non-starter. Yeah. Don’t bring that up in your lobbying efforts. So what else do we have [00:32:00] guys? 

Shane: Hey brian, can I ask Brian, Searl something?

So Brianne, you 80% of this market is huge. Can you describe what the typical person looks like and how old they are and what’s happening? Is it growing like leaps and bounds now or? With the economy the way it is now. What, what’s happening now?

Brian: We can’t hear you, Brianne. Sorry.

Nope. 

Shane: Still can’t anybody know how to lip read? 

Brian: We can see you

You had a profession come back in if you want. 

Shane: Oh, that was such a good question. I wanted to know the answer. . 

Brian: We’ll get it. We’ll get it. Huh. But I think that’s, it’s interesting that this sparks these kinds of conversations, right? And I think there’s, what you don’t know. You don’t know. And the number of things that all of us don’t know on a daily basis, like millions for me.

And I’m pretty sure that’s shared across everybody’s knowledge scope. We’ll give a hand spot back in here and see if we can get her to answer the question. 

Shane: I being the C R V A guy and Eleanor would say this, you always hear [00:33:00] of a accident in a v in a van conversion, sitting outside in a street in Vancouver or some somewhere else. You’re always worried about that. Now that Breanne’s not there, , 

Brian: do you just, is it just the industry that you’re involved in? Why you only hear those stories? Because I feel like those stories are 

Shane: No, , we’re very sensitive about doing safety 

Cara: That, yeah. Reason is why my county won’t, wouldn’t allow my county and my insurance company wouldn’t allow me to host a guest who didn’t have a regulated constructed. Unit. And that’s I can’t get an, couldn’t get a corporate insurance policy on my park. If I was going to host conversions. I couldn’t have a school bus. I couldn’t have any of those. I risk losing my insurance coverage. 

Brian: So how And Breanne, can we hear you? No. We still can’t hear you. I’m so sorry.

I don’t know what. Yeah, maybe try switching to your computer mic or, I don’t know if you’re wearing, you look like maybe you were [00:34:00] wearing AirPods. That’s why I said that. I 

Cara: don’t know if you know the answer. Obviously, there’s all kinds of hurdles related to this about regulations. 

Brian: Yeah. A massive subject.

Cara: Yeah. But at this point, the way that things stand today, we have a lot of properties that exist very much, very similar to the way my Campground was where I was. Expected to, I was required to operate within a fundamental standard related to liability and safety, and that required regulatory compliance.

Shane: And I’d be curious about, if you’re seeing the same regulations in the us maybe if you have a chalkboard, Breanne

Brian: Oh no, I don’t know what’s happening. It’s very strange. It says you have good signal here. But yeah, take a couple minutes, see if you can figure it out. But yeah it’s definitely an interesting and I think it’s a really tough all that [00:35:00] in this show, right? There’s no way an interesting question to how do we get, how do we communicate this message, which is a challenge with everything that we do as an industry, right?

But how do we communicate the message that. . I don’t know, maybe there’s a line, maybe there’s a standard that’s beneath the standard that like we still need standards. No one’s saying we don’t, but maybe there’s a way where we can let 40% or 60% of these units in that have some kind of other standard that we can convince the people that’s safe.

Is that something we want to do if we could do that? Or does the industry not want the market? 

Eleonore: I dunno if the individuals would want that. The ones that are using the vans themselves. I mean from representing dealers in industry, I would say yes. It could be potentially a different standard.

I not the RV standard, maybe a blend of the housing standard because you know what happens is if we go and we do any lobbying efforts or talk to government officials, we can’t really represent a group that’s. Doesn’t have, cuz so much comes to safety. We were just talking with, transport Canada about [00:36:00] issues and it’s always safety, right?

And some, I’m not saying the units aren’t safe, some I’m sure are very safe, but because there’s no standard, it’s hard to, where is that right? Yeah. So I think that’s, that’s the issue right now with that segment. 

Cara: And it’s compounded by the fact that we do have, my Instagram, arguably my algorithm probably feeds me this really hard, but every second post I scroll through is a beautiful, cute little van with their sweet little kids running around.

It’s, it looks great. I want, we, I wanna do that. We have this huge amount of exposure about it and, the lifestyle itself looks so appealing that, it’s this double edged scenario now where. , do we cross the regulations road ? And then if we do, how does that, what does that look like and how does that impact our existing manufacturers and all of those things.

And we can’t forget that we do already. We have millions of RVs on the road, like we do still need the campgrounds that those guys wanna go to too. 

Brian: Yeah. And nobody’s saying that. We [00:37:00] don’t, I’m just like I feel and this is my tech geeky side right. Coming out I feel like we’re running head on toward a situation where somehow legislation is gonna have to address this in the future anyway.

And not specifically about Class Bs, but we’re very quickly getting to a future where 3D printing is gonna become a thing. And at that point there’s gonna be 10,000 small businesses that pop up that all wanna manufacture their own RVs that aren’t following the standards that we’ve long sought for and put into place for.

Excellent, good reasons. . But how do we then certify those people? Yeah. 

Yeah. Can they just not Camping campgrounds. 

Cara: We have a comment on LinkedIn from Jason, a full-time Schooly family here. Campground acceptance is hit or miss in the us so that’s good to hear. I know obviously my only experiences up here in Canada, but it’s interesting to hear that it’s similar down there.

Like I said, I think it’s really does ma I depend on your jurisdiction and things like that and where you’re located, et cetera. But it’s a team. It’s a team.

Breanne: Can you all hear me now? Yes. 

Shane: Yay. [00:38:00] Yay, 

Breanne: yeah. So I will say from this is just anecdotal based on conversations with customers and if like several operators is, the reason there’s restrictions around schoolies is it’s usually only at the places where there are restrictions around the year.

Of the vehicle, and it’s because they want their campsite to look, a junkyard or something like that. So generally the restrictions are really tied to image rather than an anecdotal I don’t have the numbers for it, but it’s generally based on what I’ve heard around image rather than actual insurance or government restrictions.

Okay. That’s because people sleep in their cars, right? They go to campgrounds and they actually sleep in their cars. This is a huge thing and it’s like getting more and more popular. 

Brian: Okay. Shane, do you remember your question? Do you remember? We can have Breanne question. So we can have Breanne answered.

Shane: [00:39:00] Yeah, no, I was, yeah, no, I was it’s echoing. It’s echoing. Anyway, I’ll try to talk. 

Brian: It’s definitely not working. It’s 

Announcer: hear you twice, see you twice better. And 

Brian: it’s not, I’m gonna try to mute everybody else and I’m gonna try to mute everybody else and see who it is. Test, test one, two.

Can I hear you? Yep. Now there’s no echo though, so somebody will we’ll keep going here. So can we 

Shane: may maybe I can, I’ll talk and then I’ll I’ll go on. Brian, Searl, I was wondering, 80% of the market is huge. Do you know I guess demographics what the 80% might look like? Are they young?

Are they older? Are they, is that number grow? Stuff like that. Stuff like 

Breanne: that. Yeah, definitely. So the vast majority, 

Brian: you’re the one who’s echoing. 

Just turn down and turn up your speakers real quick. Turn down and turn up your speakers like while we’re talking.

I don’t know. Anyway, we’ll figure it out. We can deal with [00:40:00] it now. We can’t hear you. What is happening? We’re just having all the, we’re just gonna have to have Brianne on later for a, 

Cara: I think it’s me every time I’m on the show. We have tech difficulties the whole 

Shane: time. , is it Friday the 13th?

Brian: It has to make something interesting we can deal with the, like if you can fix your microphone, we’ll deal with the Echo Breanne.

Cause it’s an important answer. If you know how to turn ’em back on and we can’t hear you now, so I don’t know what happened. But hopefully we can get that answer. Is there anything else, Chris, is there anything else that you like? Okay, let’s ask this question of Chris, right? So there are a lot of Campground owners here who have a lot of associations, have a lot of people who are coming at them and, I want your time.

You should do this, you should do that. Join the national association. Join the state association, join the Provincial Association. Why is it important for a Campground owner to pay attention to, to contribute to, to interact with, to benefit [00:41:00] from the outdoor recreation round table? Why do I wanna participate more?

How do I get involved? 

Chris: I could say that if you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re on the menu. And policy makers increasingly have an unbelievable amount of priorities to manage. And historically, the outdoor industry has not been coordinated at a federal and state level in the way that we are now.

To provide a voice for the needs of recreationists. It used to just be that people did recreation for fun in their free time and wasn’t really seen as something that needed political support, cuz everyone just thought recreation was pretty fun. And now that there’s so many people outside and so many demands on our infrastructure, we need strong voices at the table to talk about opportunities to support recreation now and into the future.

So whether it’s orr, which would be [00:42:00] joined by a trade association or a trade association which would be joined by a business, these organizations offer a conduit through which that private Campground owner can say, Hey, I’m seeing something that I’ve never seen before. We’re getting consumers doing X, Y, Z.

It’s totally legal, but it’s actually PO posing new challenges for my Campground in ways that I didn’t anticipate. , how might we either talk about this as an industry and establish a code of conduct or in some ways or in some opportunities, actually establish policy to help that private Campground owner manage this modern recreationist in such a way where everyone knows the rules, everyone’s having a good time, and importantly, no one’s recreation experience is infringing on the person next to them unintentionally.

That’s what these associations and an organization like or help do, is provide a conduit from the ground level, from the people who are [00:43:00] providing these recreational experiences every day. So the people who actually have a power to shape policy, and it’s, like I said, a new space for outdoor recreation.

Really important one, and with as much interest in outdoor rec as we’re having right now. 

Brian: All right, last question for you, Chris, and then we’ll try to go back to Brianne and see if she can answer again. And I’m gonna put you on the spot, Chris, so you can say, I don’t want to answer if you don’t want to answer, and that’s totally fine.

So you wake up tomorrow morning, Chris, and your phone rings and Joe Biden’s on the line saying, I’ll give you whatever you want. What do you want? 

Chris: I want a lot of things. I want recreation appropriations that keep pace with participation levels in America. When you look at the proportion of dollars from federal land and water management agencies that have gone to recreation vis-a-vis the participation numbers, partition participation is going like this, recreation appropriations is going like this.

And that’s just not a long term strategy for sustainability. And I say sustainability because the sustainability [00:44:00] of our industry relies on healthy public lands and waters. And when we don’t fund the infrastructure that supports recreation, we have more people doing things that actually damage the resources.

And To sustain outdoor recreation, to sustain its value to society, to protect the places where we like to recreate. We need more appropriations for the infrastructure and for the staff. So that’d be the first thing is help increase appropriations to recreation infrastructure. And the second, which also happens through Congress, which President Biden would help influence, is this outdoor recreation package that I was talking about.

We haven’t ever had a package of recreation legislation that comes with no cost to the American taxpayer that influences recreation policy in the way that this package does. And it provides a huge opportunity for us to upgrade our systems to meet the needs of modern recreationist and really help manage all the people who are getting outdoors.

So I would encourage President Biden to make an ask to Congress for both increased appropriations as well as the [00:45:00] America’s Outdoor Recreation Act, what President Biden can also do through his agencies and his increased strategies for diversity and inclusion in the outdoors. I think all of us know, whether it’s in the United States or in Canada, outdoor recreation participation and leadership has not mirrored the demographics of the places in which we live.

And that’s not just like a random coincidence. That’s actually the product of legacies of discrimination that we’re gonna take a really long time to unwind. And what the federal government can do and the agencies can do, is invest in new programs and partnerships that invest in places where recreation access has not historically been guaranteed, where people have actually been excluded from the outdoors.

In fact, the department in the interior has a very cool program called the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership that does just that. It provides millions of dollars of funding to places that haven’t historically had recreation access with the purpose of making a more diverse outdoor recreation culture, and also providing the public health and wellness benefits to communities who’ve been underserved.

So [00:46:00] that’d be my top three. Increased Appropriations for Recreation, America’s Outdoor Recreation app. And programs to expand diversity and inclusion on public lands and waters. 

Brian: Thank you. I, yeah, I appreciate that and thanks for the clarification on Joe. Like I, obviously, Joe just has influence on Congress.

I didn’t feel like I wanted to make your phone ring off the hook 400 sometimes in a row, so I just of summarized it into one guy. Yeah, that works. But yeah, absolutely. We know you and then certainly there’s a ton more people who are contributing to that act in Congress and that have influence that you work with on a daily basis.

Brian, Searl, do we have you back? We don’t. So we’re gonna, we’ll have you back, Brianne, we’ll have you back on another show because I feel like we can unpack maybe the dedicated show about Van Life and we can invite the people on maybe Jason who’s commenting, wants to come on the show. We can have a few more people, maybe you can suggest them, Brian, Searl that we can have and just have a discussion overall about that and some of the ways you think the industry can improve by it.

But do we have anything else we wanna cover here real quick or anything else that’s on anybody else’s plate? Susan, you’ve been really quiet. Like you joined us from your [00:47:00] car. You were like, yes, I’m gonna be on the show no matter what. And then you didn’t say 

anything. 

Shane: Yeah. I want to hear from Susan.

Eleonore: Yeah. What’s up, Susan? 

Brian: Oh, maybe we can’t hear Susan either. Oh. Oh, no. . We better all. Maybe Shannon the show early. Maybe this is a virus that’s slowly infecting everyone’s, please don’t say that.

All right. Maybe Susan did try to talk then and we just didn’t hear her 

Shane: We’ll probably hear it about an hour. 

Brian: All right. Do we have anything else that we want briefly cover about the RV industry out direct things that have come across your desk stuff. Yeah, 

Shane: I, on, on Susan’s behalf, I know she would say this we, we would like to thank her for sending that press release out.

We’re we’re hosting a RV Women’s Alliance meeting at her show next next Friday, I guess it is. And really excited to do that. And and looking forward to helping develop the the network up here. 

Brian: Awesome. Awesome. Thank you, Susan. I appreciate it. Anybody have anything else real quick before [00:48:00] we do some geeky tech stuff and play around with it for a minute?

Just have some fun? 

Shane: No, I’m, I want to see that geeky tech stuff, Brian, cuz that was awesome. I was practicing right after the last month. 

Brian: It might not be as fun as that cause we’re not gonna write a song, but we’ll try to see if it’s relevant here. So this is the new Bing search, and I think, let me see if I can get, there we go.

So we can see the whole thing. I’m very interested, we’re gonna ask a couple questions and we’re gonna see how it interacts with RV dealers, but let’s ask specific questions about our guests here. And I just wanna see what it comes up with, right? So why should Campground owners be more involved with the outdoor recreation?

I wanna see what Bing’s new AI search says here. And if you can maybe cite some things. Chris, have you seen this yet, by the way? 

Chris: No, I’ve read the Disturbing New York Times article about it. ? 

Brian: The disturbing, yeah. Yeah, that’s, but it’s actually very useful. So the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable is a coalition of outdoor [00:49:00] recreation, trade associations and organizations that promotes the growth of outdoor recreation, economy, and activities.

Campground owners can benefit from being more involved with O or R because they can advocate for policies that can conserve public lands and waterways and enhance infrastructure, connect with other industry leaders and share best practices, access data and research on the outdoor recreation sector.

What kind of Campground do you agree with that, Chris? 

Chris: Oh, that’s pretty cool. I’ll admit that is impressive. And more articulate than I might have said myself. 

Brian: Yeah, this is the idea behind why we focus on this a little bit, right? Because this is gonna change the way people search and get information, and it’s gonna impact our ability to save time and bring down some stuff to a level.

So let’s let’s sweep this and then we’re gonna ask about Breanne why is it beneficial for Campground owners to pay attention to the growing van life segment of outdoor newies?[00:50:00] 

Shane: Oh, nothing. It’s thinking. 

Brian: It does. It needs to think. It’s pretty impressive. We were doing, the other day, we were calculating how many acres of land I have that would that, and how many RV sites that a standard I re site would fit. It was this thing’s crazy. Anyway, Vanlife is a growing culture of outdoor enthusiasts who have customized their vans for adventure.

Some of the benefits of vanlife are lower cost of living, freedom to travel, being close to nature, simplicity and mental health. Campground owners can pay attention to this segment by offering amenities and services that cater to their needs and preferences. For example, they can provide electrical hookups, water refill station showers, laundry facilities, wifi access.

That’s the same answer for anyone who likes to go Camping, I feel like. But interesting.

Shane: I think it’s still learning like the rest of us about the Van Lake movement. 

Brian: Are there any studies that point specifically to amenities? Only and Myers want [00:51:00] Marissa’s regular campers. I dunno if that’s a thing.

Regular camp like you’re all regular campers. But I’m trying to prompt, it

could not point any studies to point specifically to amenities. So there’s an opportunity for somebody to sponsor a study. Only Van Lifers want so, but I found some articles that compare to Van Life and RV life. Some of the differences are Van Lifers tend to sleep fewer passengers, travel with pets, stay at more off-grid locations or smaller sites replenish water and food more frequently, which is an opportunity for stores and restaurants and right snack places.

RVs tend to sleep more passengers based on these differences. Some amenities that Van Lifers might want more than regular campers are electrical hookups or solar panels. Water refill stations or portable water tanks, showers or wet wipes, laundry facilities or washing bags and wifi access or mobile hotspots.

So interesting. . But you can see how we can drill down in here and get answers quicker to [00:52:00] a lot of different things. So let’s look finally here at RV dealers. And so this is this kind of the same thing I’ve been talking about how people are gonna find campgrounds in the future by asking a question.

It’s gonna be the same way with RV dealers. And so RV dealers are gonna need to be more cognizant of their SEO and how they’re perceived online and where they’re listed, because there’s gonna be an answer to these questions now instead of a list of things. So if we look at I need to buy a new class, a motor home.

What are some RV dealers near me in Eleanor? What city are you in? Richmond, Vancouver. Vancouver. I can visit.

I found some Rdv dealers near you in Vancouver that sell Class A motor homes. Here are some of them big [00:53:00] boys toys, a local family owned RV dealership that offers an extensive selection of new and used fifth wheels travel trailers, campers, and motor homes. They are Vancouver Island’s exclusive jco, RV, dealer Hub, city RV Travel and RV.

Do you have a specific budget or preference for your class A motor homes? So you can see now the instant problem that we see here is what if I’m not one of those three people? 

Shane: And two of those three people I don’t think sell Class A motor 

Eleonore: homes. I know Hub City does not and they’re on the island, I guess they’re geographically.

Cara: So this is who gets to decide what is the one right answer, right? And my concern is that they’re going, someone somewhere is going to be, have enough ingenuity to monetize that. And so the guy with the one answer is going to be the guy with the biggest pocket. 

Brian: . I would agree with that. But I think a large part of what answer it provides is how well dealers do SEO in this specific example.

What information is on my website, what am I providing there, what questions am I answering? All those kinds of things. I think that’s, [00:54:00] it’s, I think it’s just much more critical because you’re gonna want to appear in an answer to 500 questions instead of targeting a single keyword. 

Cara: But if you view this through the eyes of the consumer who’s using this tool, and two of the three options it gave you were lies , wouldn’t you stop using the tool?

I’m not gonna use that tool. . 

Brian: How does being know that if these dealerships don’t provide that information on their website, that’s my entire is 

Cara: the tool has to be useful and it’s reliant on the data that’s existing out there in the world. And the data world is so fragmented.

I used to own a Campground. There was 47,000 places where my Campground was listed and some of those sites said I had a water slide and a lake and a fishing pond. I didn’t have any of that crap and there was no possible way I could contact every one of those people who were monitoring those listing sites to go through and verify and vet all of the data listed in all of those places.

Brian: It the tool. I agree with that and I know where you’re going with this, but I would also [00:55:00] say that it’s cited right here, so you can click and link through. To their website and you can here’s Class A on their website. So somebody said it didn’t sell ’em, but here’s Class A. 

Shane: No, that’s a one guy. Which guy’s 

Eleonore: that’s big boys toys, right? 

Shane: Oh, that’s big boys toys. We, what was the other one that we said? But 

Eleonore: Hub City, 

Brian: no, this is Hub City. This is Hub City’s website right here. Hub City RV ca right here. Class A. 

Cara: So for me the concern with this is it’s level of accuracy is going to. Impact how much It’s used 

Shane: by 2002. Trade one . Yeah. 

Brian: But still, but it’s also, it’s not wrong though, right? Like it’s not what most people would want, but it’s also not wrong, right? Landscape. 

Cara: I my point is just that in order for it to be a more efficient tool than what we already have in terms of Google the single or minimal answers it’s gonna give us need to be incredibly accurate.

And the ability to control that information [00:56:00] is, Mindblowingly, difficult to do. Like I said, from a Campground owner’s perspective, there’s data managed and created and poofed out of thin air all over the world about every property. . 

Brian: We gotta unpack this another time because these wonderful people who are on our show, we’re already two minutes over.

But it’s that for right to spend a few seconds at the end of each show, talking about the possibilities, unpacking them little by little, looking at the advantages and disadvantages and how do we make it better and how do we pay attention to it. Super appreciative of all of you guys. Joining us again for our fourth week RV Industry episode.

Chris, thank you taking the time to explain o r to us, all the benefits. We can get more involved. Very appreciative of that. Love to have you, Jessica, or somebody else from your organization on Be, once in a while if you’d like to come touch base with us. Brian, Searl, sorry we didn’t get to answer your question, but really appreciative of you joining us.

And we’ll put together a whole vanlife for episode and then always as Shane, Eleanor, Susan Cara. Thank you for contributing to the show and we will see you all next week. Take care guys. 

Shane: Thanks, Brian. Thank you. [00:57:00] See you everybody.