MC Fireside Chats – February 7th, 2024

This is MC Fireside Chats, a weekly show featuring conversations with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and outdoor hospitality experts who share their insights to help your business succeed. Hosted by Brian Searle, the founder and CEO of Insider Parts, empowered by insights from modern campgrounds, the most innovative news source in the industry.

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl with [00:01:00] Insider Perks. Super excited to be here with you for our first episode of the week, bringing together a bunch of industry leaders here to talk about all kinds of different things. I’m here too, and Mike Harrison from CRR Hospitality, Scott Bahr from Cairn Consulting Group.

I almost said Karn. Why did I do that, Scott? It’s terrible. I know what that is. Anyway, I caught myself fast enough. Mark Koep from Campground Views, who is playing his crash in the middle of nowhere, and Sandy Ellingson, who we don’t know. It just happened to Sandy. She just disappeared. Maybe 

Mike Harrison: I barely heard doorbell just rang I 

Brian Searl: Like I almost offend somebody. Every week of the episode, they drop off and then they reconnect and it’s all it was Mike one week and I don’t know. Scott’s the only one that’s gotten offended yet. It’s your turn next month, Scott. 

Scott Bahr: I’m sure it’s there. It’s just waiting.

Brian Searl: It must be there. Yeah, for sure. I’m trying really hard over here. And then Sandy Ellingson from wherever Sandy Ellingson is from, you really need the company name. It would really 

Sandy Ellingson: I’ll have one and we can announce it on the next show. 

Brian Searl: Thank you. The only purpose that it exists, it needs to exist, is so I can intro you and not stumble over the fact that I don’t know where to [00:02:00] say you’re from.

Sandy Ellingson: I do have a company that’s just my, it’s just my name, but I’m being forced to expand, so I’m gonna have a real name instead of just my name. Name. 

Mark Koep: Ooh, that’s she went off screen to talk to her hostage holders there. 

Sandy Ellingson: No, the phone was ringing and I was really embarrassed. I had to get up to go over there and then mute it.

Brian Searl: Awesome guys. All right, let’s dive into some conversations here. I think we wanna start with the fact that Mark and Mike were both at the recent Carolinas Convention conference. Expo show that I’ve heard was amazing and obviously we knew it would be ’cause he and the whole board is running the show there, which I’ve always done an amazing job.

But tell us about what your experiences were there guys. 

Mark Koep: Yep. Mike, you wanna lead or you want me to lead? 

Mike Harrison: Sure. No, I think obviously Dee is so plugged in and passionate about not just the industry, but obviously her association. And I think the local community and the [00:03:00] Carolinas is very passionate takes pride in their campground and our view parks and outdoor hospitality in general.

Mark also led a session and, there’s odds on Vegas if his predictions come true or not. This time 

Brian Searl: where was his predictions? We gotta figure that out in a second, but continue. 

Mike Harrison: I’m sure Mark will get to that. But there was the largest vendor show, largest, participation they ever had.

They had a block of a hundred and something rooms, they went up to 270 rooms in their block. So it’s just a great gathering and community vendors and campground owners and managers. 

Mark Koep: Awesome. Yeah I’ll echo what Mike said. It was a really good turnout and for me it was a unique experience just on a personal level.

’cause the last time I was at the show was exactly four years ago, which was, three weeks before all the Covid stuff. And and at that event four years ago, I was literally given the same topic, what’s gonna happen over the next 12 to 24 months. The odds Mike is talking about is that I strongly suggest, if you think history repeats itself, that you, in [00:04:00] short the entire stock market on March 12th, 2024, and see if you don’t hit the lottery with a massive crash for whatever reason’s gonna happen.

But overall the attendance is great. The park owners here, they’ve got a real community and they’re really engaged. Not saying that the other states don’t, but this. The Carolinas really got something special going on here. They’ve got a wide mix from, I’m currently at Myrtle Beach Travel Park, which is one of the mega parks.

You’ve got Ocean Lakes and Lakewood and a bunch of these other mega parks here, but you’ve also got a lot of, being North Carolina, South Carolina, you’ve got a lot of new developers building parks in this region. So there’s just a lot of activity here, which brings the excitement, the interest, and great conversation.

So it was a really fun event. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Glad to hear it. So what did you talk about, Mark? What did you cover? 

Mark Koep: Literally my topic was what’s gonna happen over the next 12 to 24 months. And I pre-faced it with that background that four years ago I had the same topic. And I discussed how the industry trends were amazing.

Our industry was gonna continue to grow. And then obviously three weeks later all the Kovat stuff happened. But then, but you were right. [00:05:00] Boy. And that’s the point is then we accelerated. And what happened during Covid is we basically and my belief is we basically cannibalized about 10 years of growth into a short two-year period.

Now our industry’s gonna continue to tread along, but the biggest change is, more macro factors, interest rates, inflation, stuff like that’s gonna affect travel trends. And I’ll be real, this is an election year and after the last, after the previous election year, what we’re seeing trend-wise, and I can’t wait for the North American camping report on this one, but what we’re hearing from campers out there is that they’re gonna camp, but they’re just not going on a thousand mile trip.

They’re gonna stay with the gap in the home in case the shit hits panic again. That’s the big thing we’re seeing this year trend-wise, is that if we’re in camp, they’re just not gonna go on these epic journeys. And that’s in general, right? Epic journeys, but not 

Brian Searl: in the volume. You’re breaking up a little bit.

I don’t know if it’s just your mic is a little bit low. You’re fine there for a second, but, okay. Can you hear me 

Mark Koep: now? That’s better. Yeah. Yeah. So I dunno what you what cut out there. But [00:06:00] overall, this is going to be an interesting year. It’s gonna be a dynamic year. My biggest worry in making any sort of prediction over the next 12 months, I didn’t even go into twenty-four.

’cause who knows the next 12 months is who knows what’s gonna happen, right? I think we’re all just preparing for whatever the next crisis is and how does that affect travel. Last year we had high fuel prices this year, who knows, right? So as long as we don’t have any major crises, it’s gonna be a good year for the camping industry and we obviously have a lot of interest.

And the thing I walked away from, and I wanna bounce this off Mike to see if he agrees, is when you look at commercial real estate, like I, I obviously follow it’s not obvious I follow commercial real estate on like office space and apartment buildings and stuff like that. And I watch their trends and even Airbnb’s and all of those verticals are seeing significant challenges to returns on investment and so forth.

But when you look at our category of commercial real estate. Not necessarily, although the key difference being is that you can’t just buy this like a storage facility, put up some cameras and run it. These businesses actually require operations and marketing. And so that little piece there is what [00:07:00] makes our industry both dynamic challenging and something that’s just not turnkey.

And so my other kind of prediction in there is that we had a lot of corporate buyers jump in, hey, they know better than everybody else and they’re running these parks and all of a sudden those numbers are changing on them. So it’ll be interesting to see what those entities do. Do they get professionals to operate their parks or do they liquidate their holdings?

There’s been some of those that have happened already and if they choose that ladder liquidating their holdings, how does it affect the value of the other parks in the area and so forth. 

Mike Harrison: Yeah, and I think so much of who we’re talking to are new investors into the space. And to your point mark, it is Multifamily residential hospitality groups.

That are coming in, and most of them that I’m talking to know, they don’t know what they don’t know. That they know that they don’t know. And they’re talking to professional management company like CRR Hospitality we’re connecting them with feasibility [00:08:00] consultants and marketing groups and, because they understand it’s a completely different vertical than commercial or multifamily or whatnot.

I think, the interest environment and the capital environment changed considerably. So that will slow down some of it. And I think it’ll also, we’ll also see, I think some transaction volume just based on, there was so much buying and building over the last two years, and who knows what happened with people’s debts or loans and, Oops, I ran outta money, it didn’t open on time and now I gotta figure out what I’m gonna do.

So we’ll see how that all plays out. But yes, CRR hospitality we’re getting. Most of our calls are from the new investors into the space who are exactly the people you just spoke about, Mark. They’ve had a lot of success in commercial or whatever vertical they’re in, and they wanna put their money into, a stable IRF.

What we’re having to do is train them, I think, or educate, a lot of the numbers that they’re looking at are from not necessarily transient parks, which is what they’re looking to build. The numbers they’re looking at are from long-term [00:09:00] ELS on publicly traded companies, which are fifty-year parks that, people 98% occupancy by, which are not transient parks.

So it’s a very different model. Different IRR is different operating, different delivery, different management. And so that’s some of the gap I think that we’re clearly seeing is what they’re investing and thinking it is. And what they want to do is different than what they think they’re investing in. If that’s what we’re seeing. 

Sandy Ellingson: Yeah, I’m seeing a lot of the same thing, Mike. I have people call me, I’ve had two recently that were coming from the commercial real estate property where they’ve been building strip malls and you build one strip mall, you’ve built a, they’re all very similar. And so they’re going and collecting information that they can find themselves on parks, like how many licenses have been pulled and who’s building them and all of that.

And they take that and they assume that every park is a cookie cutter. And then they start making plans based off of those numbers. Or they decide not to build in a location because somebody else is already building. And then [00:10:00] they find out this is a fifty-five plus park. It would’ve never impacted them or vice versa.

So I’m seeing a lot of that happen still. 

Brian Searl: Is there Scott, data that is available to help guide these new entrants into the market? 

Scott Bahr: There will be pretty soon, but one of the things that we’ve been. Some of this stuff we’ve been tracking on a monthly basis through the, our monthly research, looking at participation, we’ve been kinda looking at the look forward a little bit as well.

To hit upon Mark’s point from earlier, one of the things we know, and I’ve done this just looking into the data from other resources, is that in election years and times of major disruption, we know that campaign increases. It does. And we would anticipate that in this election year, it’ll be very contentious.

Really stressful for a lot of people. I talk about stress a lot. Anyone who talks to me know I always talk about this, even if it’s low [00:11:00] level, people wanna relieve that stress a little bit. They get outdoors. Past research by some hotel groups. I think Mike, we’ve talked about this maybe before too, that sometimes luxury travel suffers a little bit in these years.

But, I also feel like we’ve had had pretty good in the luxury travel sector with glamping and that in-between phase. We’ve brought in so many of those new people. I feel like we might buck that trend a little bit this year, but I’m I would say I’m cautiously optimistic about this coming year.

I feel and I think, mark, you may have said, again, alluded to this a little bit too, that what we’re gonna see is that if you pulled out, 2020 through 2022, and look at the trend lines, it’s a fairly steady trend line. The growth is right where you would expect it to be, had that not occurred.

And I think that’s what, we’ve, like I said, we’ve seen it in our monthly research. I. And I just, I feel [00:12:00] like this is where we’re heading. It’s manageable growth. I think it’s gonna be solid, but it’s just not gonna be explosive and certain sectors will thrive over others. Yeah. 

Sandy Ellingson: Scott, have you noticed the increase in the number of articles that are out there about BLM land and some of the state and federal parks and how they’re looking at completely shutting down camping on the BLM land?

And I wonder how that could also impact, if that comes to fruition, what’s happening in some of our private parks? 

Scott Bahr: It will it, it will push a lot more people into the private parks. There’s no doubt about that. I think that the areas that get closed off my, I’ve heard there’s gonna be some potential for permitting that you can’t just kinda show up.

Some areas have just been overused it’s. I personally, I just think it’s gonna eventually change, so it’s not just gonna be all free that there’s gonna be some sort of process to access those lands, but it will push those people to other [00:13:00] areas, whether it’s private parks, private land those alternatives.

And it, yeah, we’ll see a, there’s a lot of people out there. Utilizing that. We’ve been tracking that and it’s increased every year, the usage of both public and private lands. 

Mark Koep: In fact, Kaylee, there was like an interim report that came out here a couple weeks ago, and I was looking at that data on one of the, one of the key points that kind of struck me.

And I, I think it was that report, but it talked about, or it pointed out the data of people using alternative camping, I think is what it called it, or alternative styles and just the growth trend there. And it actually showed that private RV parks overall as a percentage were down ’cause people were staying up more of these alternatives.

And so on our end we took a long look at Airbnb and Harvest host, ’cause obviously two big names. And and both names could potentially anger like an RV partner. When they even hear me say them I argued that Harvest host like I can, I just, I got lost. 

Brian Searl: Okay. I wasn’t sure if it was me or not. [00:14:00] All right. Mark has apparently lost communication with us from his downed plane position. 

Mark Koep: He’s sinking into the water back.

Brian Searl: Yeah. Hopefully we’ll be able to get rescue crews to him in time for him to come back. But in the meantime, he 

Scott Bahr: was talking about those alternative locations. I’ll, I can pick up on that just a little bit. That we are seeing a growth in those areas and people seeing those as alternatives, whether it’s the Harvest hosts, the hip camp is another listing like Airbnb and that’s, it’s picking up a lot of that slack and it’s, those are our growth sectors right now.

And in some areas, for example, living in the Northeast, I live living in Maine. We don’t have the BLM land, so it’s, but there’s a lot of private land. It’s very rural. You see a lot of people embracing that opportunity, 

Brian Searl: right? So this is what I think I think the growth and actually lemme let Mark finish his thought first.

Mark Koep: He’s back where’d I get cut off at there? [00:15:00] 

Mike Harrison: You’re talking about the Carolina conference and you just came back.

Mark Koep: That’s amazing. Oh lemme start over the thought then. So we took a long look at Airbnb and Harvest Hosts and what we see is not Airbnb HipCamp, and that actually was a Freudian slip that’s almost accurate with HipCamp. Hipcamp has done a really good job of attracting and drawing in non-campers into these locations.

These are folks that would not normally camp at all, if anywhere, and they’ve done a really good job of building a market around that with these alternative accommodations. Whereas Harvest Hosts has basically given folks a better, opport, better option than a truck stop or a Walmart for an overnight stay.

What I like about the Harvest Hosts model is there’s that expectation that you’re gonna buy a bottle of wine, you’re gonna buy something from the place that you’re staying at, so they’re actually putting a monetary value on that free night’s stay. I’m a resident of Wyoming and in Wyoming, there’s a big fight right now a BLM management group down in the south.

Central part of the state has an [00:16:00] active proposal out right now that they went to public comment and did not accept any public comments which was weird. And their basic, what they want to do is they want to completely shut down all access by anybody to this Bureau of land management lands.

And so there’s just some overall macro factors that affects that boondocking space. The danger there is that our industry and I obviously take an argument on this if somebody disagrees with me, but our industry’s gateway drug is public parks. People start out camping in national parks for service, state parks and the like.

And if access to those is limited or potentially limited in perception, that will affect people’s. Ideas, makeups and thoughts about buying RVs and going camping. Because a lot of folks, and you can see this on the RV manufacturer side, when they advertise and we all chuckle at it ’cause we’re in the industry, when they advertise the purchase of a fifth wheel, you’ll see the photo and it’s the fifth wheel in an open prairie next to a creek.

And the kids are [00:17:00] running free. It’s public land 

Brian Searl: does this in all their commercials. 

Mark Koep: Exactly. And so they’re selling, they sell that concept. Now, I’m not saying that’s what, how people are gonna use it, but when you’re selling something, you’re setting a perception on how people are gonna use it.

And so we do see that in the data trends that people gateway into Our industry starts at the public parks, they go there, they realize that toilet suck and it’s smoky and they’re like, man, I wish we had hookups and a Wi-Fi in a nice setting. And then that’s when they start setting it, jumping into the private.

Wanna you, 

Brian Searl: I think Mike is gonna disagree with you in a second. But I just wanted to say, I think there’s a different aspect to public parks. I think state parks are not gonna be limited. I think it’s BLM land. So that’s you’re right’s. 

Mike Harrison: Exactly. A little bit, but not as. Exactly. What I was gonna say is BLM is different than public parks, blm that’s what I did. I had my truck, I offer, I dump in the middle of nowhere and that’s what I love. But I also did public parks and I think. And Scott, can obviously weigh in too. If you look at, whatever, it’s 70% of new campers are under 40 years old.

The new [00:18:00] campers are not BLM land campers. These are the people that all, thought the industry was sexy and, if wanted something to do and bought the campers and they’re not dropping out in the middle of nowhere. They don’t even know how to hook up their rig. They’re going to RV parks and resorts and campgrounds and 

Brian Searl: I don’t know about that.

Mark Koep: Yeah, I’ll actually counter that. ’cause that’s actually the underlying problem on why these lands are being shut down is a lot of the folks during Covid who had never camped before followed a lot of influencers who boondocked. And so they bought these RVs and they headed out to public lands and then they started cutting tree limbs, off trees, leaving trash anywhere.

’cause they weren’t active campers. They didn’t know how to treat those lands. So that’s actually the core problem with a lot of these free places to camp. 

Mike Harrison: It’d be interesting if Scott can get that on that, because it’d be just I don’t know. Yeah. And. 

Mark Koep: We’re all, there’s actually, I’m sorry, I don’t mean there’s a data point on it.

Shasta National Forest. During Covid, during the Covid period, they were the first to actively shut down all dispersed camping within the Forest Service lands around Shasta Lake, and then that Shasta National Forest specifically because of all these campers that had, [00:19:00] were coming in and using those dispersed lands.

Brian Searl: Okay. So Mark is blaming influencers. Scott, what’s the data?

Scott Bahr: I’m not gonna blame anyone. I, I might a little bit, I might throw a couple bombs out there. No what happened is the, there, there were just so many newbies out there. It was opportunity. They, it was glamorized. They don’t know what they’re doing. They go out there and I’ve spoken to the public lands people and they say that they’ve.

It’s such a problem. It is such a problem. The trashing of the areas is just drive through, the Southwest. When I was out in Utah at the conference I went, I always talked to the Rangers and the people who manage the land. So they’re like these areas, we are literally just having to close ’em off because even with, without permission from above, because they’re like we can’t see that this happening.

I feel like the industry overall is starting to do a better job on educating a little bit. There’s a lot more [00:20:00] of, especially the aftermarket and providing the gear and the, the amenities for people to do it the right way. It’s still a big problem. One of the things that we know is that the people who started during the Covid years, we’ll call ’em now those people lacked knowledge that it’s still obvious.

With that group. We’ve, because we’ve been tracking them and we have some measurements when we ask people their ability to perform certain tasks, basic tasks, even not even studying up the RV, but like building the fire and being able to prepare a meal or whatever. And the people who started during Covid are the worst at it.

Far, far and away, even on the people who just started in the last year. It’s, it, so it’s a real thing. ’cause so many people went out there they left the lots in their RVs and had no idea what they were doing. I’m sure the people at, on the ground that the campgrounds could tell a million stories.

Mike Harrison: It’s, there’s a difference between the [00:21:00] people who needed to escape covid and, went to the middle of nowhere and the people who wanted to take up, the camping lifestyle. I think, because I think you can see it both in the boondocking as well as the campgrounds. That’s why the whole industry exploded, right?

Yeah. Yep. And eh we’re pontificating and speculating. This would be I’d love this topic for research. I’d love to see more specific data points on these, 70% of new people, what are they doing, where are they going? 

Brian Searl: We are coincidentally and I are looking for a $50,000 sponsor from CRR Hospitality to do that research. If you, well, 

Mike Harrison: research probably won’t get done then. 

Sandy Ellingson: Yeah. That’s exactly where I was gonna microscope is that I believe that during the covid years, it’s because the motivation was to get out and get away from being trapped. It wasn’t to go camping, it was to escape. Where traditionally people start watching people camp or doing something, and so their motivation is, I’d like to try out [00:22:00] camping.

And they’ve either seen the commercial or talked to somebody who’s already camping and they have a way in. But I do believe too that the answer to all of this is education. And I think finding all the different technology people that are working in this industry and getting us to agree on certain core pieces is the beginning.

Because I think we need to settle on the definitions of campgrounds, right? Is it a campground? Is it an RV resort? Is it an RV park? We use such different terminology. It was all used however you wanted to use it when a lot of the parks were built. So they’re not going to change their name.

So how do we facilitate helping to identify the type of a park? Koa kinda started out doing a great job, and I love what Toby did when she divided her parks into three types, and she called ’em the journey and the holiday. That kind of explains. What you can expect when you [00:23:00] get to those parks.

But the still, that whole new group of campers, to them a campground is a campground. And so when they drive into one, which is really not a resort, and it’s not even a campground, it’s a place for you to stop overnight. And it’s just a big parking lot. Their expectation is not what they think and not what it should be.

And so they think all parks might be like this. So that’s a passion of mine is to try and help find ways to educate through the technology and the things that we already have the campus that are camping. 

Brian Searl: You know how like great devil’s advocate when you say anything, right? Sandy? Just ’cause I like it.

Sandy Ellingson: No, I love it, Brian. That’s why I’m here. 

Brian Searl: Shit. Once in a while can I say, shit, this isn’t broadcast. So I have a thing, right? So for one, I don’t, I think this, it was predating Toby, A CEO. Which is fine, like Toby’s. Oh, really? Okay. Great. Hand in it with marketing and all that stuff. So I’m not discounting Toby’s involvement, but just to say that.

And then two, I think the model, [00:24:00] from what I heard originally was built off of best Western’s model, is what I heard. Which Best Western did a pretty decent job with, but I’m still not sold on the fat. Decent was what they wanted to accomplish their goals with. Not decent, maybe overall. But I and maybe Mike, you wanna shed some light on that?

You come from the hotel background. But I think, I don’t know that the definition is the thing I think still, like if you, if there’s people who go to Best Western’s, they’re just checking into a hotel, I don’t know that they pay that much attention other than the higher-end resorts. 

Mike Harrison: Yeah. Best Western had tried to do that, but look where Best Western is in the pecking order of hotel chains.

It was confusing for the customer. And, Marriott was really the first to, to understand how to separate their brands. So people could understand and there’s still confusion and there will always be confusion, right? What’s it between a full-service hotel and a select service hotel, right?

You get a Courtyard hotel that has a restaurant called the beach or a town place, sweets. Maybe you get free breakfast and Mary, you [00:25:00] get full-service restaurant. Oh, I thought I got breakfast included. All the hotels still have that same confusion too, except for, experienced travelers if your first time.

So yes, and I think it is education, but there’s going to continue to be some confusion for the casual traveler. Brian, I just went on Bard just for fun while we were talking. ’cause you keep telling me to enhance my 

Brian Searl: It’s not even named board anymore, it’s gonna be renamed Gemini. So anyway, it is.

Mike Harrison: And I asked what the difference between a campground, an RV park, an RV Resort, and a glamping property were and so no, it gave a pretty good answer. According to Bard. The options, the differences lie in the level of amenities, comfort, and price, which I think is how everybody would define it, right?

A campground focus offers a basic outdoor experience and catering to both tent, campers and RVs. And it goes through some amenities sites, blah, blah, blah. RV Park is focused, geared towards RVs, offering more hookups, sewer, cable, Wi-Fi. Amenities more than campgrounds often include playgrounds. Some other amenities resort [00:26:00] focuses, offers a luxurious resort-style experience for RVs, no, no tents and a glamping combines luxury with camping and unique accommodations like pre, that’s pretty, it’s pretty good way to define it.

And 

Brian Searl: I think part of what Sandy is saying is that the problem is with the owners mislabeling their own parks. 

Sandy Ellingson: Yes. And 

Brian Searl: I think that’s maybe a smaller segment than we, and I think they quickly get it right. I think the message of the consumer quickly teaches them a lesson that they’ve mislabeled their park in most cases.

Sandy Ellingson: Yeah, that’s absolutely. But I also think there’s two more categories that we need to add to that, which are the most critical when it comes to both the consumer as well as analysis that we may wanna do because I think that 55 plus parks belong in their own category. And then I also think that long-term stay parks which I call neighborhoods when I’m being nice if you are living there and your wheels haven’t turned for 10 years, you are not a [00:27:00] campground.

You are not even an RV park. You are a mobile home park. And if you suddenly find out 

Brian Searl: trailer park like again, trailer park is not a bad word, except in the United, 

Sandy Ellingson: no it’s not. And that’s why I said mobile home park, because RVs are mobile homes. That’s true. That’s true. But these, if you look at all of the sites that are licensed as an RV park in the United States, it includes all of those types.

So then if you start trying to do the analysis of do we have enough sites to campers you’re doing the results aren’t correct ’cause you’ve gotta remove those parks that are long-term stay, and those parks that are fifty-five plus because they’re so restrictive. And then just try and look at it to compare it that way.

And that was one of the biggest problems I think we had during Covid was we had a lot of new people camping. We had a lot of parks that weren’t representing themselves well. We also made it very difficult to find a lot of parks digitally. And that was, they were [00:28:00] very, the covid campers were very digital savvy.

And we had some parks who suddenly had two sites available in a long term stay park and realized people were getting a hundred bucks a night. So they now put them up and said, Hey, come stay with us. We’re a campground. And so we had these new people pulled into these long-term stay parks that were really neighborhoods.

They were not campers, it was not the experience they looked for. And so they said, I don’t know why I did this. So then they went and trashed BLM land. 

Mark Koep: Yeah, the challenge with setting category zone, this was the ex, the experience of the national association when they did this, is that those words mean something, right?

A mobile home park means something when it comes to local. 

Brian Searl: Let’s talk about that briefly, mark. I’m gonna disconnect. 

Mark Koep: Okay. 

Brian Searl: He didn’t get the, he didn’t get the reference to yeah. The, oh, I thing in the report. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry. 

Mark Koep: No, I guess I missed it now. When you talk about a mobile home park, there’s a specific definition under law in many states, or fifty-five plus community in, [00:29:00] in states like Florida, in Arizona, a specific meaning in law.

So you’re never going, I understand from a, from an aggregating standpoint and a search engine standpoint, it’s one thing, but on like the ground level, making parts, define themselves more clearly, they gonna happen. I gave up. 

Mike Harrison: I don’t know that it’s that big of deal. 

Sandy Ellingson: Sorry. 

Mike Harrison: Yeah, I’m sorry. What’s the difference between a hotel and motel and a resort? There’s adult-only resorts. There’s long-term hotels, like a residence in where people are staying there for four years. There’s, I just don’t know that it’s that Yeah. Impactful, for what difference is it gonna make if somebody searches?

It just costs me more money in search, or I have to put RV Parks or RV campgrounds 

Mark Koep: Or resorts. What we and what we know from general consumer search, and this is generalities, right? This isn’t specifics. We’re talking in generalities. Somebody has an idea of where they wanna go.

So they start their search there. I’m looking for an RV park near Yellowstone or whatnot, and then they start filtering through those results. Primarily, the first decision criteria is [00:30:00] price. Is this in my price zone or not? And if it is, then they dive into the amenities, the features, and then they go into the booking process.

That’s the general flow of somebody. Booking a campsite or trying to find a campsite. The biggest trend on the BLM sides and the dispersed camping is there’s actually and Sandy. You and I both know this ’cause we’ve interacted with this community within an Escapees and FMCA.

There’s a large number of folks that are full-time RVers, where saving 10 bucks a night or even not paying for a campsite at all means thousands of dollars in the end of the year in their pocket. ’cause they’re getting a free campsite. And I’m not saying that’s negative or positive, I’m just saying it is what it is.

And so with the number of people that came in, into the industry under Covid, it, this is just an umbrella. We had so many millions more campers that it affected everybody. It affected the RV resorts, the BLM lands and everything else. And when we look at. post-COVID, the big trend we took away, and I think it’s amazing for our industry is overall all these Kovac campers, they’re here to stay.

They’re not selling their RVs. They’re not leaving at least not yet. Right? And so that’s a testament [00:31:00] to the industry that we’ve got this growth, and now it’s just a matter of how do we manage that going forward and continue growing it so forth. Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. That, Scott, you’ve been quiet.

Scott Bahr: Well, the Kobe campers will be it is a group we’ve been tracking. We feel that there’s potential, there was potential for Drop-off, but they’ll, even those who, you know, one of the things we tracked people change on their travel habits a little bit. A lot of people had the desire to travel how they did prior to Kovat.

Once they come back, we will be, again, we’ll be in that, that managed growth phase again. They’ll come back, they it’s rare. I feel that if someone, takes a year off that they don’t come back and try it again. Especially if they have skin in the game, like buying an RV. Yeah. That’s obviously major skin in the game, but even we also know that just buying basic camping gear, whether, tents and sleeping bags gets people back.

And most people do that, so it’s yeah, they’ll be back. I feel like [00:32:00] everybody will be back. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. The whole growth story is really interesting to me too. Like obviously everything that you guys are saying I think is true and I agree with that. Growth is gonna slow down from what it was over the last few years, but I also think case by case, there are literally thousands of parks that still have an opportunity to grow 300, 400, 500 x by even like doing an SEO content out of their home page, which takes five minutes.

And so I think it’s, and again, it’s area-specific with BLM land, but it’s marketing. It’s, and I think a lot of these people don’t even see that, which is why I think that even if the demand for camping dips a little bit, the people who are at least posting on Facebook are gonna be fine. 

Scott Bahr: One of the things to keep in mind too, even if people are out there boondocking and looking at the dispersed areas and so on, at some point in their travels, they want to hook up.

Yeah. [00:33:00] They need the hookups at some point, and they do seek those out. 

Mark Koep: For a second, I thought you’re like gonna do a Tinder site for campers or something like that. 

Scott Bahr: After I said that, I was like, I wanted to keep moving with my my sentence. ’cause I’m like, yeah, that, that didn’t sound good. But yeah, they are looking for places to hook their RV up to.

 So e especially if they’ve been out in, regardless of how long it’s been, they do. So it’s, again, it’s that opportunity that people are still gonna go to the private parks. They’re still, they still need that. And by the way, there’s still a solid core of people out there who are, the only place they will stay is if at a campground or RV park that has a lot of services in.

It’s their choice. Wait, 

Mark Koep: a lot of them that’s us. We did that. We only boondocked once when we were full-time for 12 years. We always stay in campgrounds and RV parks because we want the amenities, we want plug in. We want the Wi-Fi, we want the pool, we want all that stuff. And what’s ties into that is I’m currently here at Myrtle Beach.

I’m staying at the Myrtle Beach [00:34:00] travel park. And when we were heading here, because I was here four years ago in my RV, or five years ago in my RV, Myrtle Beach was not a well-known location for winter camping. So we would have the park to ourself. And so we came in expecting we’d have this to ourselves.

And if I were to turn my camera around, you would see that this park is probably Eighty-five percent full right now with winter campers. Mostly the. Primarily full-time RVers who have moved out of Florida into this area because of prices and demand for parks in Florida. And that to me says a lot.

Which number one, next, I’m going down to Joanne’s Show in Orlando. I’m gonna have a challenge finding a site as I go down that way. It also shows you the overall growth of our industry. The fact that there are so many people that just to get sites, they’re now moving up into the Northern states during the winter time.

Sandy Ellingson: Mark, if you’re gonna be in Central Florida, a work to recommend. 

Brian Searl: Okay. Is there data on how many people just wanted to leave Florida? ’cause it was maybe look weird. 

Mark Koep: I don’t [00:35:00] know. 

Brian Searl: I’m not saying that Florida’s weird. I’m just asking if there’s data to be clear. 

Mark Koep: Yeah, there’s no data. There’s anecdotal and it’s mostly price.

Again, like I said, people look for location, then price primarily in general service. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. And Florida’s over-saturated and Florida’s Price has been driven up and all that. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mark Koep: Yep. Exactly. 

Brian Searl: All let’s, Scott, let’s flip to reports for a second. I know we said in the beginning I was gonna talk a little bit about the reviews, but I think maybe we should just preview a little bit what’s gonna come out, hopefully tomorrow, if I can hold up my end of the bargain.

Do you wanna talk a little bit about what what we’ve got going on? No. Give away too many secrets. But

Scott Bahr: I won’t. But we will have to a little bit anyway, just to keep it interesting. 

Brian Searl: Nobody watches to show anyway. It’s fine. 

Scott Bahr: The whole idea of the next iteration is events, celebrations and such at Camp, Ronson, RV, parks and Resorts.

I’ll use all three terms to cap, try to capture everyone. But the whole idea is, we, the question we ask is. Are people, how many people are doing this? Is do guests seek these out? [00:36:00] And is it worth the time and effort and cost to host special events and promotions at your campground?

And so that was the genesis of this report. And we went out, we talked to a lot of campground owners, we did a lot of interviews. We looked at guest data too. We’ve tapped into a couple different resources on this and, kinda looking at participation and it’s really interesting to see.

I’m always I, I love the fact that the park owners and managers get creative with their events and do different things. And I would say I. Overall, just to cut to the end of it. In general the reception to our, this idea is that yes it’s a good idea. It’s worthwhile and we give a lot of the detail in there of kind of how to approach it the pros, the cons of considering it and what type.

But it’s, I think it’s a great topic to think about. It helps campgrounds and parks promote themselves. It helps engage people and [00:37:00] kinda looking, there’s things like, community partnering and all, there’s a lot to it and a lot to consider. And that’s what we did with this report.

And I think a as people go through it and digest some of this, they can, they’ll, see some ideas and get creative. I, again I like the creative ideas. I like when people, create events around what they have. In their area. For example, here in, in Maine, people do things like fishing derbies, if they’re on a lake, people come there and they, it’s just a fun thing to do.

Or, they’ll do, other sorts of canoe and kayak races and just stuff with, the kids on site to keep people active so they’re not bored. Boredom is the killer. And yeah, it’s, I think it’s a great topic and we get into the weeds on it as we always do. 

Mike Harrison: When does that come out, Scott?

Scott Bahr: I think Brian tomorrow. 

Brian Searl: Hopefully. Hopefully tomorrow. Yeah. It’s just waiting on me to do some polishes and some of the blog posts. 

Mike Harrison: Why don’t you reach out to us? We give great feedback. We have, that’s key to our success is that exact [00:38:00] topic. Events and, 

Brian Searl: We’re trying, what we’re trying to do in the future is we’re trying to put together a kind of a list of parks that we can have as a data set to not always go to, but to have in our library. Obviously we’ve talked to a lot of great parks, I think as part of this, but there’s a, I think there’s a need Scott, to have different types of data set or a larger data set where we can pick and choose from in the future.

Scott Bahr: But yes, Mike, you would be a great resource and I’ll be really interested to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you. Thank you. I’m sorry I apologize. We, I, we should have, I should have reached out. 

Mike Harrison: I’m super interested. I’m like, my gosh, this is like right up our wheelhouse. I was, I didn’t mean to come across a taking offense.

I was surprised to hear that. That’s a topic that I love, we’re passionate about. It’s awesome. 

Scott Bahr: That’s, it’s interesting you say that, Mike. ’cause that’s what we found on our end was that when we talk to people they’re in, they would talk all day about this topic. Some folks would, and there’s a lot of enthusiasm around.

It gives, yeah there’s a lot to it. And that it. It seems to be a lot of fun for people too. Oh, [00:39:00] Tyler 

Mike Harrison: Watts did a whole session on his campground at one small Campground of the year, broad River in North Carolina there. And, he started out with 16 sites and a couple glamping options and just what he’s done there is all based on activities and programming and marketing.

And they have 11,000 followers on their page. And they’re a smaller campground. They’ve done them and it’s really all driven by their activities. If you look at their Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, it is exactly what you’re describing. And 

Sandy Ellingson: this is this, I think this is proving out what we’ve been talking about for several months about the rise of experiential camping and people talking about 2024 is gonna be the year of experiential camping.

This all plays right into that. 

Mark Koep: Yeah. Marcia with Riverwalk and Yeah. Can, she uses events and the thing about events, and I’m sure your report’s gonna show it, is it’s. And Brian knows this inherently as a marketer, having something to talk about when you’re promoting a location is incredibly [00:40:00] valuable.

’cause now you’re not just talking about go camping you’re talking about go camping ’cause we’re gonna have food trucks and a band. You’re able to actually start a communication that’s interesting and dynamic and something other folks wanna share. So I’m looking forward to that.

That’s great data. I love that you’re doing this Brian too. You and Scott. It’s, this is good stuff. The more data that we have in aggregate for this industry, it’s just gonna help folks operate better. And that was how I closed off that presentation with Carolinas. And this is, this kind of eludes a little bit to what Sandy was saying earlier, our industry can only be as good as all parks, right?

Because campers stay everywhere. They don’t just stay at a nice park, but they stay at maybe the crappy park along the way there too, right? Or inadvertently at a crappy park. If we can raise the boat on operations across the board. Our industry is just gonna thrive. Like I would ra I would much rather personally, I would much rather RV somewhere over a week like I have here versus go through all the hassle flying and running a car and staying in a hotel.

And I don’t think I’m alone. I think there’s a lot of people that would be willing to do that. It’s just not a simple thing to do [00:41:00] yet, unless you’re gung-ho like me and don’t mind camping in Nebraska in four feet of snow. There’s stuff that needs to happen in order to make that happen.

But I love that you’re doing this data, so kudos to you. 

Brian Searl: Kudos to Scott. He’s doing the data. I’m just the one who’s delaying the report because I have to make it fancy and pretty. 

Scott Bahr: So the genesis of the the report that we do each year the big one for KOA was what you were talking about.

Mark was the KOA team at the time. Jim Rogers was the CEO, and that’s how he felt, he came from the hospitality industry. It’s like we’re all all in this together. And that’s what Brian and I have been building on as well. We’re all in this together. It’s let’s expand it, let’s do topics.

And by the way, my point of view is I love to explore topics that no one else is really looking at. Because it’s the first rule of research is don’t do what someone else has already done. And it’s yeah, you do remember, if you ever had to do a research project, what’s the first thing they had [00:42:00] you do is go look up all the sources and see what other people have done.

And that’s how I feel like we’re getting closer with that. There’s a lot of overlap, obviously, but within the industry it’s like we’re building on that base of information and I feel like the industry is getting better. I truly do. I know there’s still always a lot of work to do, but it feels like with this access information, finding some of these resources and we’re, and yes, we’re all a part of it, that it.

It’s making us all better at what we do. It makes me better at what I do. I know that so 

Brian Searl: well. I can only go up from where I’m at, so there’s no doubt. 

Mark Koep: Not really. You’re far north already. You getting higher, you’ll be up at the northern circle there, right? No, that’s true. You’re talking literally 

Brian Searl: about my skillset, but okay.

So what else we gotta talk about? We got about 14 minutes left. Who wants to spearhead discussion on something fun?

Mark Koep: Something fun?[00:43:00] We’ve covered a lot of fun. It’s camping in the outdoors. I think the, I talk a lot about trends ’cause I like to, it’s how I think broader and where things are going. And I, it’s just been exciting for me to be back out on the road personally and to get.

Into the camping a little bit. And to, to Scott, you know that I didn’t hear that data point before Scott, about how the covid campers are still not there yet. And it would be true, right? And I guess, you see it in the campgrounds. You can tell who got into this industry when, based upon usually how many dents their RV has in it right now, or, whether their truck’s smashed up or not. But it’s interesting because camping is, camping harkens back to a time before whether that existed or not. So it goes back in time.

And my son right now is reading Shelby Foote’s, civil War Trilogy. If you haven’t read it, highly recommend reading it. It’s actually the base for the, for that documentary of the Civil War. What I love about it is when you look at history, you look at the time that. It was occurring during the Civil War, and we just we’re listening to a section on it.

It’s two [00:44:00] years into the war, and the author is describing the current state of both the political and economic environment of the union. And if you didn’t know you were listening to a Civil War book, you would’ve closed your eyes and thought they were talking about now the Inflations outta control, just people are doing well financially.

It’s just, it’s history repeats itself. Whether it’s not the same, it rhymes all that type of stuff. And it’s just interesting when you take a look at where we’re at as a macro factor. And then when you think about our industry as a whole is, this is relatively new. The whole concept of being able to travel.

I’m sitting in a campground, live on a video, being broadcast with a lake behind me and a freaking bird just walked by here in front of me, you weren’t doing this 10 years ago. Think about how much how different things are now and what do they look like 10 years from now when Brian controls all the AI and is controlling everything we do.

We’re in dynamic times right now, so it’s both exciting. Interesting. And also a little bit scary at times too.

Brian Searl: Yeah. But I think, It’s interesting. I, because that’s gonna enable us, [00:45:00] you talk about AI and tech that’s gonna enable us, get, excites me about lots of stuff excites me. But that’s one of the benefits too, I think, of being in this industry is it’s gonna get people more outside better.

Sandy Ellingson: So Brian, as a marketer, are you seeing any hints of an adoption rate with campgrounds for AI? Are you starting to get hope that they’re understanding what it is and losing fear and starting to embrace?

Brian Searl: Some like we’ve, we’ve got several dozen well close to 50 I think parks using or.

In process of using the ai. But it’s gonna be slow. Like I was watching I think I said this on the show, uh, last week maybe. I can’t remember when I watched it. 

Sandy Ellingson: Now. We lost Brian. 

Brian Searl: But I was, you lost me? 

Mark Koep: I’m here. I can hear it. Okay. I can hear him. 

Brian Searl: All right. So I was watching a video by Gary Vaynerchuk, ’cause I’ll turn him on once in a while.

Sandy Ellingson: Oh, I love Gary. 

Brian Searl: And he was talking to I can’t remember some guy who’s been I don’t know who the guy was. But anyway, they were having a conversation about [00:46:00] slow adoption of tech overall. And so AI was part of that. NFTs and blockchains, they were talking about heavily and just how it takes people a long time to get into some of this stuff.

And again, I think AI is different. We had that conversation before. You’re not, you’re gonna be forced to be drug-along here. But even still, like they were talking about an anecdote of history, which fascinates me sometimes too. They were talking about when electricity first came out, the early adopters of electricity were very small and finite.

I think they were talking about J.P Morgan. Had a generators backyard pull out a bunch of black smoke everywhere. But for the first 10 years of electricity being in existence, people thought it was inviting demons into their home and they wouldn’t touch it. Like even electricity took 10 years to start becoming mainstream.

So when you put it in a context like that, like I think it’s gonna move slower, but I also think again, it’s just gonna be drug faster and faster, right? From both economic conditions as well as other parks adopting it, as well as there’s a need for like margins and [00:47:00] adjustment and like we’re talking to clients this year, right?

About how do I? that growth, right? We’re all go back, it all circles back to that growth. So you can get growth if more people are camping or if you’re finding Inefficiencies in your marketing to drive that growth. Or if the alarm land shuts down and those campers come into your park or whatever else, right?

But you can also find growth through efficiency. Which is part AI and automation, and that’s something a lot of people haven’t even begun to touch yet. Yeah. 

Sandy Ellingson: And That’s where I get excited and I always caveat this by saying, if you can find a partner who is using AI credibly, they’re not just openly trusting everything.

It, it says they know how to manage and measure it. Then I think now when more parks are looking to start marketing again because they didn’t market for a while, they didn’t need to then it learning to incorporate some of that can take their marketing dollars further. And so I’m hoping that we [00:48:00] see some adoption this year.

Brian Searl: It’s interesting though, like I wouldn’t even put our chat bot into the marketing category. I would put it into customer service operations. 

Sandy Ellingson: Agreed. I think it can go multiple places 

Brian Searl: and I think one of the things that we’ve we’ve been talking to our business development team. And I don’t know how widespread this is.

I think I told Mark sent you a screenshot mark in, in Facebook the other day. But like we’ve, one of the hesitancies I think with AI is we don’t know what it’s gonna say. We can’t control it. What if a guest doesn’t get the answer that we want ’em to have and we might lose them or whatever else. And so one of the new features we have built a custom dashboard where people can see all their chats in real time.

But one of the new features we have is the ability for, if you want to, you can watch that chat in real time and you can click a button that says, I wanna take over this conversation. And you can chat with them from a dashboard in real time, and then you can send it back to AI when you’re done. And I think that eliminates a lot of that objection, right?

Yeah. If you’re really concerned about that ai, you don’t need to, but you can sit there and watch it. And if you feel like it’s not doing a good job, just jump in and chat yourself. [00:49:00] 

Mark Koep: Yeah. What’s interesting about the a especially chat GPT, I think that’s one of those, it’s almost like the AOL moment where they basically made it easy.

They made it easy where you have a prompt you can type in and I use it all the time. Like I use it all the time. I use it every day and I even mess with it when I feel like it and say it gives me a really bad response, I’ll respond like, what the, I really swear like, what the hell is that response?

That’s that’s not what I asked for. Why don’t you fix it? And it’s okay, I’m sorry. And it spits out another response. It’s think about the conversation I just had with a machine. That’s different and that’s a different experience and you’re not a big leap from there to where that prompt I gave it is voice, right?

And instead of me typing and just all the other stuff that comes out of it. So Brian does share with me what he’s working on with that chat tool. And it’s just amazing. And, we go back and forth ’cause obviously being a tech company also with the virtual tours is how can that integrate and what’s that experience, going to what you’re talking about.

Sandy, the biggest hurdle, and you and I are very intimately aware of this, the biggest hurdle for campers is information or lack there. What am I getting into? And so on our end, our end, we use the visual to cover [00:50:00] that, right? Let’s take you down there and show you it, but that’s, that can be time-consuming and involved.

So how do we make that even more seamless to where you can start putting in criteria of what you’re looking for? We can filter those visuals and bring it up, right? So that’s obviously long-term stuff. But the other thing is focus. There are not a lot of tech folks focusing on our industry. They focus in other broader industries where they can potentially make more money or whatnot.

You have to have a passion for this to be focused on this. And so then you just have to look at it and say I’m gonna just put my head down and make it happen. 

Sandy Ellingson: Yep. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. I’m interested where this all is. As to where it goes. Yep. But I think it’s just gonna come at such a lightning speed that people are gonna be shocked by it.

And it already is in the background, but it’s not quite forced. Its way, like voice is the big thing and the change in search. Yeah. That’s the big thing for me. Like I posted about this on LinkedIn the other day. Google Maps has released this to their local guides, which is not a small segment of people if you’re a local guide.

It’s not everybody, but it’s enough people that [00:51:00] it’s almost ready to go to where you can use your voice to search on an AI LLM to search on Google Maps. Wow. And it will. So I think the example they gave was searching for a vintage, like a vintage experience in San Francisco, and it would come back and give three answers about a clothing store and an antique store and something else.

And my thing is are you preparing for AI SEO Because we are like, we’re building all, we’re ready for this stuff and we’re building the future for where the campgrounds is. The answer to the question of here’s a vintage experience in your San Francisco. This place has vintage trailers where you can go stay in and they rent ’em out.

And you can have I wanna be the answer to that question. Don’t you? 

Sandy Ellingson: Right. 

Brian Searl: So like we’re doing this for properties already where we’ve written Mike’s one River, Sands is one of them, where we’re writing and creating so much content because we wanna be the answer to all the questions that are asked of ai because there’s not going to be a one to 10 list.

And everybody is just, everybody has these, and it’s not campground owners. But these [00:52:00] blinders on that Google’s always gonna be here. If Google stops driving traffic to you and you don’t have a plan for that. 

You’re in deep shit. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that’s, 

Mark Koep: it’s funny you mention that ’cause that’s actually one of, the way I built my business is running is I ran a digital agency. We ran Google ads for parks and so forth. And now when parks come to me, they’re like what should I do? Run some Google ads, but then I’ll acquire qualify it with That still works. And I, it’s, that still works now, but there’s gonna be a massive change and I just don’t know when that’s gonna happen.

It could be in a month, it could be in two months, it could be six months. But even Google knows that their search is basically dead. Or it changes, right? So what Brian’s describing is it changes ’cause they have the metadata and the search changes. So instead of it being a generic search, go look. It’s a generic search with quality responses that are more informed and more engaging and, potentially if it gets trusted and I don’t, I think I’m saying what you’re saying Brian, but if it’s the point where I trust that, kinda like the [00:53:00] star Trek computer, Hey computer, where’s the, where do I go?

If I trust that it’s sending me the right spot, then I don’t even need to research it. Hey I want the best meal the, with a discount tonight. Okay, go to go down the street to Bobby’s and they’ve got a deal running right now. You’ll love their food order, order the chicken sandwich. ’cause that’s your favorite, right?

So if we get to that point, search is dead because now it’s very or it’s different. It’s not dead. It’s different. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. Does any, does anybody have to immediately leave? We can explore something cool if you wanna stay. 

Sandy Ellingson: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: So have you guys seen this? This is Perplexity.ai, this is the future of search, right?

So let’s use an example. What tell me about the history of life California and new, some blog articles. I have no idea if this is gonna work. Look at the top, see the top two results.

I dunno if you can read that or it’s too small. 

Mark Koep: Yeah, I can’t read it on my screen.[00:54:00] 

Brian Searl: I don’t know if I can make it bigger, but anyway let’s see. Zoom, zoom, zoom. That work. Yes. So see the top two results up there? Yep. Has absolutely nothing to do with camping, but we’ve weaved river sands into there and we want to be the answer to as many questions as possible.

But this is the future of search you’re looking at right here, right? This is a find me a campground near a highway around Phoenix for kids. And that with paved with pavement. With pavement. Like I don’t know how good this is yet. Right? But this is not Jeff Bezos invested in this company and they’ve got millions of users already.

And so here’s the answer, right? Like Phoenix, the vet center apparently has a fourteen-day limit, six-month camping. It’s on an RV park. Children should be supervised by an adult. So whatever they like what? But this [00:55:00] is a massive opportunity here. Like you can actually target this AI SEO and make sure that you’re one of the answers in here.

So but this is coming, you can see there’s no one to 10 here, right? And this is gonna be voice search. This is gonna be a car, this is gonna be everywhere. And if you’re not in this paragraph, do you have a plan for that? I don’t think parks do. I think parks are still hung up on Facebook is all I need to do for marketing.

I don’t even see, like we’ve got data points and again, like there’s lot, the activities, places are different, but there’s very clear data points that the activity on Facebook is declining for small businesses. The amount of people that message to the pages has fallen off a cliff asking customer service questions and it’s just not there anymore.

People who are going to social for entertainment, not business entertainment, 

Mark Koep: yeah, they’re on Tik-Tok, they’re on Instagram watch and YouTube and even Facebook to some degree watching the shorts. That’s, attention spans are down and awareness overall is down. So I completely agree with you and it’s also shifted.

The other thing that’s shifted is [00:56:00] it’s not red content, it’s visual content, it’s video, it’s audio, it’s voice being dictated to you versus you doing any research. And yeah, actually that’s something I talk heavily about. 

Brian Searl: See you Sandy. But yeah, we’re gonna wrap up here anyway. But yeah, it’s just, it’s data, right?

Like you have to present it just like we’re doing with the research reports for hospitality highlights. We’re presenting it in various different data. A long report, a short report, a summary that’s right on the webpage, social media posts blog articles. We’re doing an AI video that where she speaks to you, if you wanna do that, we’ll syndicate it as audio, like whatever, however you wanna consume it, is fine.

Yeah. And that’s, I think, the key. But the, ultimately it’s the data. It’s providing that data to an AI or whatever it is, right? The search to be able to be that answer. And the amount of people who just, who call me on a daily basis, like, and have, and they have a beautiful website like design-wise, but their website designer hasn’t touched the SEO.

The domain rating is like six, and they’ve been in [00:57:00] operation for five years or 10 years. They have 30 backlinks. They show up for eight keywords. And it’s unbelievable. This is your business right here, and you’re not paying attention to it. For whatever reason, lack of knowledge or lack of willingness to spend or whatever it may be.

But that’s your 300% growth sitting right there. And all you have to do is spend, is hire someone to spend really God’s honest truth, like about an hour on it. I don’t know, it’s fascinating to me. We could talk for a long time. But any closing thoughts for you guys? 

Mark Koep: That’s been a good session. I think there’s a lot of gold in here for folks who are watching in this in the future. And by all means, chime in the comments, whatever channel you’re watching this on, let Brian know what you want to hear and what you wanna learn. ’cause he’s got a good thing going here. 

Scott Bahr: Absolutely. I would echo that, reach out to any of us really.

And, ask questions. That’s, it helps us, like I said earlier, it helps us get better at what we do [00:58:00] and do meaningful stuff and help the industry overall. Yeah. Yeah, 

Brian Searl: I think we’re not gonna get $50,000 from Mike for our study, so we’re gonna have to start a go Fund Me or something. So if you’re watching this and you like data, every dollar counts. 

Scott Bahr: I’m gonna work Mike, I’m gonna start working on, so 

Brian Searl: All right. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. For another great episode of MC Hos. Yeah, Hospitality can’t even MC fireside chats. I’m so old. MC Fireside chats. We will see you for another episode next week.

Thanks, Mike. Mark Scott Sandy. That was all, who was on today, right? Okay. Yep. See you guys later. 

Scott Bahr: Alright, take care. 

For joining us for this episode of MC Fireside Chats with your host Brian Searl. Have a suggestion for a show idea. Want your campground or company new future episode? Email us at hello at moderncampground.com.

Get your daily dose of news from Moderncampground.com, and be sure to join us next week from more insights into the fascinating world of outdoor [00:59:00] hospitality.