MC Fireside Chats – January 21st, 2026

[00:00:00] Brian Searl: Because Brian had to reinstall Windows and screwed up his computer in his whole studio, so I had to rewire everything and we’re three minutes late but we’re here.

Welcome everybody. I don’t even know what camera to look at. I was supposed to look over here and now I’m looking over here.

Welcome everybody. Appreciate you coming back for another recurring episode. We have a couple of our recurring guests here. We have Jeff Hoffman, welcome back. Robert Preston. We have Sandy and Mike Harrison as well as some special guests. We got Mike from Let’s Camp.

And I don’t know how to pronounce your name. Anjala?

[00:00:26] Anjali Harvie: Anjali.

[00:00:27] Brian Searl: Anjali. Okay. That’s even easier than it looks.

[00:00:30] Anjali Harvie: Yeah.

[00:00:32] Brian Searl: Welcome. From Daiva RV Resorts?

[00:00:35] Anjali Harvie: Daiva. Formerly Roots RV. That’s our rebrand.

[00:00:38] Brian Searl: Daiva RV Resorts and Anjali. Okay. Appreciate you guys being here today.

So let’s go around the room and just introduce ourselves briefly. Do we want to start with… Robert, you want to start?

[00:00:47] Robert Preston: Hey, good afternoon everyone. Robert Preston, currently living, working out of Pensacola, Florida and CEO Founder of Unhitched RV.

[00:00:55] Brian Searl: Are you on the road full-time Robert usually or?

[00:00:58] Robert Preston: It feels like it. But no.

[00:01:00] Brian Searl: Okay. I didn’t know if you were like uh traveling around with your family or something like that.

[00:01:03] Robert Preston: We’ve done a lot of that but no, I’m in our actual office.

[00:01:07] Brian Searl: Okay. Jeff.

[00:01:09] Jeff Hoffman: Hi, I’m Jeff Hoffman from Camp Strategy. Here in the sunny and warm and dusky Ohio.

[00:01:16] Brian Searl: It looks cloudy behind you Jeff. Just gonna say.

[00:01:19] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, actually I’ve got a good background in some other cities.

[00:01:23] Brian Searl: Gotcha. Okay. Welcome Jeff. Appreciate you being here.

[00:01:26] Jeff Hoffman: Okay.

[00:01:27] Brian Searl: Anjali.

[00:01:27] Anjali Harvie: Hi, I’m Anjali Harvie. I’m the VP of Daiva RV Resorts. I’m currently based out of Collingwood, Ontario, Canada. We have 18 RV resorts across Ontario and it’s a family run business with my father.

[00:01:42] Brian Searl: Awesome. Welcome. Excited to learn more about what you guys are doing. I’m not… I guess I’m far from you. I’m in Calgary but I’m in the same country at least so.

[00:01:49] Anjali Harvie: Awesome.

[00:01:49] Brian Searl: Mike.

[00:01:51] Mike Harrison: Hi I…

[00:01:52] Brian Searl: Oh there’s two Mikes. Oh my goodness.

[00:01:54] Mike Harrison: Oh sorry.

[00:01:55] Brian Searl: Mike from CRR. How about that?

[00:01:57] Mike Harrison: All right. Hi, I am Mike Harrison with CRR Hospitality. We own, manage, and consult for RV resorts, glamping, and hotels. Based out of Phoenix, Arizona and excited to kick off 2026.

[00:02:10] Brian Searl: Thanks for being here Mike. Mike Y.

[00:02:13] Mike Yasieniuk: All right thanks Brian. My name is Mike Yasieniuk and I’m the CEO and General Manager of Let’s Camp. Based out of Saskatchewan, Canada. And yeah, happy to be here.

[00:02:23] Brian Searl: Mike, you look like you could use… Mike Y, you look like you could use another painting on the wall behind you.

[00:02:28] Mike Yasieniuk: Yeah, we just moved into a new office so my office is not quite up to snuff yet. Got some work to do.

[00:02:32] Brian Searl: That’s better than me. I don’t even have an office. And I can’t even get a studio working as we already talked about.

Sandy, last but not least.

[00:02:38] Sandy Ellingson: I’m Sandy Ellingson. My background is technology. I sold my consulting firm and hit the road full-time as an RVer and accidentally landed in the campground industry. So now I serve as a liaison between the industry and campgrounds.

[00:02:51] Brian Searl: Now is that your actual RV behind you? Have you figured out how to make it really wide or?

[00:02:55] Sandy Ellingson: No. No, this is an office.

[00:02:57] Brian Searl: Okay. All right. You said you were a full-time RVer. I was just making sure.

[00:03:00] Sandy Ellingson: Well I hit the road as a full-time RVer. Now it’s about 10 months out of the year.

[00:03:04] Brian Searl: Ah, okay. All right. Still. Way braver than I am.

I can’t afford an RV so that’s the first problem. But anyway, we’ll talk about that later.

Okay so welcome everybody. Is there anything to my recurring guests that we typically start the show this way, Robert, Mike, Jeff, Sandy, that you… like obviously the Tampa RV show happened. Is there anything else that you guys have seen come across your desk that we should be discussing? Was our first show together here in 2026?

[00:03:29] Sandy Ellingson: I thought the Tampa RV show was excellent and I’m still recovering. But we did see a lot of… the crowds were pretty good. A little bit bigger than anticipated. We had a huge spike on Wednesday when they started telling everybody the weather was going to get bad.

So Wednesday was the busiest day which was funny. And a lot of conversation, a lot of new tech, a lot of new entries into the RV space from the unit side. We saw some really cool electric units there this year. And pretty much the feeling is that 2026 is going to be a better year than 2025.

[00:04:07] Brian Searl: Okay. Well that’s good news. Hopefully it turns out that way for everybody.

Robert, Mike, Jeff, anything to add?

[00:04:13] Mike Harrison: Yeah, it’s interesting perspective because that’s not what I’m hearing from most. Most folks that I’ve talked to, whether it’s pundits in the industry or whether it’s one of the larger organizations, are expressing caution regarding occupancy and pace. I’m following kind of the hospitality trends. The hotel industry now has I think it’s 10 months in a row of backwards decline.

And so while I’m not exercising pessimism, I’m certainly not exercising optimism. Uh, it’s a year of caution, understanding what’s going to happen with the trends in the transient mostly, especially continuing to absorb all the new supply that was built over the last two years, three years that have opened. So that’s what I’m hearing and seeing.

[00:04:54] Brian Searl: I think there’s two different things here. So Sandy, like I think you were basically saying it was cautiously optimistic that it was a better year for the RV industry, for RV sales, for dealers, right?

[00:05:03] Sandy Ellingson: Well just the industry as a whole.

[00:05:05] Brian Searl: Oh okay. All right. Yes. So I’m hearing the same thing that Mike is. But I hope that you’re right Sandy. So.

[00:05:10] Sandy Ellingson: So it’s interesting. And I do believe that we’ve got some studies coming out that really show what… how what is happening on the industry side, the manufacturing side, truly impacts our campgrounds. We were for the first time last year being able to see something that was happening in the industry directly impact cancellations in our parks.

So building off of that, it’s been real interesting. There are some things that need to be solved on the industry side and if those things are solved, I think we’ll see a better outdoor hospitality side. I think some of the issues we’re facing will correct themselves.

And so a lot of what most of the research that I’ve seen that’s been being done is focused and isolated just on the hospitality industry and they’re not looking at some of the cause and effect and that’s… we’ve got a new report coming out next month that’s going to show some of that. So it’s going to be really exciting.

[00:06:07] Brian Searl: Okay. Like I said, hopefully you’re right. Robert, anything to add? Jeff?

[00:06:12] Jeff Hoffman: You published in your Modern Campground report today…

[00:06:18] Brian Searl: I did.

[00:06:18] Jeff Hoffman: …some information about delayed bookings and I went through that and thought that we’re getting back to what used to be normal. Now it seems like delayed booking but that is where bookings used to be.

Not used to being booked eight months out to a year. So I think we’re coming back to a little normalization in the industry. But yeah I enjoyed being booked fully a year in advance but now we’re…

[00:06:50] Brian Searl: It was nice yeah. I thought about that because I don’t think that comparison is in the report with year over like 2019 2020. So it would be interesting to get that data to find out like whether we’re normalizing or whether we’re beneath where 2019 2020 was as far as booking window goes.

Because what Scott has repeatedly told me, and I don’t want to put words in his mouth, there’s much more nuance to it than I’m going to be able to describe here, but what Scott has told me is that the longer that… or the shorter the booking window gets, the longer people push off the decision to travel, the less likely it is that they will actually take the trip at all. So it’ll be interesting…

[00:07:26] Sandy Ellingson: The other thing to add to that too Brian and this was one of the things that I saw was that we really need to be thinking in terms of travelers not campers. Because it used to be we kind of isolated and said we are the camping industry.

Now not only has the options changed for the people coming into the space but even in our own campgrounds we have… we have campsites, we have glamping sites, we have tiny homes. The variation is so different that sometimes when you’re doing research and you’re isolating yourself and saying just campers, you’re almost ignoring a large part of who we could be reaching.

And so I think that casts a little different perspective on it. But I also think too is we’ve got so many different options that it gives us a longer booking window, right? If we can’t get the campsite then we might can get an Airbnb or we might can get a glamping unit. And so I think that shortens the booking window as well.

[00:08:26] Brian Searl: Yeah I can’t… I don’t have any data to refute that but I think for sure Scott is taking into account what you just said right? Not just camping. I think I’m confident enough to in his research and methodologies that I could say he probably did that.

I did… there is some data here we’re going to talk about on Outwired later that he showed me as a data point that said 46 to 52% of campers stay in cabins. As an anecdote. So it’s almost like a break-even split between RVs and cabins, glamping, accommodations. So I thought that was an interesting statistic.

I haven’t had a chance to dive into him with it on where he… what the specifics were behind that but I thought that was pretty interesting and goes to your point of it’s more than just campers right?

[00:09:01] Sandy Ellingson: Exactly. Yeah. And of course I keep… this is I am biased but Scott is in a whole another category as far as I’m concerned as far as researchers. And then there’s this whole glut of stuff that comes out by other people that is framed to make everything look well. And so I always take it with a grain of salt. But the average person doesn’t necessarily do that.

[00:09:25] Brian Searl: Yeah there’s a lot of interesting data out there. We’ll leave that there. So Robert anything new on your side?

[00:09:32] Robert Preston: Yeah I would say there’s two things. One which is encouraging side of it is that there seems to be a lot more conversations about how to bring the industry together from all the way from the supplier to the OEM to the dealer to the park owner.

A lot of that’s led by our fabulous Sandy here. And so I think there’s some encouragement there. And then I’m hearing some more and more conversations about the national associations versus state level associations and trying to figure out how they can work together.

This is very cursory and I think there’s a really long way to go for the industry but if we can start heading that direction and start bringing some consolidation of how to improve the unit then how to improve the park and how to improve the association. That’s great. And then specific to Florida there’s some negative things here in regards to taxation and ad valorem taxes and stuff that… that the Florida associations are working heavy to combat at the county city level.

We tend to think at the state and national level but there’s some essentially some backdoor issues that a city council or county can bring in there. So that’s more of a Florida specific issue but I can see that spreading nationally if we don’t… if we don’t cut that off at the head. So those are just two high level things that we’ve been thinking about and working on for the last couple weeks.

[00:10:54] Brian Searl: Yeah it’s really interesting like when I… it was one of the things that surprised me when I moved to Canada coming from the United States is that all their associations up here are not the same but they all very closely work together.

Like the board of the Canadian Camping and RV Association has board members from RVDA of Canada, from Go RVing, from the RV Manufacturers Association. They all work so closely together. And so I think there’s definitely a benefit to trying to do something like that in the states and I think it’s been tried before. I don’t have intimate knowledge about what went… didn’t get us all the way there.

Jeff probably does. Jeff you want to talk about associations too? We were talking about normalizing RV sales. Do you remember way back when the states used to work with national?

[00:11:34] Jeff Hoffman: Wasn’t…

[00:11:34] Brian Searl: I just wanted to throw that at you Jeff. Have fun with that.

[00:11:39] Jeff Hoffman: Oh thank you. It wasn’t that long ago that we did work together but it was never a smooth operation. Some states it was, some weren’t. And most people know that the OHI organization broke out and is now independent of the states.

So we are the national organization and then for campground owners and then there’s state associations for the campground owners. Florida combined with another state. Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania.

A lot of states have their own organizations. And they’re all good. And they should work together. And that is one of the main goals we’re looking at is to reform some connections between OHI and the states and get it so we’re working together. There’s projects that will work for both of us.

There’s projects we do on the national level. Yeah. I was in a good position when it broke up. I was president of the Ohio Association and also sat on the board of…

[00:12:53] Brian Searl: I remember. Yeah. How do you… so how do you think? Give me a… give me an idea of how this best works to bring the states and national together in your mind? Obviously not speaking for OHI or not speaking for any state association just Jeff’s idea.

[00:13:07] Jeff Hoffman: My idea is to start with quarterly reports that we can give to not only the public but the states and start opening up the lines of communication because that’s the best start. Is if we can start communicating with all of the associations and asking them what they need from us instead of telling them what we needed.

So trying to bring those relationships back in through communication I think is where we start. There’s things that we can offer as a national group that they can’t do as a state group. And then we’re always looking for new amenities that we can add that will help people. Some things we’re looking at for larger parks to combat some insurance that’s not even ready for publication but there are things that we are working on to make it so that OHI has value for the individual owners.

And then also trying to make it so there’s a return on investment to belonging to your state organization and the national organization. If we can’t offer a prof… offer a product that’s good for your campground then I don’t blame you if you don’t join us. So we are working on the quality of our product. And that should help us sell both to the state and to the individuals.

[00:14:50] Brian Searl: I don’t want to be presumptuous but Robert do you have anything to add to that? That you sounded like maybe you… you maybe have put some thought into it. That’s why I ask.

[00:14:56] Robert Preston: Yeah I’ve got a couple of ideas. I think… I think we start with why… potentially why it doesn’t work outside of relationships and anything there but I think one of the challenges is the reason it doesn’t work is because campgrounds or RV parks are two businesses in one. It’s a real estate business and it’s a hospitality business and they’re combined together.

And so because no matter how much of that we want to try to blend together, real estate is very different from state to state, county to county. And at the end of the day it is still purely real estate. And real estate has a lot of issues. And so when you try to tackle an issue that is for the industry which real estate then that means something totally different for me in Florida or a county, Alabama so on and so forth.

So I think this is not a perfect solution but we have to then start by categorizing what we’re trying to solve. Is it… can it be… does it need to be solved at a state level or can it be solved at a national level? Is it a real estate type problem? Taxes, insurance, so on and so forth? Or is this a hospitality type problem where maybe at a national level it does make sense to tackle?

And then we’ve got to start integrating the industry side of it as well because that we… frankly it feels like we bury our heads in the sand right now and say that they have no impact on us except for the number of units that are sold which is just… just ridiculous right? So how we do affects them and how they perform and the products they put out really affects us. So we’ve got to figure out how to bridge that gap.

[00:16:33] Brian Searl: Mike do you have any thoughts coming from Arizona or?

[00:16:35] Mike Harrison: I think absolutely and speaking to Jeff in terms of where do we align and I think advocacy is probably the single biggest and most important part. The national association has so much more leverage, awareness, access than the state associations do. And just looking at the recent Credit Card Commission Act that hopefully is about to pass.

It’s been three to four years in the making, constant visits to DC by the national but they also need the help from the locals to get it done. And so the most recent one last week and some of you may have seen President Trump’s comments on it… the fact that it made it to the President’s awareness is pretty important but we asked our state association for everybody for the advocacy to write the letters to their senators and their representatives and so the alignment on advocacy is important because it helps everyone right?

And the Credit Card Commission Act is just one example but if that passes what that can do for parks profitability that just rolls downhill. Whether it’s a broker, whether it’s an owner, whether it’s an operator, if you can get an additional half a million dollars or $50,000 savings on NOI whatever cap you’re using that’s a great win for everyone. So I think that’s where the alignment sits primarily right now is advocacy and how we can leverage and do that better. I don’t disagree with anything everybody is saying. I’ve been calling forever coming from the hospitality industry… we’re so fragmented here and whether it’s data, whether it’s alignment of the different RVIA versus OHI versus the state associations versus Outdoor Recreation Roundtable whatever it may be.

There’s a lot of people doing a lot of things. And we could probably do a lot better if we consolidate it. So I think the industry has continued to push forward especially as more institutional investors and influence come into the industry that will only continue to improve.

If you look at now versus five years ago it’s… we’re light years ahead of where we were right? So where will we be five years from now? The advent of AI, the continued improvement in the technology of the properties, the awareness, private campground growth, etc etc. So it will happen. It just needs to have continued conversation and communication.

[00:18:41] Brian Searl: I think in five years we’ll have Robot Jeff running everything. That’s why… oh.

[00:18:45] Mike Harrison: Five years Jeff’s not even… I shouldn’t even say that out loud. Never mind.

[00:18:47] Jeff Hoffman: Ah I won’t even be here in five years so it’s… so it’s up to you guys. But I do think one of the other areas of collaboration would be in education for OHI to have education programs for the states. And we do have our annual conference which is something.

But given all of that I think you’re correct Mike in that we need to work with not only the states but RVIA and everybody else that’s associated with the industry. The glamping people. They have an association.

Everybody needs to get together and push this industry in a direction forward not just my little kingdom. So that’s where I’m stepping but I guess that’s what I look at is I think we need to embrace all… everyone in the industry.

[00:19:51] Brian Searl: Mike Y can I put you on the spot for a second? And I’ll preface it and I’ll start it by saying I’m just curious what you think coming from Canada from the associations all kind of being more tied together to now you’re coming down as a supplier and exhibiting at some of the shows in the United States… glamping show… I think you were at OHI too weren’t you?

[00:20:08] Mike Yasieniuk: Yeah.

[00:20:08] Brian Searl: Yeah. So I’m just curious what you think of that because from a supplier standpoint and I’ll give my perspective first just cause I don’t want to throw you under the bus and not be willing to do it myself… I think it’s incredibly hard to manage. Like I would love to support every one of these state associations wherever we can both financially and doing business with them and speaking and exhibiting and doing.

But it’s almost there’s so many places to go register for trade shows and keep up with dates and keep up with paperwork and keep up with deadlines and like I’ve got a team of 30 people but I don’t have a dedicated person who can manage all the trade show logistics. It’s just not. So that’s where I’m coming from. I’d love to have some kind of synergy where I can support an organization that divvies up the funds and supports… I don’t know I don’t… obviously that’s maybe pie in the sky right?

[00:20:52] Mike Yasieniuk: Yeah no I definitely have the same sentiment as you on all that. I think in Canada like from I’ve been working in the camping industry since about 2010 2012 and originally it was all province or area associations. And then I think the CCRVC kind of built around that and on top of that. So I think that’s how it worked because the national association went out to all those other associations and built on top of it.

They have all the provincial stuff up there. The national was there first but then they were built together. But you’re right like coming down to the states I mean there’s 30 different trade shows and conferences as a supplier you can go to. And choosing the right ones is tough to do and getting value. But some of the big shows is hard. Some of the small ones are actually better cause you have more interaction with… intimate interactions with the campgrounds and RV parks that are coming there.

I like the Campgrounds Solutions Summit that’s like an area. Doing more area type trade shows I think would really help the industry versus just all the individual states. I see the value in the individual states. It’s just really hard for a supplier like you said to go to 30 different shows and support all the different areas throughout the year for sure.

[00:22:07] Brian Searl: All right anybody else have any thoughts? I don’t want to spend the rest of the show talking about associations but we gotta get to Anjali and our… and talk more about Mike and Let’s Camp too. Does anybody else have any thoughts they want to share before we move on?

[00:22:19] Jeff Hoffman: Also I was gonna say Brian is anyone that has any thoughts or ideas on it can basically email their thoughts to me so that I can start working with the organization to develop a plan on how to incorporate what we’re talking about.

[00:22:41] Brian Searl: What’s your email?

[00:22:42] Jeff Hoffman: My email is jeff@campstrategy.com.

[00:22:48] Brian Searl: All right there you go. To everybody in the audience who would like to contribute to the discussion please send Jeff an email give him your good ideas. He’ll sort through them all and we’ll try to make something happen yeah? Better in five years right Mike H?

[00:23:03] Jeff Hoffman: It’s gonna be better in one year.

[00:23:06] Brian Searl: Oh is that a promise?

[00:23:08] Jeff Hoffman: Semi-promise.

[00:23:09] Brian Searl: Oh okay. You made it live on the air so.

[00:23:12] Jeff Hoffman: Better in two years.

[00:23:13] Brian Searl: Anjali, tell us about… tell us about what you guys and your family have going on in Ontario with your 18 resorts.

[00:23:20] Anjali Harvie: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me here. So last year it’s been just over a year since we actually doubled up. So we did have 10 properties and then we acquired another 10. Two of our original ones we passed off in our family to another family member. So now we have a total of 18 across Ontario.

Fun fact, I’m one of seven kids and so I actually grew up in the RV industry when I was only nine months old. My dad was running an RV park and I grew up within one. So it’s really a full circle moment to be able to run something on this scale with my father having lived and worked in an RV resort as well. So we’ve… we’re all over Ontario and so because of that it’s been interesting to try to set up things while maintaining that family run dynamic. I think that’s something that really differentiates us because once you get to 18 different parks you’re seen… whether or not you run that or run that way, you’re seen as a very corporate entity.

Which although we are a corporation we really pride ourselves on maintaining that family run dynamic. And that’s something that’s been really special to us. So we’re actually just over one week… one week today actually for our rebrand. We were Roots RV Resorts and brought it all together under a new heading Daiva RV Resorts which is really special to us. It means fate or destiny. And coming full circle with being over 30 years in the industry and this being honoring our family journey. And yeah it’s been pretty special to be able to work hand in hand with my father and continue to grow.

I’m also a real estate agent as Robert there was saying it’s the same up here in Canada. You have the hospitality side of things as well as the real estate side of things with RV industry here. And it’s a unique position to be in to be able to understand the business from an acquisition standpoint a real estate standpoint and then an operation standpoint as well. So yeah.

[00:25:22] Brian Searl: I’m curious for your advice on something and I probably will ask the same question to maybe Mike and Robert too but to you first… you mentioned in your conversation there that you pride yourself on being a family run operation, corporation. You don’t want that like… well you know how that’s viewed both in Canada and the United States. But what would be your number one piece of advice you would give to people who own multiple properties to keep it more that way if they want to?

[00:25:46] Anjali Harvie: Something… I ran… I actually stepped away from the family business for a while to run RV resorts with another company. And I learned so much from them and I learned things about being with a corporation that I know has helped me guide me in that exact thing. And one of those is being very top heavy of a company. And I think that when you think corporate you think or at least I think when I think of corporate a very top heavy company where you have many different individuals with many big titles and I know when I was on the operational side of that you feel more like a number and as in your opinion doesn’t really matter.

And I think that’s something that we really pride ourselves in that our managers are primarily couples or families, siblings or children that work with their parents on site. So although we obviously can’t be in 18 places at once there’s still that family run atmosphere on the property and there’s a real pride of ownership that they have where their opinion and their input creates a difference from a company standpoint.

We were the Roots RV family now we’re the Daiva RV family and I really think that’s something that all of our staff live by as their opinion matters and they’re not just a number and they don’t… there’s not all of these other people in the company that they don’t know their names that email them every now and then. We all know everyone and everyone has an important role to play.

[00:27:20] Brian Searl: Mike H or Robert do you have any thoughts to add on that?

[00:27:24] Robert Preston: Yeah I think mine is very similar. There is a constant gravitational pull to the corporate side of it right? That you want to… it’s a battle as the… as the leader of a company to not allow the company to turn into a headquarter based company, a corporation. That’s really hard to do because everything that is done differently or wrong at the property level the easy solution is well let’s just standardize it.

Let’s just make it a policy or let’s just make it a home office type of role or job or duty. So you have to fight that. But frankly there are… there just… there are a lot of things that should be done at the home office or corporate office. And that’s a… that’s part of the growth side of it. But Anjali right?

[00:28:12] Anjali Harvie: Yes.

[00:28:14] Robert Preston: Anjali. I think it’s having a clear set of things, roles, finances etc that are in the onsite managers control and a clear set of things that are not their responsibility or in their control. As long as those are delineated and they have some autonomy and authority in this quarter and not in this quarter then we can still be an efficiently run company that has cohesiveness between each other and it makes fundamental sense from a finance perspective and doesn’t become a… it doesn’t start to feel like McDonald’s right?

Still every park has its own culture, has its own people, has its own hospitality right? Has its own sense of what that park is even though maybe the back end is more structured than your typical one-off park.

[00:29:09] Brian Searl: It would be interesting I think to get some data on how many people who come to an Unhitched RV or a CRR Hospitality property or a corporatized property that actually realize that they’re part of a corporation and it’s not just named an Unhitched RV.

[00:29:26] Mike Harrison: They’re… they’ve got a good sense because they can see the things that are standardized or professional or in our communication our app clearly says CRR Hospitality on it. To answer your question it’s something that’s very intentional for us that we focus on from a cultural standpoint. We’re very careful… so easy… I’ve been part of one of the largest hospitality companies in the country and it can become a we versus they, they being corporate. Or us versus they.

And CRR we focus on we right? And we intentionally don’t call ourselves the home office or corporate. We call ourselves the leadership team. And it’s something that it’s important to us. We’ve been named the top employer in the state of Arizona three years in a row and our culture is what drives us. It’s what makes us. If you’re familiar with Simon Sinek and his concept of why, we have a why we exist right? And we exist to serve all those that we touch. That’s CRR’s why. And we try and train that, we try and behave that way, we try and lead that way. But as Robert mentioned it’s harder the bigger you get. Because you can’t control everything at 30 properties.

And so how much do you SOP versus something? I remember one company I worked for at one point had a 56 page compliance audit. And I said to myself I will never have a 56 page compliance audit at CRR. Now the more and more you get into running your own business you understand at some point one property you had a bad cash handling process and they lost $2,000 because of X.

Then of course oh we gotta put a cash policy in place. Then another one has a bad receivable and oh you had to write off X amount of dollars. Okay we gotta put an AR policy in place. You have to find that balance of standardization to protect the business versus SOP everything. But that’s also the difference.

There’s a reason why Marriott’s the largest hotel company in the world and brand is a promise right? There are some people that will refuse to stay at a corporate property. They want only private campgrounds. My brother’s that way. He will never go to a chain restaurant period. It’s just his belief.

[00:31:17] Brian Searl: Oh that’s me. I won’t go to a chain restaurant either.

[00:31:20] Mike Harrison: Maybe we won’t go to them.

[00:31:21] Brian Searl: If it’s got… if it’s got like three locations like right then it’s tiny. But if it’s got 10, 20, 30 in different provinces and states no I won’t go to it.

[00:31:29] Mike Harrison: Yeah. And so like Robert said each property has its own for us our own DNA and vibe is what we call it. They have their own identity.

And most people probably have no idea we’re a CRR property but we’re intentionally making sure that our brand is a promise and you can expect things like K9 Corner at every single one of our properties and that’s something that we’re going to deliver that’s a proprietary differentiator.

So it is a balance of not corporatizing it but also making whatever prop… we do a promise to the customer that we’re working on. And the associate it’s both sides.

[00:31:57] Brian Searl: Do all three of you who own and operate multiple properties here, Anjali, Mike and Robert, do you see a lot of loyalty? Will they will come and experience Unhitched or CRR or Daiva and they will visit another one of your properties based on that experience?

[00:32:13] Anjali Harvie: Yeah I think we definitely do. And also we’ve experienced a lot of people who you know as soon as we purchased especially a year and a half ago purchased everything they were like oh my gosh. It’s not a corporate… new corporation coming in. And I think that a lot of people stayed. When there’s a sale of a property there’s people that come and go.

And we didn’t actually lose too many people because we are a family corporation. And I think that something… there’s the benefits of a chain and a corporation but making sure that like Mike was even saying keep that culture and differentiation and vibe at each park is super important. We definitely do have people now especially now that we’ve built our brand a little bit more over the last year and a half than we have before wanting to travel around Ontario and go around to our other parks.

So something that earlier you guys were talking about vacancy and just the health of this industry and it’s something that I think is on all of our minds always. And something that we’re doing to fuel that and create this momentum of people going and visiting all of our parks as well as we’re looking at different membership options to utilize some of our sites that maybe aren’t being used as much.

Promote the transient overnights and get people to see the brand and promise like Mike was saying as well that the brand gives at each of our other parks across Ontario. So I know we’ve definitely seen that and it’s continued to grow as we’ve grown as well.

[00:33:41] Brian Searl: What do you think your outlook is Anjali for 2026? Are you excited? Are all the Canadians going to stay home with us again or?

[00:33:49] Anjali Harvie: I’m… I’m unsure a little bit. So we have… it was an interesting perspective Sandy was saying earlier about having so many different options and people staying… the length that people are booking is shorter because there’s so many options. So we have campsites, we also have lodging.

We have seasonal sites which are the majority of our sites so six month occupancy and we have extended seasonals where it’s more of a longer term stay. Not year round but allows them to stay longer as more of a year round cottage. And we have… we have more vacancy than we have in previous years but we’ve also had a lot more inquiries and site visits and bookings for overnight than we have in previous years as well.

And I think that since COVID I’d be interested in seeing those stats to 2019 as well just see what today is from before COVID because things have changed a lot since then. And I think that when we look back year to year it’s… it makes us I think more nervous than we have to be. We are seeing a lot… our analytics and our bookings and what not are better than they were last year. So I’m excited and hopeful and we have some different things in the works to try and make things a little more affordable because I think overall across all industries affordability is one of the biggest factors.

And so one of the things we’re very close to launching is a trailer rent back program. So for our seasonal guests that stay a little longer and to try to work with our sales division and bring in some new RVs we’re going to be launching something where units that are five years of age or newer are able to join another program where we do a profit share and we rent it on their behalf to not only bring in lodging in some of our resorts where we may not have it but allow people to rent their sites through us, rent their units through us so we can monitor who’s coming and going.

And then do a profit share so it makes it a little more affordable and hopefully will bring in some more people to upgrade their units as well as maybe decide to stay another season or two when it maybe wasn’t something that originally was affordable to them any longer.

[00:36:11] Brian Searl: Makes sense. Mike what’s going on… Mike Y what’s going on with Let’s Camp? You guys have been buying up some companies haven’t you?

[00:36:18] Mike Yasieniuk: Yeah we’ve… we’ve definitely spent some time expanding into the US over the last couple years and that’s come through a couple of acquisitions and just spending some time at a lot of the US conferences and trade shows and just getting our name out there and expanding into different areas of the US.

Along with that we also launched a marina software program called Let’s Boat. So this year we’ll spend a little bit of time marketing and promoting that and learning the needs of marina operators as well. A lot of the campgrounds we work with… not a lot but I’d say 30%… also have either a small marina or a large marina at their properties. So being able to service both of them very well is something that we identified as a need and being able to do it all on one platform is important to these campgrounds.

Other than that I think yeah so far for the year to date what we’re seeing anyways is things are like flat compared to last year about the same for booking and reservations for analytics. And I think campgrounds in Canada are cautiously optimistic. And then the US ones are still waiting to see what Canadians are going to do if they’re coming down or not. So yeah lots happening and excited for the year ahead.

[00:37:30] Brian Searl: As you expand into the United States market what do you think your biggest opportunity is when you look at some of the competition? What do you think differentiates you? Where are you going that you think everybody should consider Let’s Camp for?

[00:37:41] Mike Yasieniuk: Yeah I think the one thing that we try and stand out is being a simple solution, keeping things simple with… with still having the features that people need. So we work… we do work with a lot of smaller RV parks. They may be average 80 to 100 sites. And just keeping it simple for all those teams.

I think most of the camp hosts and managers are still like older retired couples and these things have to be simple. But at the same time we want to make sure our software has all the integrations so they can do everything within our management system. So like the utility integrations and the accounting integrations and all of that point of sale stuff our platform can handle them.

But I think keeping things simple, easy to use, easy to set up, easy to train new staff is has always been one of our focuses and strengths here in Canada and we probably keep that the same as we move into the US.

[00:38:32] Brian Searl: Is there a reason… and maybe it’s a secret and you don’t want to tell me… but is there a reason you guys pushed into the United States now versus any other time in your history?

[00:38:41] Mike Yasieniuk: I think it was just we wanted to prove the software, make sure it works, it’s stable, all those kinds of things. And as we grew through Canada that was easy to do. And we had to get to a certain size to be able to be able to do all the US accounting and stuff like that as well in the US and be able to support multiple currencies.

So I think it was just like a scale and size thing. I don’t think there was really a push into or like a deciding factor of why now. I think we were just smaller and once we got to a certain size and scaling into the US market which is very similar to the Canadian market other than maybe some different areas of longer term camping and lease options and stuff like that might be different but yeah it was just a size and scale decision.

[00:39:24] Brian Searl: What are you most looking forward to for 2026 Mike? What do you think the industry… Mike Y? What do you think the industry is going to look like? Where is it going to go?

[00:39:31] Mike Yasieniuk: Yeah I think this year we’re just seeing companies like ours just really dive into data and stats. So companies like Mike’s and Robert’s and Anjali’s can use the data within our system to make informed decisions about their properties right? So I think that’s going to be a focus in of ours and throughout the industry is just looking at that data.

The data from last year like Mike said is things are slowing down from the COVID boom right? So like we are seeing industry level off or maybe normalize a little bit that way. So I think staying on top of that data is important so that these campgrounds and resorts that we work with can make informed decisions.

[00:40:10] Brian Searl: All right let’s spend the last bit of our show here asking each other questions. I don’t know if you guys have been a part of this show yet. Mike we did this… Mike H we did this at KOA and a few other places. But let’s go around the room. So the way we do this we just do a round table. So we’ll start with Sandy since she’s been super quiet. And well maybe we should start with Jeff since he looks like he’s sleepy over there. Start with Sandy she’ll wake him up.

We’ll start with Sandy. So Sandy you can ask anybody here a question. You ask Mike a question, Robert, the other Mike, Jeff, Anjali a question and then we’ll… they’ll ask somebody else a question. But if somebody asks Robert a question only one person can ask Robert a question then he’s taken out of the pool so we get everybody asks a question. Sandy who would you like to ask a question to?

[00:40:51] Sandy Ellingson: Oh I’m going to pick on Mike Harrison. Mike what do you think is the most innovative or newest thing you’re going to carry into 2026?

[00:41:04] Mike Harrison: I don’t want to tell you what my most innovative and…

[00:41:07] Brian Searl: Trade secret.

[00:41:08] Mike Harrison: I think to not leverage AI in your business in some form or fashion whether it’s a customer experience, an associate experience, a data experience, efficiency experience I think you’re leaving effectiveness, deliverable, money on the table. There’s a lot of different ways to do that. So I think we’re going to be working on a lot of different things in 2026 that will leverage technology to make sure that we can be the best operator, owner, employer, hoster, service provider that we can be. So that’s what we’re looking forward to in 2026.

[00:41:45] Brian Searl: All right Mike your turn. Ask anybody a question.

[00:41:51] Mike Harrison: Anjali. So obviously I was looking at your website as you were talking I’d never heard of you up until today which is… you’re north of the border. How close are you to Greenland by the way? I don’t know if anybody…

[00:42:04] Anjali Harvie: Oh the Greenland conversation. We’re pretty far.

[00:42:08] Mike Harrison: But what is Daiva’s plan? Are you going to expand into the US or what does your growth strategy look like?

[00:42:14] Anjali Harvie: I personally would love to consider down the road going into the States. It’s something that I’ve always had on my mind but I think we’ve just doubled up in a year and a half and I think that it’s really important that you don’t grow too fast especially not being a very top heavy company as I mentioned.

You have to make these strategies intentionally. I think that it’s something that definitely is on my mind. As well most of our… when it comes to our seasonal sites I think something that we’re seeing more and more of is people that are wanting to live in an RV resort. And unfortunately it’s just not something that we can do because of zoning a lot of different reasons.

So I would love to be able to have an opportunity to work with ideally our own property in the US or with another partner property where maybe they spend six months or nine months in Canada and then we partner with and they spend the other six months or other three months in the US.

And because I love to do it all I would love that to be all within our own company. But it’s something that’s on my mind certainly to… to work with… to grow into the US eventually. But when that eventually happens is a big question mark or if. But definitely something that I would love to explore.

[00:43:41] Brian Searl: So until you move to the US do you want to give out your email so all the other big property groups down here can fight over your three months six months traffic?

[00:43:48] Anjali Harvie: For sure I’d be happy to. It’s my first name anjali.mylastnameharvie@daivarv.ca.

[00:43:56] Brian Searl: That was really brave. I wasn’t expecting you to do that. I was just joking.

[00:43:58] Anjali Harvie: I’d be happy to. I’m always open to collaborate. How… I do get a large amount of emails so I’m not always great at responding right away because I like to respond to all my emails myself but I’m very open to collaborating.

Like I said I’m also a real estate agent and I’d love to… I’ve considered also getting my license in certain states where I would like to grow so that I can also continue to do it from the acquisition side as well. But a lot of different aspects right now in particular that are going to decide how that happens in the future.

[00:44:32] Brian Searl: All right. So all you… you can ask any question to anybody except Mike. He’s out.

[00:44:37] Anjali Harvie: Actually just based off that conversation I’d love to ask Jeff what are your thoughts on collaborating with different associations in Canada or have there been discussions on that where we could do… be able to more easily collaborate even in terms of what I was just talking about where people do want to go back and forth or already do… we call them snow… snowbirds that go down south and so I’m not sure if that’s the same down there or not but do you see value in collaborating through the different associations?

[00:45:12] Jeff Hoffman: I do. In fact at that conference I had dinner with I’ll probably screw up her name. I think it’s Cara?

[00:45:20] Sandy Ellingson: Cara Csizmadia.

[00:45:23] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.

[00:45:23] Brian Searl: You mean at KOA you did yeah.

[00:45:25] Jeff Hoffman: Yep. Okay. I’m good… it’s good thing you keep track of me Brian.

[00:45:30] Brian Searl: I just knew Cara wasn’t at the other OHI conference. That’s the only reason I knew that.

[00:45:33] Jeff Hoffman: Okay thanks. Yeah. But she was at the KOA and we sat down and talked. And we have talked quite often actually about that. I think unlike the people that run our country I think a collaboration between the campground industries across the borders would be great.

[00:45:54] Anjali Harvie: I agree.

[00:45:54] Jeff Hoffman: And clear up any of the misunderstandings that might have gotten said or whatever. But no I would love to. In fact I think I’m exhibiting at your show.

[00:46:08] Anjali Harvie: Oh I’ll be there.

[00:46:09] Jeff Hoffman: Now that I found… I have my passport Brian.

[00:46:12] Brian Searl: In Vancouver? You’re coming to Vancouver next year?

[00:46:14] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.

[00:46:15] Brian Searl: Okay.

[00:46:16] Jeff Hoffman: I hope so.

[00:46:18] Brian Searl: Nice. Okay. Where do you think is the num… first place… I’m gonna ask jump in in a second just to follow up that Jeff. Where do you think’s the first place we should start if we wanted to do a collaboration?

[00:46:28] Jeff Hoffman: Start with… Anjali if you want to email me that would be fine and we can start it up from there because I only knew of the one national association.

[00:46:37] Anjali Harvie: That’s all there is. We have all provincial. So we have the one national but then we have individual provincial. And some of them are closer to the border even than others. So there’s certain places where people already jump… jump ship and go down south so.

[00:46:51] Jeff Hoffman: Yes. Yeah and that’s the other thing is I do think that you need representation in the states for your snowbirds.

[00:47:00] Anjali Harvie: Yeah.

[00:47:02] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. I… yeah if you just email me with any ideas or contacts you think I should have… I’m gonna have some downtime so yeah I get to…

[00:47:12] Sandy Ellingson: What? Jeff has downtime? I don’t believe that.

[00:47:15] Jeff Hoffman: Uh yeah.

[00:47:19] Brian Searl: All right Jeff your turn. Who do you want to ask a question to?

[00:47:21] Jeff Hoffman: Okay. I want to ask Sandy how did the Tampa show go and what kind of new products are you bringing out on the market?

[00:47:30] Sandy Ellingson: That… like this Tampa show went very well. A lot of my time at the Tampa show was working specifically on what Bob was talking about is better collaboration between the industry and the campgrounds. And actually I’m super excited to announce that we have our first pilot starting on February 1st at one of Bob’s parks.

So we will be having full… fully certified onsite technician on premise at his park scheduling services whether it’s warranty or maintenance or aftermarket installs as well as bringing in some really cool new retail stuff which will be the pilot.

One of my goals in all this is not only to connect both the industry with the campgrounds but to create ancillary income for a lot of our parks. Because with occupancy down the ancillary me… income means a lot to parks. And so this is going to be a way of bringing those two together and we hope to roll it out to at least 50 parks this year.

[00:48:29] Brian Searl: Awesome. Will it be easier in five years when we have 10,000 Robot Jeffs running around that can download the RV tech thing in their head and just repair all the RVs?

[00:48:39] Sandy Ellingson: There’s some interesting things coming Brian. I can’t wait to show you.

[00:48:44] Brian Searl: I just want to see… I just… it would be fascinating if they all looked like Jeff. That’s what…

[00:48:48] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. I would make them a lot prettier than me.

[00:48:52] Brian Searl: Sandy your turn to either Mike Y or Robert.

[00:48:56] Sandy Ellingson: I already asked a question.

[00:48:58] Brian Searl: Oh you did?

[00:48:58] Sandy Ellingson: She started it.

[00:48:59] Brian Searl: Oh you did. Okay. All right. That’s right. You started. So Robert do you have… do you want to ask Mike a question? Then Mike can ask Robert a question? I guess that’s fair.

[00:49:07] Robert Preston: Sure. Nice to meet you Mike. Obviously AI huge part of it. Where do you see it? How are you using it in regards to developing your product? Do you have talked to some other developers and the idea is that lot less developers and a lot more or QC where in the past that you did used to be a lot more developers and one or two QCs that could process the development side of it? And now that’s swapped. So I’m curious if you’re seeing the same thing and how you’re using it.

[00:49:37] Mike Yasieniuk: Yeah that’s a great question. AI has definitely made development a lot easier for our team. We’re a small lean team and AI has helped us grow and expand quickly in that way where our developers are using AI to expedite their release of features and all that kind of stuff. But we’re also using it in data and analytics and reporting.

So just having AI tools being able to analyze that data in the database and just outputting ideas that we wouldn’t have normally had accountants or data analysts would have had to spend weeks and months analyzing now can be done in the matter of five to 10 minutes by a… by AI data analysis is definitely a big one. And then just optimizing the experience of the camper and the campground as well.

We utilize AI support within our company and it’s… it’s amazing how quickly questions can be answered in human like fashion by AI nowadays when there’s a question about how to use our tools or anything like that.

[00:50:40] Brian Searl: All right Mike back at Robert.

[00:50:42] Mike Yasieniuk: Oh Robert you mentioned that RV resorts are also intertwined with real estate and they’re two different businesses in one. I guess how do you see those two industries working together better moving forward? Obviously you need to buy land and then put hospitality on it. Is there any like tools or processes that can help that bridge?

[00:51:06] Robert Preston: Yeah good question. I think there from the real estate side of it we’re always fighting a little bit of an uphill battle in that most municipalities, most people don’t really want a campground or RV park next to them until it’s there and then they’ll use it and they enjoy it and have fun and so on and so forth. But the development of those is very difficult.

So certainly if we could find a way to educate city and county is where we’re I think dropping the ball. The state and national level we have associations for but we forget that the first… first roadblock we face or sometimes the first threat we face is typically at a city or county level.

And then difficulty there is any given state has 60, 70, 80 counties and then you have five or six or 10 municipalities inside of that. So it’s… it is a daunting challenge but that’s… that would be what we’re facing if we’re trying to figure out how to bring the real estate side of the business along with the hospitality side and further both of them in a better collaboration. And that’s… I don’t have an answer on how to do that but that’s what we…

[00:52:11] Mike Yasieniuk: Yeah I think governments is definitely a roadblock for a lot of different industries.

[00:52:17] Robert Preston: Yeah.

[00:52:18] Mike Yasieniuk: Thank you.

[00:52:19] Brian Searl: All right. We’re a couple minutes over. We’ll wrap up real quick. Mike Y where can they learn more about Let’s Camp?

[00:52:25] Mike Yasieniuk: Yeah so we have our main sales site at join.letscamp.ca and our marketing… our marketplace for campgrounds at just letscamp.com.

[00:52:35] Brian Searl: Thank you for being here Mike Y. Appreciate you so much. We’ll see you again soon I’m sure. Sandy where can they learn more about what you do?

[00:52:41] Sandy Ellingson: You can just email me at sandy@sandyellingson.com.

[00:52:46] Brian Searl: Jeff?

[00:52:47] Jeff Hoffman: Just email me at jeff@campstrategy.com.

[00:52:52] Brian Searl: Anjali, if they’re coming from the United States to Canada how do they stay at one of your resorts?

[00:52:56] Anjali Harvie: Yeah head on over to daivarv.ca and you’ll see all of our locations, map, contact us and hope you guys come visit.

[00:53:06] Brian Searl: And Robert last but not least?

[00:53:10] Robert Preston: Yep unhitchedrv.com. Find all our properties. And then unhitchedmgmt.com is for our management and consulting services.

[00:53:18] Brian Searl: Awesome. I’ll throw out, Mike had to go but I’ll throw out crrhospitality.com for Mike Harrison. He had to leave to go to another meeting. Thank you all for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

If you are not sick and tired of hearing from me, which you probably should be but if you’re not by chance, you can come join me and Scott Bahr. We will be on Outwired in about 45 minutes or so talking about some AI news, data stuff of 45% to 52% cabins and a couple other good tidbits and nuggets.

So we’ll be over there. Otherwise we’ll see you next week on another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Thanks guys. Appreciate you all.

[00:53:47] Anjali Harvie: Yeah.

[00:53:48] Mike Yasieniuk: Great.

[00:53:48] Jeff Hoffman: Thank you Brian.