MC Fireside Chats – July 17th, 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 Perks, empowered by insights from Modern Campground, the most innovative news source in the industry.

Brian Searl:

Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is John and I’m not sure if you guys hear an echo. I’m not sure with that. But anyway, hopefully you guys aren’t hearing an echo. I’m super excited to be here for our third week, one, two, three, third week of July. Yeah, summer is going very, very fast. I wish you would slow down. Super excited to be here. Welcome. Alan is perhaps somewhere. He was there, but now he’s gone. So, we’ll just trust that Alan is there, and hopefully he’ll be back with us in a second. I think I heard through the echo that I was supposed to lead. Is that right?

Greg Emmert:

And I got, I got one as well. So I apologize if it’s on my end, but yeah, Greg Emmerich from camp strategy. Um, my partner, Jeff Hoffman and I work as consultants and, um, oop, there we go, a little reshuffle. Work as consultants to the outdoor hospitality industry. And yeah, so great to be back on the show. I’m sorry, Brian, I did skip a couple weeks on you because I had some personal commitments, but it’s good to be back.

Brian Searl:

That’s all right. Hopefully it’s not me that’s doing the echo.

Greg Emmert:

I’ve got my… No, now it’s all fixed. Sounds great now.

Brian Searl:

Yeah. I don’t know what I did, but OK, I’ll take credit for it. It’s fine. Tom, go ahead.

Tom Mason:

My name is Tom Mason. I head up the IV management group. We manage RV parks across the United States and have been doing it since 2017. And we are in nationwide. There’s not a state or location that we just manage in. And we have a great team to help owners of RV parks maximize and optimize the revenue from their parks.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Thanks for being here, Tom. Dave?

David J. King:

I’m Dave King, the president and CEO of Lake George RV Park in Lake George, New York, at the foothills of the Adirondack Park. I’ve been in this business with my family since 1966, when the park was first created by my parents, who are now passed. And we have a 400 site destination resort park here that has been recognized consistently as one of the best in the country. And we’re real proud of what we do here.

Brian Searl:

Definitely looking forward to hearing more about your park, Dave. I’m curious though, just one off, and we’ll never bring it up again. In 1966, was that your first year you set up the campground? Yes. Okay. Were you like super excited as a kid? You’re like, yep, I’m going to take over the family business. This is what I’m going to do. All about camping. Or did you have like, you want to be an astronaut or something?

David J. King:

Well, the park was born in 66. I was born in 65. Okay. So I was as excited as anyone could be. At one-year-old.

Brian Searl:

76, then? Let’s give you 10 years. 76. Did you want to be a firefighter, or an astronaut, or an alien?

David J. King:

I wanted to be a consultant. I wanted to be a business consultant. Nice.

Brian Searl:

That’s interesting. OK. That would have been something I would have said probably when I was a kid. I thought I was the only weirdo. And weirdos are cool. Weirdos are cool. Alan, do we have Alan here? He was here, and then his camera is flying away. But we can’t hear you he probably went out on the boat on the lake he just doesn’t want us to see Go ahead Alan if we can hear you I think but I Own and manage and run Sizzle Lake Resort and

Alan Kahn:

Uh, we’re outside of, uh, the southwestern part of the state of Washington, um, at the foothills.

Brian Searl:

Did we lose it? All right, well, we’ll come back to Alan. We’ll see. Alan, if you want, if you can hear us, just try to exit and refresh your camera and see if you can pop back into the show and maybe we can get you. So, Kind of how we usually start the show and we are, by the way, I should say this because we are looking to reformat the show a little bit here starting in September. We’re going to do more of a topical based industry trends and insights will be the first week and then a couple of the things that I’m forgetting right now. I think this show is going to be business operations. and development though, and so we’re going to shuffle around some of our recurring guests, give ourselves more of a topic, you know, to discuss every week, but usually how we start the show is I’ll kind of ask our recurring guests, you know, Tom and Greg, is there anything that’s come across your desk in the last month that you feel like is important for the industry, for the people who are watching from a campground perspective to know about?

Greg Emmert:

Tom, you can go ahead first if you like.

Tom Mason:

Sure, as far as anything new, you know, As always, this is our busy, you know, as any part, this is their busiest time, in particular busiest month of July in most cases. So, which is good. We had a very successful 4th of July and without many instances or problems, meaning like, you know, injuries and things like that, which is always when you’re servicing tens of thousands of people over a four or five day timeframe, you get a little sometimes concerned and certain things can happen and all that. So we, I would say we came through on skate, but as far as trends or anything like that, um, we had a solid 4th of July. Uh, but also like we have been noticing this year, you know, site nights are down. Um, and you know, we’re, we’re always looking to see where we can find opportunities to fill in where, uh, as many parts still have some availability. So the trend that we have noticed in the beginning of the year, meaning a little bit of a softening, we still continue to see.

Brian Searl:

I think it’s interesting to have that conversation briefly, right? Because this is, you know, Tom, you and I have talked about this. I’ve talked about this with a number of our clients with the marketing advertising side of it. of what I do. We’ve seen this softening in search. We’ve looked at Florida, we’ve looked at Texas, we’ve looked at several states, at the data of people who are just searching generally for RV parks, RV resorts, campgrounds, whatever. Not anybody specific, not even necessarily a city, although that data is there too, we just haven’t unpacked it yet. And we’ve seen this is down. The people who are going to Google and searching for RV parks and campgrounds anywhere in these states is down year over year, May to June. May to May and June to June, 23 to 24, by 20 to 25 to 30%. These are less people that you can’t get in. No matter how good your SEO is, no matter how good your Google ad campaign is, you can’t get in front of these people because they’re not interested in looking to stay. And so that’s a headwind. And then the Knights that Tom was talking about, right? So it’s all not to say we’re not negative on our industry. No, I’m certainly not. I think we’re in a great position. But I think it’s going to get to the point where you as a park owner, or you as the manager of RV parks, or a consultant for RV parks, are going to have to look at this macro kind of environment that we’re headed into, I think, over the next couple of years and say, how am I going to differentiate myself? Obviously, it’s the experience, right? But what is my story? What makes me unique? Is it my local activities? Is it my amenities? Is it my guests, customer service, right? Is it the warm cookies I give, like Doubletree, whatever it may be? What is that reason that sets me apart? And I think that’s going to be critical for you guys to figure out like now so that you’re not struggling to do that again next year because you forget about it all winter and think it’ll get better or something like that. And maybe it will. But, you know, I was talking to somebody in California yesterday and they were bringing up like the Coachella area and that kind of region of the country and how you go down there and like everything’s Bob Hope Boulevard and all the stuff that nobody really knows what that is anymore. And I think that’s going to be something that you guys need to pay attention to. It’s no longer enough to just have a shopping mall, or a miniature golf course nearby, or a swimming pool. Everybody’s got those things. So what is the reason to come to you when there’s not enough people to fill all the parks now? I think that’s a conversation people need to start seriously having with themselves. Dave, do you agree as a park worker?

David J. King:

Oh, I definitely do agree. I mean, just to kind of jump off of your data there, you know, I’m curious how those numbers compare. You said year over year to 23, but I’m comparing a lot back to 19. 19. Yeah, we don’t have that data. I’ve tried to get it. Right. So the reason I’m comparing back to 19 is, you know, you had this anomaly of the pandemic years, which obviously grew the industry exponentially. But I also think it was an anomaly in the sense that, you know, there was such a super hyper focus on the outdoor, you know, resort industry that I expected that we would see a decline, you know, as we move further and further away from the pandemic years. And so when I look back to 19, you know, we’re still on that steady growth, you know, trajectory. So our park is always differentiated from day one, has always been an amenity. focused facility. You know, we opened the facility in 1966 with 300 full hookup sites at that time, 30 amp electric water sewer on every single site was unusual. We also opened with all paved roads in our park, which was made it really unusual. The Saturday Evening Post, for those that are old enough to know what that is, it was a periodical distributed through the New York Times, did a cover page article on us back in the 60s. calling us the Asphalt Jungle. And the reason they were making comparison playing off a popular movie of the time, but the idea was nobody had really seen a park that had a lot of asphalt in it up to that point. We were one of the first in the country to look that way. So just to give you an idea of how we started the park, we always kind of exceeded guest expectations by trying to set a higher bar. And since then, over the last five and a half decades, It’s been doing just that. You know, we’ve distinguished ourselves with what we call signature services and amenities. Everything from our world, our really world recognized dog park that we opened in 2014, to the new water park we opened in 2017. We keep adding features that kind of hopefully exceed our guests expectations. And that’s the guests that keep coming back here generation after generation. So that’s a hard one to beat because they keep raising the bar, asking us to raise the bar when we already have probably exceeded the bar, you know, expectations for five decades.

Brian Searl:

It’s hard to keep up with the expectations. It’s interesting to me, like obviously it is raised expectations like you’re talking about, but is it also just a little bit of changing expectations? In other words, it’s not always adding amenities, it’s sometimes replacing amenities. True.

David J. King:

Yeah. Updating, right, exactly. We replaced, you know, two outdoor pools that were built in 1976 with this spectacular new aquatic park basically.

Brian Searl:

So yes, so like it’s also like what I mean is like shuffleboard for example Let’s just take that like there are very few like back in the 60s 70s I’m just guessing right a lot more people probably played shuffleboard than they do today And so it’s a not always adding it’s a well I can get rid of shuffleboard because that’s not more popular as popular as it used to be but I can put a gaga ball in it or something like that I have a perfect example.

David J. King:

We converted three of our nine tennis courts to six pickleball courts.

Tom Mason:

Yeah, okay. Yeah, of course Yeah, and we converted a basketball court, which got little use into a pickleball court. So it’s about the changing needs of our customers. And you always try to adapt and at least stay current enough so that the customer base is seeing the improvements while also you’re providing improvements that they expect.

Brian Searl:

Tom, you’re a recurring guest, so I just want to give you a hard time here for a second. that you might have taken away the opportunity for the next LeBron James to learn basketball by replacing it with pickleball?

Tom Mason:

No, not at all. That doesn’t worry me.

Brian Searl:

Okay. So what are some of the things you’ve seen, though, Tom, as it relates to that? Like, what are some of the things that you’re looking at maybe changing or upgrading, or you’ve seen customers demand from some of your various parts of your management?

Tom Mason:

Well, you know, you kind of touched on a little bit, and we all are familiar with it. It’s about the experience. You know, amenities are great. You know, you want Pickleball, you know, and if you, you know, maybe an upgrades within the clubhouse, if you need that, uh, that amenity there pool, obviously is a, is a big component in most of our parks, making sure that it’s functional and working and all that. But the X it’s experiences and partnering with maybe local organizations that provide a white rafting. And if you’re in Colorado or. Dune buggy rides if you’re if you have those in your area horseback riding Those are the kinds of things that we I don’t have parks that offer that but I’m working to with local entities to Partner with to create packages that allow our customers to experience that and we’ve had some good success in that area Now you need that in your area, you know, not every one of my parts have that but those that do we try to focus on that to create that experiential package, so to speak.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. All right, Alan, I know we are back, right? So please, I didn’t mean to let you sit off to the side there, but you want to briefly introduce yourself. And then I think we’re going to talk to Alan a little bit about sustainable resort management and its benefits and stuff like that. And then I think we’re going to talk to David about technology and campground operations, at least that’s what I have in mind. So go ahead, please tell us a little bit about Silver Lake RV Resort, Alan.

Alan Kahn:

Great. Okay. So like I said, we are outside of Mount St. Helens. Mount St. Helens created a couple of lakes years ago, and one of them was Silver Lake, which is really not that original. There’s several Silver Lakes across the United States. There’s at least three that I know of in the state of Washington, actually. So we actually get a lot of confused people who think they booked with us, but they booked someplace else, or they called us because they booked someplace else and are calling us to make some change. And it’s like, sorry, wrong Silver Lake Resort. So we’ve got, I took ownership of this I took ownership of this at the end of September of 2023, and we’ve been running it since then, my partner and I. Awesome.

Brian Searl:

So what makes Silver Lake Resort unique? I mean, I know we’re going to talk a little bit about the sustainability and things like that that you’re doing, but from an overall 20,000 foot guest perspective, why are they coming to Silver Lake Arboretum?

Alan Kahn:

Most of our repeat customers, I think they like, we’re only three acres, and I think they like that small family size. It only takes, we have six motel rooms, three, like a two-story building, three on the ground floor and three upstairs, and each one of those, the motel is built on land, but the decking extends out into the lake, so you can literally fish from your balcony. So that’s kind of a unique sales position. We have five cabins that all have that cabin folksy charm to it. And then there’s about, I don’t know, 18 RV spaces. And we only have, because we’re on a well in a septic system, we only have about five that have full hookups and the rest are just electric and water. because we’re kind of maxed out given that unique thing. But those five full hookups don’t get used as much as the other ones, because the other ones offer a little bit more space to spread out. A lot of people like their slide outs. They like having to be near the trees. They like all these other side amenities. So those are the more popular ones, the partial hookups, just due to the proximity to, you know, the trees or the water, or if they’ve got some family members in a cabin or in a motel room, they want the RV space closest to, you know, closest to that. And then we have about seven tent spaces. And so there are certain sections of the RV and the tent spaces where it’s just several families come together and they take over, you know, three or four spaces and they make this nice giant section of, you know, for them to campfire and do all that. So that’s kind of a neat thing. The other RV campground parks around us, either they’re not on the water, or they don’t have the view of Mount St. Helens, or it’s just like, or they might cater to the bigger vehicles. Because like, for example, we don’t have any pull throughs. All of ours are back ends. So if you’ve got a big bus and you’re going across the country, you’re probably going to pick one of the other ones because of the way they’re set up.

Brian Searl:

It’s an interesting, like I’d love to get some more data on this and maybe Greg or Tom, you have some insights into this too. Certainly Dave as well, right? But it’s interesting to get what you said, right? Like the partial hookups that are closer to the better view or better location is what I’m hearing, right? Tend to book more than the full hookups. So I wonder if there’s data out there or any anecdotal evidence we have. But clearly that is anecdotal, right? But from a larger scale perspective, what are people willing to go without sewer, for example, in order to be closer to the better view? And then how can campgrounds take advantage of that?

Greg Emmert:

Yeah, you know, if I can just jump in. So I’ve got, Jeff and I have got a new client. We’re developing a couple of different things for them. They’re a governmental entity. They own, I think they’re 10 parks. A few thousand campsites across these parks, they want to get into the glamping space but they also they have a relationship with new camp, which makes the tab in the tag so they’re very interested in building teardrop only section, or at least. they’re going to be specialized towards teardrops, but we can use them for smaller units, pop-ups, class Bs, things like this. So I reached out online. This is why I just did this last night. I reached out online to a bunch of teardrop only forums because that’s a very, while it’s very niche, these people are very dedicated to that type of camping. And in less than 24 hours now, I’ve got almost 400 responses just asking people what, you know, tell me about your perfect campsite. So far, I was just quantifying this before the call. So far, the number one response has been a view. So I think it’s possible that we, while we all try for the experience, right, and we recognize that the experiential part of the stay, of what we offer the guest is the most important, I think anyway. They’re actually saying, well, you know what? And now these are teardrop campers. So a lot of them are set up maybe with solar. They’re used to boondocking. But I mean, the majority of them have said, you know what? If you don’t give us power, we’re not sweating that too much. If you don’t give us water, as long as we can get to it reasonably, we’re not sweating it that much. But give us some space and some greenery so we can have a little bit of privacy and not listen to the people right next door. And give us a view. And you’ve created our our dream campsite. And so that’s interesting that we get onto this right after I sort of get that. It’s all, again, it’s fairly anecdotal, but I mean, a few hundred responses, it seems to be a trend to me.

Brian Searl:

Well, two things here, right? Number one is I’m big into technology and I’ve hacked your computer, Greg, so I get the topics for the show every week based on your browsing history. So what your advice is, from a camp strategy standpoint, is to purchase an existing RV resort and rip out all the electricity and just charge more money for the site.

Greg Emmert:

Absolutely. Yeah. You can, I mean, think about it. So you can take all that wire, take it to the scrap yard. There’s a pile of money there. And then all of those pedestals, you know, you go onto the campground marketplace, somebody’s wanting to buy them because there’s some sucker out there that’s still putting in water and electric. And then you’re set. You know, you just offer, you put a little, uh, one spigot in the ground, a couple of hundred sites with views and you’re all set. Yeah. That’s the new camp strategy build model right there.

Tom Mason:

Your point’s interesting. And then Alan’s, you know, Alan started it off. I have a couple of campgrounds where the exterior is full. It’s also a better priced product, but the exterior is definitely full because you have views of pastures and cattle and things like that, where the interior which has some coverage and tree and shade, which we know isn’t always ideal, but sometimes preferred as well as the exterior. And then, you know, we have some parks where we’re on water as well, and it makes complete sense. The ones that face the water are the most in demand and the most full and we get the most for. So I can get the view component on the water, but I found the exterior kind of interesting too, because your comment about what the teardrop people are saying about what their ideal site is. Interesting.

Brian Searl:

All right, Alan. Alan, talk to us about sustainability. So when you say sustainable, I assume you have electricity as a base point? Is it sustainable?

Alan Kahn:

Yeah. Well, we do a couple of different unique things here. So I’m not sure how you want to use that word, because that word has multiple meanings.

Brian Searl:

I want to use it however you’re going to define it, because you’re telling us apart, right?

Alan Kahn:

Okay well so my partner and I we got into this sort of I’m not sure if it’s common or not but we both are retired teachers from California and it’s hard to retire on a teacher salary in California and in the San Francisco Bay Area where we were so we had an RV and we were traveling across the country thinking of what we can do and And long story short, we came across this park that was for sale and so she had some family and friends that lived up in the Pacific Northwest area and so it became a nice option for us. But we still have our teacher background, our teacher mindset of what we’re doing and so we’re sort of repurposing the park also because there’s up here, we’re open year-round, but clearly there’s still an on-season and an off-season, and the off-season is kind of the school season, the school year, and the on-season, you know, the summertime. we’re doing some things to kind of keep this place green. We like the fact that it’s in the Pacific Northwest and we’re keeping it green. And for us, our version of sustainability is working with the environment and working with creating a safe space that school groups can come, scout groups can come, families can come. It has sort of its own built in unique marketing message in that fashion. A scout group could come here and probably do a whole bunch of merit badge things all in a day between boat safety and water safety and rope tying and tents and making a campfire. They can do a whole bunch of stuff without having to, all in their natural environment. We’re not trying to recreate something. It’s all happening organically right here. The same thing with the school group. We’re a mile away from the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center so there’s a few school groups that use us as like a base camp and then they can take a day field trip to the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center and then they can come back to next you know to spend the nights here and then the next day they can do something on the boats or the next day they can do some other activity here. So we have added a carnivorous plant bog, which has been very popular. When people walk by and they see it, partially just the carnivorous plants eat a lot. There’s a lot of bugs and insects flying around, as I’m sure a lot of the campground owners can attest to. And so it’s kind of doing its fair share of keeping that in check. but I would say at least right now once a month I’ll get some some family who wants to come by and buy one one or more of those carnivorous plants which I’m not selling because then I would you know that was my my thing but it’s like you can go down and buy your own you know but it’s just that unique that unique thing and we’re doing it we’re not spraying you know and and insecticides and fumigation and all that sort of thing Thank you. So we have that going. We have a worm composting bin going. We’re trying to get the word out about that. And so we’re trying to do things that are also in sort of that work. And partially it’s because we were, when we were taking our RV out, we came across an RV park that had a greenhouse and they had all these plants and it was very neat and it was just great how they were um being one with their local environment and so and so us being teachers um it sort of became a natural fit for us to do that um as also a unique a unique angle that puts us sort of in a unique position than just going because other school groups have just gone to the local state park and use that as their, you know, field trip, their science camp, you know, is doing that. And so we’re trying to position ourselves since for us, that would be the off season. And so it’s a perfect time for a school to basically rent out or a camp group to rent out, you know, the scout because I can easily imagine the scout master tent camping with the rest of this team, but all of the wives and mothers and whatnot, they can take over the cabins.

Brian Searl:

So we did talk about this. We had a guest on a couple of weeks ago who was talking about really heavy sustainability issues from the UK. And she was talking a little bit about the business efficiency that, you know, some of the things you’re talking about. Right. And how it seems like a large upfront investment to, for example, put in solar panels for the entire resort. But when you go sometimes long term with solar, but short term with other initiatives, save quite a bit of money. Right.

Alan Kahn:

Well, that is true. And we’ve got some solar, thanks to the previous owner, did put in some solar, like individual lights on a light path, that sort of thing. So there is already some of that in place. I would like to do more.

Brian Searl:

Not even solar, just overall sustainability of the effort you’ve taken so far, right?

Alan Kahn:

Right. Well, that’s in the future game plan. Right now we’re catching up on some of the infrastructure things that we’re not taking care of. There was a lot of things that were not up to code, the electrical grids, the water systems and stuff. And so a lot of the first part of this year has just been using the down season to get us up to code, because, you know, the county, the state, they’ve got these new things. Even though this campground has been here for decades, now it’s time. We can’t keep just grandfathering in, and so we need to redo some of these infrastructure things. But as we do them, we’re making them, we’re exceeding what needs to be done, so that way it’s going to last for not just My ownership of it, but whoever else takes it over in the future.

Brian Searl:

I want to make sure the last question I have, and then I want to move to today for a second. I just want to make sure we’re balancing this conversation, right? Because I’m a big eco person. I’m a big organic person. I’m a big, like, I fully believe if you put in solar and do composting and things like that, not only does it help your margins, but it helps like every, but that’s my opinion, right? Other than the numbers, which prove out, but. I want to make sure I balance this though, because the first thing that came to my head, and I know about carnivorous plants, and I know they don’t eat kids, right? But the first thing that came to my mind was like, well, what if a little two-year-old comes up and sticks his finger somewhere it shouldn’t be, right? And so do any of those things impact your insurance or the ability to get permitting or things like that that people need to consider?

Alan Kahn:

No, that’s a great question and actually the hardest part in the insurance was not the fact that we were an hour away from an active volcano. That was not at all what scared the insurance agency. It was having the boat dock. That was the thing, the main thing that was the scaring of the insurance agent. The carnivorous plants, I keep them, I have a variety of them. Some are more active like a Venus flytrap and some are more passive like a pitcher plant that just waits for a bug to be dumb enough to crawl inside and drown. So a lot of people talk about it, a lot of people look at it. I’ve moved the Venus light traps away only because the kids would constantly be touching them to watch it close. And after like six or seven times, it stops doing that because it’s wasted so much energy in doing that. So I’ve moved them either up high or very low, close to where the water’s edge is to make it so people can see it, but they can’t interact. in that sort of fashion. But no, that’s never been a concern of anybody else. And everyone oohs and aahs and is intrigued by it all.

Brian Searl:

Yeah. I mean, I know they like I know they close too slow to be a danger to anybody. Just insurance people. We keep hearing insurance rates are going up for everybody. Yeah. A question to ask related to that. Dave. Yes, it’s about when we talked about Joe Park a little bit and all the accolades and things but I have in my notes here you want to talk about technology and campground operations.

David J. King:

Oh, perhaps. Yeah, I so I don’t know where that note came from.

Brian Searl:

But it says will share insights on the integration of technology and campground operations focusing on improving efficiency and guest satisfaction.

David J. King:

Oh, cool. Cool. Surprise. It’s a good subject. Let’s see. Let’s take that back to 1988 when we basically started utilizing software for reservations and registration. It was kind of ahead of the curve in the industry. There wasn’t anything out there that really served our needs because we had already developed a great deal of policies that we didn’t want to get rid of. And most of the developed programs out there on the market were fairly basic and weren’t customizable enough to allow us to continue on with the policies we had developed in the decades prior. So having a background in an MBA with a concentration in management information systems, I took it upon myself to work with some programmers and create our own proprietary software system. And this was a huge game changer for us and for our park. It allowed us to maximize occupancy in a way that we’ve never seen before by backing reservations and using actually automated features, we talk about AI today, but kind of an early form of AI within the program structure to allow the programming to see things that will be too time consuming, perhaps for a reservationist doing a manual assigning to do. So we went, we really maximized site occupancy by doing that. And so that was probably one of the first impacts of technology in our business, of course, We also installed back in 1991, our own cable plant here with our own satellite head end. Again, we were kind of early on that in the industry and put cable TV on every campsite in the park. You know, we’ve had Wi-Fi here since 2003. or 1997 actually, 1997, that was early too. Now we have, you know, 48 access points throughout the park. So pretty much everybody has connectivity in their camping areas and all of the main public areas. So technology is a big element to the experience at the Lake George RV Park. Our guests, you know, when you were talking about you know, backing off and pulling the electric out. I thought, well, that loses 98% of our guests, I think, because our guests are addicted to service. I mean, you know, they don’t need a view as long as they have their 50 amp electric, you know, water, sewer, cable, TV, Wi-Fi on every campsite in the park. And that was kind of unique to the park has always had all the same services on all 400 sites. Uh, and, what’s different about our park than most is that all of our sites are priced the same as well. So all the amenities and services are including that campsite fee and we do not do different pricing for location, different pricing for, you know, less services, you know, less hookups or whatever. It’s pretty much the same experience for everybody. So we are selling a resort style experience where everybody is pretty much treated equally in terms of the rate structure. And, you know, today we live in a world of demand pricing, you know, resort fees, a la carte, you know, amenity and service fees in parks. And quite honestly, for 58 years, we packaged everything into one price here. We’ve never changed that policy. And what we’re seeing currently is a lot of guests that are just actually, you know, really super infatuated with that idea because they’ve been places now where the entry fee into the resort seemed very reasonable, but by the time they added all the extra expenses they incurred during the stay, even prior to the site lock fee and all this business, they really ended up spending more than you would spend in our facility, perhaps, where we have so much to offer every guest without nickel and diming guests. So I’m wondering if in this kind of recessionary period that we’re seeing, if campgrounds are going to start perhaps rethinking some of those additional charges You mentioned a decline in demand. Demand charges are great, right? You know, if you have a dynamic pricing, it’s based on demand. But if you have soft demand, your potential for earning those additional dollars from the dynamic pricing starts to not prove itself anymore. So, but back to the technology piece. I mean, we, in 1988, we also built an indoor theater here for live performance. That’s also part of the nightly resort experience here. It’s a 400-seat air-conditioned professional theater with pretty much Broadway state-of-the-art sound, lighting, everything. And so it’s a really enhanced experience. We do what I call cruise boat entertainment. You know, this is a family resort. So everything we do on our stage is appeals to the family audience, everything from illusionists and magicians to acrobats and comedy hypnosis and those kinds of shows, cruise boat entertainment shows. So, but we’re using technology in that venue as well, using all the, you know, robotic lighting and everything to try to enhance that kind of customer experience in that theater space. We have two indoor movie theaters here as well that we built. Our intent was to create a waterproof your vacation. That was the whole idea, right? To create indoor amenities that if you happen to pick that week in July or August, that ends up being a rainy week in the Adirondacks. You may not find yourself doing some of the things you had expected to do if the weather had been better. So we tried to make sure that we created amenities that would kind of insulate or guarantee a positive family camping experience regardless of Mother Nature’s influences. And so technology just continues to be a major. We just added EV charging stations here this year. That’s a first for us. I think we’re the first campground in our region to offer EV charging in the park itself. The new aquatic park we built is using state-of-the-art technology to manage the actual aquatic systems that are there. And on the sustainability front, it is on our five, 10-year plan to always try to consider environmental impacts as we continue to build out our park and develop new amenities. We do have a design for a plan for our RV storage area. We have quite a large storage area that can store about 200 RVs. That’s popular now for people that want to leave it here, drive back to Connecticut, and then just come back up here in two weeks and not have to haul it back and forth. What we have designed is shade structures basically to that will be solar panels that will provide protection for storage of the RV. So it isn’t in the sun, in the rain, but that entire facility will be more like a solar farm, really, built on these rooftops. And we’ve seen them in parks. We actually park under them or camp under them. In our case, we wouldn’t be camping under them because in our Adirondack experience, we do have a fairly you know, canopy here that we try to maintain the outdoor Adirondack Mountain experience. So we haven’t leveled, you know, the park and removed all the trees. So it’s unlikely that we would put people under them to camp here, but we can still, we want our storage to be in an open area. And so we thought that was a great way to, to utilize that technology and and offer a greener impact on our guests and our park.

Brian Searl:

Sorry, I’m getting attacked by like seven bees here. So I think one of the things that interests me, right, is the value prop. We started the show off by talking a little bit about the experiences and things like that. And obviously, I think it’s fair to say that you are at a scale building a Broadway style theater that 99 percent of RV parks and campgrounds are not going to ever get to, nor should they want to. Right. Right. But I think that’s still part of that value prop. So what interests me from your perspective is how do you discover what a potential value prop is for your campground?

David J. King:

I do it all through customer surveys. So basically.

Brian Searl:

So you had people who said, like, I want a Broadway style theater and you just built it to.

David J. King:

Um, I think what they wanted is entertainment, family entertainment. We decided to take it to a different level than you’d find in most camping facilities. So, but what they want is, was a family entertainment experience, you know, to make family memories, uh, with audience participation and get their kids up on stage, uh, you know, and, and, and have a good time. It was a, it was a way to fill, uh, the time between, uh, dinner. and s’mores at the campfire. When we did some surveys way back in the 70s, even though we’re in a very resort area where there’s just incredible amenities and services outside the park that appeal to families, amusement parks and and miniature golf, and cruise boats, and you know, you name it. What we heard from guests is that they didn’t have enough to do in the evenings for their families, that they felt that after they had their meals, whether it be in the park, at the campsite, or outside at a restaurant, that until the sun set and they wanted to start the campfire, they needed something to fill that time. For some people, that was just taking a walk, right? Or taking the dog to the dog park or whatever. But for others, they were looking for more enhanced experience, perhaps, again, comparing it maybe to the cruise boat industry. They often do that, right? That’s when you go to the theater, right? It’s after your dinner before you go to bed. And so that was in response to customer surveys. We decided to build a facility rather than putting you in a pavilion to do that, which was the original concept. We said, well, why not take it to the next level so that it’s comfortable in all weather, it’s air conditioned. So in heat, we’ve had a heat wave here. It drives attendance into that venue because now everybody gets an hour and a half out of the heat wave in this cool theater. So yeah, everything we do here is completely driven by customer surveys. We do exit surveys with every guest that’s here. And we also do a, what we call an annual survey where in middle of the winter when people are probably have maybe the most time to do a survey and camping the least in the Northeast, we allow them to do a survey and they’re entered into a drawing for a free week of camping. Usually we have about between 1,000 and 1,500 respondents. And these are all guests from the prior season that we invite to participate in that. And pretty much it drives everything we do here. I mean, in terms of how we improve our facilities, like you were saying, updates, improvements, and everything that we’re building. The aquatic park we built six years ago, number one thing they wanted was an improved aquatic facility. We had five pools to begin with, but most of them had been built in the 60s and 70s. They wanted something Disney-esque. You know, they wanted that kind of experience. And that’s what we built. And it just increased demand exponentially after we did that. I mean, not that we’ve ever had trouble selling sites in the summer. But all of a sudden we created this demand. So, you know, we’re at that $150 a night with a family of $480 a night. Our cabins now that we’re renting are $550 a night. So, but it isn’t just the campsite experience that drives our consumer demand. It’s that resort experience.

Brian Searl:

Is there a bar that, so many of, most of our audience is campground owners, operators, people who run camping resorts, much like yourself, but I would say a fairly smaller scale, right? Is there a bar that you could give them to say, like, if you want to do a survey, I act on 20% of people who request something or 10% of people, or is there a number that you can give them that says, this is something that I seriously should consider actioning? Because often you’ll get like the it’ll do a survey and 10 people respond and three people ask for a two million dollar water park. And yeah, right.

David J. King:

Sure. Yeah. No, I mean, you get all kind. We always have comments to, you know, not just multiple choice, a lot of comments. And that’s where you get a lot of these really crazy ideas or requests. But no, we we we consider everybody’s wishes and desires. But at the same time, we we would only put you know, invest in the items that are going to appeal to the greatest number of people. So when we did that survey back in, it was 2016 or so, where we got this huge, we asked him specifically about aquatic facilities and what they wanted to see. It was it was it was 70s. I can’t remember in the 70s, 70 percent of the people responding said, yes, we want you to replace your existing aquatic areas with this kind of resort aquatic area that like you see at Disney. So it wasn’t a small percentage at all. It was a huge percentage. And that’s where we said, OK, that’s what we’re doing. It’s a no brainer. Right. And yeah, with that many people, absolutely. Yes. Yeah, so but the little the little requests where you have now here’s a good example. We don’t have that many people that have asked for EV charging stations. We have a very small percentage. I think the last survey said about 8% of the people would use, you know, an EV charging station. But there were a lot of incentives out there for us to do it now with the power companies and so forth. So It was a good timing thing for us. And quite honestly, they’ve been underutilized this year. I mean, we have them, but not many people are using them.

Brian Searl:

But you know, you’re set up for the future, right?

David J. King:

Right. And, you know, that’s really for the lodging end of the market. You know, the cabin rentals that we have on site here, that really appeals more to that urban dweller that is coming out of, you know, Boston, New York, Montreal, four hours in either direction from us, those folks are more apt to have an EV and need that, you know, need those facilities. And it may be the one thing that they really are looking for that other resorts like ours in our region don’t have.

Brian Searl:

Alan, I’m curious, how do you decide what to, because you recently just purchased your park, right? You haven’t owned it for that long. Is that what I heard in the beginning?

Alan Kahn:

Right. Yeah, we bought it at the end of September. We gave ourselves a couple of years to look around and run the numbers and that sort of thing. And we had some offers at some other parks, but the numbers didn’t seem to quite be right. I don’t know where I heard this from, but the quote works and echoes with me. It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you. So one real estate agent that we were working with, and that deal fell through, but a month or so later, he remembered us, and he’s like, I got another RV parked. It’s coming up on the market, and you might be interested in it. So most of our modifications and changes, and people come back because they like what’s currently here, they like the small, you know, environment that this is. And the friendly employees, we’ve kept all the employees, you know, we kept the same sort of look and feel. But like I said, it’s mostly just infrastructure, it’s mostly just replacing things that either were not up to code because they were put in so long ago that now they needed to be up to code. So it’s things like that or things that now they’re wearing out. And so instead of just putting another band-aid on it, we’re getting rid of it and replacing it with something better. So that sort of thing. So like the docks is one thing. Some parts of the docks seem to be put together sort of like a Frankenstein monster, where you get a part here and a part there, and next thing you know, you’ve got a dock.

Brian Searl:

So docks work, yeah.

Alan Kahn:

Yeah, it was conceived in a big overall one-time pattern. So we’re working with some people to kind of wrestle that back into a more manageable experience. for that. So some things are like that. That’s not going to be a simple band-aid fix. We wanted to put in some food service activities and do that, and the county shut us down on that one because it would just require so much more Redoing the infrastructure, putting in new sinks, putting in just a new electrical hookups. And we needed every water hookup for the actual guest experience. And so we didn’t have any more water hookups. So some things like that, we have to make some modifications to it. And again, because of our proximity, one of the reasons I liked this park is A year ago or so, I went to one of those KOA retreats where they do it twice a year about buying an RV park. And it was at a park that was near a national park. And the manager of that particular place was commenting that the neat thing about his location is during the daytime, all the guests run off and go to the national park. So he doesn’t really have a lot of activity going on in a day. And then they come back at the end of the day and they’re all tired and it’s very calm. And so that’s great, because here, like I said, we’re near Mount St. Helens. We’ve got access to the water. People come out, they go fishing, they go boating, they get a pontoon, they get a kayak. and so they’re gone most of the day um and so we were thinking of doing some activities during the daytime and all those activities just kind of fell apart and because the kids the families they weren’t here because they were all off doing other things so um it’s caused us to kind of rethink um that and make now i’m trying to work on making more of a Instagram-worthy photo opportunity spots, because a lot of people like to take the picture, but unfortunately, Mount St. Helens doesn’t always, Mother Nature does not always cooperate, and sometimes that mountain is shrouded in clouds or other things, and you just see off in the distance a whole bunch of clouds, with the understanding that behind those clouds is Mount St. Helens. So we’re trying to find other ways that they can take, you know, memories, make memories of their trip.

Brian Searl:

I think the interesting thing here is it’s all about expectations, right? And Dave, feel free to disagree with me, but this is expectations both of the guests already has and expectations that you are setting as Dave King or Alan or consulting Greg for your properties when you owned your park. And so expectations are different. And you have to, I think you have to have a base understanding of what are my guests expectations already? I’ve already got five pools, now they want something bigger, but now maybe I don’t have any pools and they want a pool. And so there’s different expectations and different, you know, like you’re saying. Some people want to stay all day at the resort, some people don’t. What is the area? What is the things to do? And so what is the best way in your mind, collectively as a group, whoever wants to talk, to figure this out from your guests? Like if you’re new coming into this and you haven’t had that 80 years or 60 years of data to fall back on like Dave has.

David J. King:

I mean, I’ve already said, but it’s really just engaging and it doesn’t have to be an online fancy, you know, survey monkey, uh, you know, type of, uh, it can be comment cards. It can be just talking to your guests, you know, actually, if you’re in a park where you have the time and the ability to actually interact with your guests. You know, to me, we’re not trying to be the park for everybody. We know that this camping experience at Lake George RV Park is not what everybody’s looking for. You know, there’s a lot of people that come to the Adirondacks to get away from all this stuff. You know, they don’t want the technology. They want a boondock. They want to get closer to the water, the view. They want that. And we understand that. So back in the sixties, we specifically became an RV only park. We didn’t never had a tent site here. And the reason is mom and dad said, look at all these parks in the Adirondacks, all these campgrounds, they’re all tent campgrounds. We had plenty of tenting campgrounds. What we didn’t have back then are parks that had full hookups for travel trailers and RVs. So, you know, that’s kind of what drove us into that direction, trying to kind of create our own niche, you know, something that we could be that was different from everyone else in our local market. And so we chose that and it was, you know, we went out on a limb to do that, right? So when you’re trying to find that niche in your business, It’s a risk. You have to take a risk. We ended up, you know, winning in that risk. And we just kept building on that same, you know, foundation and just kept going more and more into this direction. And it took almost six decades to get to here. You know, this is not the kind of thing that long term. Yeah, very, very low.

Brian Searl:

You build a really strong business that way.

David J. King:

And our business plan, though, has not really changed. It was what I’m saying. The business plan is the same in the 60s as it is today. It’s just, you know, we have more resources now than we ever had before to be able to do things we could have never dreamed of before, you know. But I would say, you know, you have to start somewhere. Every park has to start somewhere. And the best thing to do is to look at your marketplace, I think, and And who’s being underserved? Is there an expectation out there that isn’t being served in my area? And maybe that’s the way to find a niche that’s going to be popular with a segment of the market that can be sustained and help you grow as a facility.

Brian Searl:

And I like how you mentioned, especially, it doesn’t take the money, right? It doesn’t take the survey monkeys or anything else. Send an email to your guests. Send a text message. Exactly. Talk to them on the phone when they’re making a reservation. If that all fails and they won’t answer you, cut off their electricity. Rip out the wires. What are they going to do but talk to you when you come knock on their door? They got nothing else to do. Exactly.

Greg Emmert:

You just went full circle, Brian. Full circle on that one. Back to ripping out the electricity.

Brian Searl:

Greg, what would you recommend to your employees?

Greg Emmert:

I am. First of all, I think both of these gentlemen deserve a round of applause for even gathering that data, because, as you know, Brian, you talk to a lot of park owners like I do. And unfortunately, there are not as many out there gathering this data as there should be. I mean, your guests are their everything, right? Without them, you don’t have a business and they’re with you. every weekend or every night or there’s someone there and granted in certain instances, maybe you’re not available. If you’re an owner operator, you don’t have much staff, you are mired down working in it too much and you don’t get to work on it enough. I saw a figure on this somewhere and I was sitting here racking my brain trying to remember where or what the figure was and I can’t remember and I’m not going to make anything up. There was a study done on this once before and maybe Brian, maybe you know this, but the parks where the guests actually get to speak to the manager or to the owner see a much higher rate of return customers because those customers, I mean, that just seems logical to me. I mean, those customers feel much more appreciated, right? If the manager comes around and actually has a face-to-face conversation with them or even a higher up, if the owner stops by and says, I’m the owner, thank you for being here. And you know, can I pick your brain for a second?

Brian Searl:

KOA did that? Years ago, like maybe somebody else did since then. But when you say that, what sticks out in my mind is I think the first KOA convention I went to was 2012. in Orlando.

Greg Emmert:

And that was my first convention as well. Okay.

Brian Searl:

Jim Rogers, the CEO, he got up on stage and he said something to the effect of like, you know, we have this data that shows that you just say hello to your campers and greet them and there’ll be whatever. And, and, and so just like take time out of your day to walk around the park and the whole, like the next three days, everybody was like, screw you, Jim Rogers. You don’t know what time to do that. And so I remember that.

Greg Emmert:

It certainly feels that way. A lot of the time, you know, I was an owner operator. We had staff, but, you know, I was also, I had a stack of 27 hats on my head because that’s just the way we ran it. Um, but I still, I tried to find that time as much as I could to get out, especially if someone was new, if it wasn’t a return customer that knew us really well, you don’t need to Dave’s point. You don’t need survey monkey. You don’t need any of that. Just know what you want to ask. Be you know, you don’t want to take up somebody’s whole day either like they they certainly want to have hot dog and s’more and family time But if they’re willing to talk to you and you have them right there, man, that’s a cather there’s so much invaluable information that you’re gonna pull from a five-minute conversation with your guests that can guide you to the theater or the giant water park or the carnivorous plant fog, which by the way Alan I I’m going to contact you when the show’s over, man. You’re right in my wheelhouse. I ran my park very eco-friendly. And I did a lot of environmental work there. So we’re going to have a talk, man, because I really appreciate what you’re doing. But yeah, it can lead you to all of that. And they’re right there on your property. It’s a win-win. If you can find time to get out and do it, that’s when you do it.

Brian Searl:

And it’s, again, full circle, right? And we’re running out of time. I want to give you guys a final thought here in a second, talk about your businesses, where people could find you. But like, again, I’ll just bring it full circle again, right? It’s all about expectations. So again, what I’m hearing from Greg is if you’re developing a park, leave the electricity off, the water off. No one cares. I think is the new advice, right? But then that’s the expectation. It doesn’t exist. And you can slowly upgrade without spending more money for a couple of years. That’s right. That’s absolutely right. We listened to our guests, and they said they wanted electricity. Behold. With a switch, right?

Greg Emmert:

Spot on.

Brian Searl:

All right, guys. Thank you for joining us. I want to give you guys a chance. Dave, where can they learn more about your RV park?

David J. King:

Well, where everybody tends to learn about their facilities. www.LakeGeorgeRVPark.com is where you’re going to learn most of it. And we use a lot of video now to try to give you a sense of being here at the property. So that lots of video for you to watch and experience what we offer here.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Thank you for joining us, Dave. Really appreciate it. Where can they learn more about Silver Lake RV Resort? I keep wanting to put RV in there. Is RV in there?

Alan Kahn:

No, it’s just Silver Lake. So like I said, there’s lots of Silver Lake resorts. So we’re the www.silverlake-resort.com. Without the hyphen, it goes to a place in Florida. And with the hyphen, it comes to us. So Silver Lake hyphen.

Brian Searl:

Without the hyphen, is it a bigger resort in Florida or a smaller?

Alan Kahn:

Oh, yeah. It’s huge. It’s in Kissimmee, I think. I think they rent out my chair. They do everything there. Yeah. Yeah, more money a day than we’ll do all season.

Brian Searl:

It’s not always about the money. It’s about the experience, right? Right. Exactly. Greg, Camp Strategy. We’re going to learn more about you guys.

Greg Emmert:

Yeah, you can find Jeff and I at campstrategy.com and we are end to end solutions. If you’re buying, building, upgrading, whatever it is, we certainly can help.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. And I’ll speak, I’ll say Tom Mason lost power. That’s why he dropped off. So, uh, but Tom Mason, if you want to learn more about him and his RV park management and stuff, it’s iv.com. I v e.com. So thank you guys for joining us. Really appreciate you for another episode of MC fireside chats. Thanks for being here as always. We’ll see you next week for another episode focused on, uh, I think the RV industry. I can’t remember now cause we’re switching topics, but it’s always going to be a fun discussion. So thank you guys. I appreciate it. And we will see you next week.

David J. King:

Good luck, Brian.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for joining us for this episode of MC Fireside Chats with your host, Brian Searle. Have a suggestion for a show idea? Want your campground or company in a 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 for more insights into the fascinating world of outdoor hospitality.