MC Fireside Chats – June 12th, 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 Searl, 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 [00:01:00] episode of MC Fireside Chats. So hopefully you all can hear me. There’s actually a lawnmower company behind me. The wind’s going crazy and I can barely hear you from my speaker that’s busted in my laptop. But other than that, we’re going to have a great show. So if you guys can’t hear me, just wave at me and tell me to shut up and then maybe Zach can take over or something and we’ll have a great show anyway.

But super excited to be here for our regular glamping episode. I think this is my first one in two months. I was on vacation last time you guys got together. So I heard it was great show. I heard everything went smoothly and wonderfully and probably way better than had I not been on vacation.

Super excited to welcome a couple special guests to the show. We’ve got two Saras and a James here, Sara Stahl, and we’ve got Sara and James from Glawning, and they’re going to introduce themselves in a minute here, and then for actually I can’t even say that he just popped in, because for us backstage, you really got, you can’t hear that lawnmower in the background?

It’s right behind me. Anyway for those of you who popped up backstage before, we were discussing Miguel Huerta just poofed in during the intro, so he’s here from the Mexican Glawning Association. And then we have Zachary, Todd Winperry, and [00:02:00] Alessandro. You guys, if you just want to go around for a minute, introduce yourselves briefly.

Maybe we can start with our recurring guests, and go from there.

Nobody wants to start? 

Zach Stoltenberg: I’ll start. 

Alessandro van de Loo: I will. Oh, Zach go, please. 

Zach Stoltenberg: I’m Zach. I’m a licensed architect with Cockwork, out of Kansas City. I lead our outdoor hospitality studio, and we help people build lapping resorts. Thanks. Thanks. Around the country and around the world. Got our first couple of international projects under our belt this year.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you for being here, Zach. Miguel, you want to go?

Miguel Huerta: Hello everybody. I’m Miguel Huerta. I’m the president of the Mexican Lamping Association and things are looking up. I think that now that the summer is all over the world. I can foresee that this will be the summer of glamping. Pretty interesting.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Excited to have you here, Miguel. Todd. 

Todd Wynne-Parry: Hi, I’m Todd Winfrey. I’m [00:03:00] with Horvath HDL. I provide consulting services to the hotel and glamping industry. Working with clients all over the United States and also the world. And happy to be here and about about Fireside Chats. 

Brian Searl: thanks for being here, Todd.

This is wonderful. I’m like barely, I got my speakers broken and I’m telling you there’s a lawnmower right behind me. It’s crazy. Alessandro. 

Alessandro van de Loo: Yes, I’m Alessandro. I’m part of an Italian Dutch family business. We operate two hotels. Eight glamping resorts at the moment, and we are almost ready to open number nine.

So over the past years, we also did quite a lot of development of new locations and bringing in a bit of I would say European market insights. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you for being here, sir. Sarah Stahl, you want to go first? 

Sarah Stahl: Hey there, I am Sarah. I’m the marketing director for Retreat Resort. We are Alabama’s It’s only glamping retreats [00:04:00] and we have 17 on site properties currently and we’re building four more and a spa.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, Sarah. And Sarah and James. 

James Martin: Hello. So yeah, I’m James, obviously. This is Sarah. Husband and wife team. We run a retail company in the UK called Glawning. We sell awnings, glamorous awnings, hence the name. We sell awnings for camper vans. I think They’re called Adarooms or something in the US, but they’re, yeah, they’re essentially tents that stick on the side of a camper van.

And we’ve been doing that for 10 years now, I think. 

Sarah Martin: Yep. 

James Martin: Just over. 

Sarah Martin: Yep. We designed it together in 2013 and we’ve been selling them ever since. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you guys for being here. I’m just literally watching your mouths cause I can’t hear anything. So if I interrupt somebody just wave at me and be like, Hey, I wasn’t done.

I’m going to go, I have to go inside and try to find another speaker in a second. But. To the, we talked a little bit about briefly, [00:05:00] I wanted to start maybe perhaps with a topic of conversation here that will give me enough room to breathe while perhaps Zach can lead the conversation while I go get my speaker.

We’ve been having some good conversations the last few weeks. I don’t know if I want to call them good, but we’ve been having some conversations with campground owners with the RV side about how perhaps there’s a little bit of a slowdown with some of the interest. Not, I shouldn’t even say interest in camping, but The people who are booking in advance, the people who are perhaps willing to travel as far across the country, things of that nature.

And so I’m curious if that type of behavior has been seen in the glamping industry, and if you don’t mind just leaving this for five minutes, Zach, I’ll be right back.

Zach Stoltenberg: Sure think it’s a good topic of discussion. I think especially on the development side, part of what we deal with is always forecasting, right? A lot of our projects, and we start the work, that’s. It’s 3 to 6 months of design and permitting and entitlements, and then there’s a funding stage and then.

Maybe a year, even 18 months to get a property [00:06:00] built. And from the time we first meet with a client until they’re opening their site could be up to two years. So we always try to do that look ahead in the industry. And. I think over the last couple of months, especially but more so this year than in previous years, I think we’ve enjoyed two, three years of call it the glory days of glamping where it was really an emerging industry.

There was a lot of interest. There was a lot of funding, new resorts opened and opened with full bookings. And we’re starting to see that kind of stabilize now especially if there’s a little bit more competition, more sites being opened. So I think that’s a kind of a good jumping off point.

Sarah, I’d be interested to hear with all the sites that you guys manage and run what are you seeing and what’s in your forecast for the year ahead? 

Sarah Stahl: I gotta be completely honest that this topic that you guys just brought up has floored me because I am seeing none of that and I don’t know if it’s because we’re saturated where we’re [00:07:00] located as far as not having very much competition, we’re the only one in the entire state I was just actually on a podcast interview yesterday talking about the fact that I can’t believe how many people are flying in just to visit us.

So we operate at about 60 to 70 percent occupancy and that just continues to climb. And then when guests get here, they don’t want to leave. They just want to stay with us. So we continue to build. And from the way that it sounds like glamping resorts are typically built or maybe more modestly built, you build first and then sell the units where our owner is a little on the crazy side in all the great ways and he has actually built in stages and so we’ve actually been selling as we’ve been building out and the marketing momentum off of that [00:08:00] Because we work with content creators quite a bit, and so we have gained so much popularity.

I see the exact opposite of what you’re talking about here in Alabama.

Brian Searl: Now, I know I missed a couple minutes of the conversation, but we were talking about, obviously, the economic stuff, and Are you saying you sell instead of rent or? Oh yeah, I 

Sarah Stahl: say sell like that’s my sales mind thinking. Okay, so I’m talking about, yeah, just booking out the unit. The company is a startup that’s a little less than two years old and we’ve gone from 30 percent occupancy to 60 percent occupancy and.

Six months. With demand so high that we have a waitlist on our weekends now so as far as leveling out, I don’t know if we’re seeing a level out, and maybe it would have been higher occupancy rate two years ago. But from where we’re sitting, I don’t see a decline, I [00:09:00] see an increase. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, it’s interesting.

I think most of the clients that I’ve had conversations with from the camping side of it, and we just don’t do as many glamping resorts, we do some, our background is in campgrounds and RV parks, I think we’ve heard more primarily from the people who would be stopping points along the way or the overnight destinations on the way to somewhere else that, like I talked to somebody in California yesterday, it was down 50 percent year over year.

And I just told them they’re right in the middle of literally between LA and Sacramento. They’re like, the only place, the only reason you’re going to that area of the country is because you’re driving right past them. And so you’ve got to reframe your mindset there. And I think a little bit and try to go after a different audience.

Cause I don’t know how quickly that audience is coming back unless prices plummet, but. Is that what generally we’re seeing in different places? I know I’m sorry 

Alessandro van de Loo: in Europe, not to be honest. So what we see is that actually occupancy is raising. Obviously here we have we have quite some differences between European countries because you have the Nordics in Europe are very different than South of Europe.

But I [00:10:00] think overall, what I hear is that it’s still a plus year on year. What we are noticing really a lot and also like other colleagues is that the spendings of the guests when they are on site are really lower than previous years. Like in the in the food and beverage, in all the extra services, excursions and this kind of things that’s under real big pressure here.

But the the overnight itself seems to be like better than in the past years. 

Brian Searl: Which almost makes sense, right? If you, one of the big analogies that I give to many of our clients on the phone, I think maybe I talked about this last week on the show, but there was a video I saw on YouTube about people who were grocery shopping in Canada, and I promise this is RV related, but they they’ve been spending less at the grocery store in 2024 than they did in 2020, and the only, even though prices are 20 percent higher, the only way that works is if Either spend, buy less food or you buy more processed and less fresh fruit and vegetables that cost more.

And so I think the whole thing [00:11:00] about the story was there’s only certain things that you can cut from your budget that are flexible. You can’t call up the bank and be like, I just want to pay less on my car and my house this month. So I’m only going to send you half. But you can cut food, you can cut travel, you can’t, and I think if you’re someone who really enjoys the outdoors and camping and glamping, then maybe that’s a conscious decision to say I want to keep this trip no matter what, but maybe I can cut some of the spending on site.

Alessandro van de Loo: That’s exactly what we are noticing. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, I would say so I had a really good conversation this last week and actually it would be some folks that would be great to have on the show. 1 of our clients Sweet Briar Ridge up in Minnesota. They just launched they just opened.

They’ve got 1 unit open right now. They’re bringing 2 more on board in the next couple of months. They opened up their booking window thanks to some of their local contacts in the area, some influencers that they’ve worked with. They’ve got an incredible Instagram page that is showing off their new dome unit.[00:12:00] 

They are booked from now, every single weekend, clear through Labor Day. They’re, and they filled their entire summer season in three weeks. And it was funny cause I called to see if there was a chance I could get up to, to visit them and see them. And he’s yeah, sometime after Labor Day, maybe, cause they’re booked literally every day or every weekend and some entire weeks from now clear through Labor Day.

And so for a. A startup, I know that they’re one of the first in their area, in their region. So I’m glad to hear what Sarah talked about. I think it depends on where you’re at. But I think some of those markets that have become more saturated we’re seeing a bit of a plateau.

Or people are being more selective or they’re more price conscious at, where they’re going to pick. But I think in these new areas, especially if you can come in, control the market or be the only option in that area I’m not seeing a slowdown on the glamping side. Certainly on the funding side, especially on RV and campgrounds, I [00:13:00] think that the feds just announced today that they’re still going to hold interest rates.

There’s no cuts. Not anytime soon, and in fact, maybe not at all this year. And I think that keeping the interest rates high is really crippling new development and new investment. That, that’s not good for my business but it’s, I think it’s certainly good for existing operators who are in the space that it means it’s going to be a while till there’s a bunch more investment on additional sites and properties in the space.

Brian Searl: And that’s I think what I what I wanted to hear, but what I expected to hear, because I think the barrier to filling a glamping resort that’s two to 10 to 20 glamping tents or yurts or accommodations is much easier than a 400 site RV park. For example. So I’m glad to hear that that’s a general consensus that I missed.

And then we can move on to something that’s happier. That’s happy. 

Todd Wynne-Parry: Guess I’ll add in on a little bit on that. The going from the general to the specific. And with accommodation, most of my work has, in the past, been in hotels, I, I still do a little bit of that the credit [00:14:00] card debt is at a, I don’t know, 40 year high last year, general tourism in the U.

1. was down a little bit because of some revenge travel coming off of 2022, so people are going overseas as opposed to here, I think, This year, just as a general rule people are pulling back a little bit, realizing that they spent a year, spending like they normally would do, but all the prices went up and I think people are tightening their belts a little bit.

That’s the, that’s would be the general rule. When you get into specifics and getting to your point around, RV parks in California, California clearly has the highest gas prices in the country. At least as far as I know, it’s, I go back and forth there all the time. So it’s at least a dollar to a 2 higher than even Oregon, which is still quite high.

So that, that may be having an effect. And when you get into really, more smaller markets like Alabama, it sounds like you’ve got a big disparity between. Ok, so Supply and Demand. You’re the only supply and there’s tons of demand. That is [00:15:00] a general rule that consists today in the glamping world.

The demand is still very high which is great. If you’re in a market that serves two to four to six million people and there’s not many options, you should be winning. In getting back to California, I can tell you that the projection for Wine Country, which plays a lot off San Francisco and the Bay Area, but also inbound, is about 10 14 percent off right now, year on year, and projected to continue to be 10 percent down off of last year, which was a bad year compared to 2022 as well.

For visits 

Brian Searl: just to wineries you’re talking about, or stays at wineries? 

Todd Wynne-Parry: I’m talking about resorts at the wineries, I don’t really do winery, but the Wine Country I’m dealing with mainly. Resorts and hotels there. They’re all both the pricing is going down. It and the values of those assets are also going down as well.

And I would echo to what Zach mentioned about interest rates and the funding environment right now. It’s still [00:16:00] really tough out there for funding, particularly on a From the equity side, that’s for sure. 

Zach Stoltenberg: But I do think along those same lines, glamping is somewhat of a unique industry. That, when you look at that economic climate, when you look at what are people willing to spend and what are they willing to do, we’re seeing the pull back from, flying or going, somewhere farther away.

But typically when you look at glamping resorts or campgrounds, most of their customer base is going to be within a three to four hour drive. 

Brian Searl: And 

Zach Stoltenberg: so I think as economic conditions get tough, people look for what is something fun that we can do because they still value the experience, right?

And ultimately that’s the business we’re in is delivering an experience. They want that experience, but instead of traveling to a national park and glamping, they’re looking at. Is there someplace nearby [00:17:00] that’s a day trip or, a long weekend trip for us? And so I, again, I think it depends on the markets you’re in, but I’m encouraged by that because it seems to be one of those things where when other things go down, glamping stays the same or even goes up.

People that are looking for that little staycation that, Hey, we can’t take the big family trip out to, The Southwest but we could spend three days, at a nearby glamping resort here. And so I, I think it’s something that’s actually helping insulate the glamping industry from some of the downturn that we’ve seen in traditional hospitality.

I think the other differentiating factor I think is business travel, that’s something, and Todd can probably speak more to this with his kind of hotel background, but for years, business travel has been the backbone of the hotel industry. And that’s their bread and butter, right?

That’s the part that pays the bills. And then your travelers, your vacationers, that’s bonus on top. We’ve seen, and I’ve seen with several of my [00:18:00] clients. An increase in business travelers staying at a glamping resort saying, my, my company will pay for this. They don’t care where I can stay.

And they discovered the Airbnb, in its heyday and said, Oh, for the same price and it’s so much more comfortable than a hotel room. And a lot of the clients we’ve worked with are seeing the increase in business travelers, people that are in town for one or two days with business meetings.

But they’re making the choice to, Hey, I’m going to stay at this cool glamping resort instead of a hotel or instead of an Airbnb. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. And I think just to clarify I’m not at all worried about our industry, whether that’s glamping or camping. I think there’s always going to be, like you said, like every valid, you made very valid points.

I think that in some cases, like we just used this RV park in California, I was talking about as an example. I think you’re just going to have to reframe perhaps based on what you were struggling or not struggling with, if you are struggling. To say okay I’m going to go after locals. There’s still people who want to camp.

They’re out there, but they maybe just don’t know about me because I haven’t marketed to them [00:19:00] before. And so I think the health of our industry is fine. We just got to maybe have to, in some cases, case by case, reframe our thinking of who we want our ideal guests to be. 

Alessandro van de Loo: Yeah. And I think what Zach was saying, like in 2009, 2010, when in Europe, there was quite a crisis going on, actually the open air industry as it all it’s quite benefited from it because there were a lot of people.

Downgrading from more expensive resorts towards the open air industry. And so I think the occupancies in this business where probably it was one of the best periods in time because of these people falling back from more expensive solutions. So I think that’s yeah, not being at the very top of the price level.

Gives the opportunity to service like a bigger target group. 

Zach Stoltenberg: I’ve got a question that kind of plays on that. I wanted to ask Sarah and James because you guys are somewhat unique because you’re in outdoor hospitality, but you’re building a product. For the [00:20:00] hospitality, we’re going to, we’re going to change that.

It’s the open air industry. I like 

Brian Searl: that better. 

Zach Stoltenberg: So what are you guys seeing? Are you seeing an increase in sales and would you take a couple of minutes just to talk about what you do and the very unique product that you guys have? Yeah. 

James Martin: Yeah. I’d say that our experience really reflects what you’ve been saying that people are looking for a cheap alternative.

But they don’t necessarily want to go from a luxury holiday in Europe, for example, to suddenly slumming it on a campsite. Our product the idea of it is to enable people to take that camping holiday and elevate it if you like and turn it into a do it yourself glamping holiday. So our product is it is an awning that goes on a campervan but you can put a wood burning stove in there.

People like to dress it all up with lighting and all the rest of it and turn it into a really homely glamping style experience. So we found that certainly as [00:21:00] people have moved away from those foreign holidays, they’ve started to look at our products as an investment because it is, it’s not the cheapest on the market but It’s an investment that should last them but will also enable them to save a lot of money where they’ll otherwise be spending it going abroad and have a very comfortable and glampy experience on the campsite.

Anything you’d like to add on that? 

Sarah Martin: Yeah, I mean it’s been a slower year for sales, hasn’t it, of flawnings, because with Covid, the stay patient was on the rise and now it’s stabilised. So we’re seeing the figures come back down again, but people are still investing because it’s a product that they can use to go away with or to camp in their own backyard.

It’s quite a versatile product, you don’t have to go camping to use it, you can use it at home for garden parties and stuff, have your own little [00:22:00] glamping retreat out the back. And so we’re, yeah, we’re. Getting through, but there’s been a definite downturn in the UK this year we’ve noticed.

Yeah, 

James Martin: I think a lot of it as well is down to the unpredictability of the weather, because we are seeing, as everyone is I think, more extremes of heat and more extremes of bad weather, and that unpredictability is creating volatility in terms of people, because that’s quite an impulse.

Purchase and people can decide to buy it a week out from going on holiday, for example, or two weeks out from going on holiday. But they have to book months in advance, so they can actually be guided to some extent by the weather. And we’ve definitely seen that affect sales, either positively or negatively.

You 

Zach Stoltenberg: said something really interesting that I want you to expand on a little bit. You mentioned that, [00:23:00] coming out of COVID that, You know there was a bump or an increase in sales and that you’re looking at a down sales year this year. Do you think it’s really down or are you seeing something closer to a stabilization that it’s down only because previous years were up?

James Martin: Yeah, that’s definitely the case. It was, because it did go crazy. During the COVID year, years couple of them, and like a lot of, in retail, a lot of people thought that they could continue to ride that wave to some extent once people have learned about the product and once that those sales were up a lot of retailers invested heavily in inventory we did the same, and then suddenly you’ve got loads of stock and people aren’t buying it as much.

Yeah, we definitely found that, but yes, you’re right. If you look at the figures, what we’re seeing now is actually what we were seeing pre [00:24:00] COVID.

Zach Stoltenberg: And what did you talk a little bit more about what you’ve done from that boost? Was that a chance to innovate, expand your product line, add additional features? Like you’ve been in business for 10 years now. So what, tell us a little bit about the evolution of the Guaning and kind of some of the new stuff that you guys have done.

James Martin: Yeah, a lot of it is about adding features and making the product more user friendly. Because the, what we’re competing against is camping products that are usually sold, or often sold, on how convenient they are, how quick they are to put up. And people like that. People like something that’s quick to put up and very convenient.

With ours, because people are decking them out with lighting and soft furnishings and all sorts of things. That convenience factor isn’t [00:25:00] there so much. So we really have to go hard on the comfort side of things and try and sell it to people as something that they spend a bit more time setting up.

They’re there for a week, spend a bit more time setting up, and you’re going to have a much more enjoyable week than you would if you’re sat in a nylon tent and it’s slashing, lashing down with rain and all the rest of it. So that’s what we tend to do. And what we’ve found now Is that because the main product lasts for so long, it’s quite difficult to get repeat sales unless you’ve got lots of add on stuff.

So we’re now developing lots of things like innovative awnings that go on the awning. Awnings that go out the front for more shelter, different types of wood burning stoves for cooking on for doing pizzas and things and then furnishings and that kind of thing. So for us, it’s more about creating more products that people are going to.

Want to enhance that experience. 

Sarah Martin: And we have tweaked the product a [00:26:00] lot since the early days when it was, a hundred percent cotton canvas and weighed a ton and came in like a big body bag type of thing. And now we’ve moved to poly cotton and it’s, it got a zipped in ground sheet and there’s lots of different Ways we’ve made it easier to care for and carry around over the years that we’ve had it, because we use it ourselves as well, of course, which is, we know the customer because we are the customer.

So we’ve been using it ourselves and making changes as we go along to improve the product and think about what the customer pain points are because we’re having them to. 

Brian Searl: Can you walk us through, for those, for everybody who doesn’t know in the audience perhaps, just talk us through Glampfest and Glawning.

How did you guys get started? What was the idea behind it? What were you trying to change? 

James Martin: Yeah Glampfest, that’s a different side to our business. That’s a festival that we do. Glawning itself came about because we had A camper van. We both had normal day [00:27:00] jobs, if you like professional type jobs and we like to get away into the outdoors at the weekend.

But what we found was at the time we actually had a vintage VW so a lovely old vintage vehicle and we had this kind of grey, Nylon monstrosity strapped to the side of it and we thought it just doesn’t look right for starters, but also it was very flappy, it was very cold when it was cold outside, it was very hot as soon as the sun came out, so we just thought there must be something better and it turns out There wasn’t what we were looking for so I went and bought a bell tent and started hacking it apart in the garden.

Sarah Stahl: I thought he was mad. 

James Martin: Yeah and we got someone to a local tent manufacturer to help us. Make a prototype that we tweaked and then we just started going to festivals and things and selling them. 

Sarah Martin: We started using it ourselves and people would just come [00:28:00] up on a campsite and say, Where did you get this?

Because we’d have the wood burner on inside and it would be actually attached physically to the campervan and they’d never seen anything like it. We started to think, yeah, we could probably sell a few of these. And over here. I don’t know if it’s the same with you, but there’s loads of like festivals all over the country, all over the UK.

You could go to about five festivals in a weekend if you wanted to. So we went, we used to go along to all of those and with the product when it was fully formed and sell them and show them off. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. Do you want to? No, go ahead, please. I’m sorry. 

James Martin: So yeah, so we had them all piled up in our living room.

And we were ordering kind of 10 at a time. And then as sales grew, we had to get a a unit for storage. And then eventually we had to move manufacturing to the Far East. Unfortunately, but that’s the way of the world. It’s cheaper and the quality was actually better as well.

I’m [00:29:00] ashamed to say. That’s what we did. And then it grew and we gave up the day jobs And here we are. And Glampfest is a festival that is an offshoot of that business. So a lot of our customers were asking us if there was a place that they could all get together. And we started this festival, which has grown and grown over the years.

And there’s loads of people now come with their Glawnings. Yeah, we started 

Sarah Martin: with a hundred of us in a little field. And we’ve just had the seventh one. Sixth one a couple of weeks ago and there was 2, 000 people there, so it’s just by word of mouth grown into a much bigger event, a bit of a beast.

And yeah, I’ve gone from strength to strength really, so it’s been good so far. 

Brian Searl: Where do you, last question and then I want to make sure we have time for Sarah Stahl. Who, it’s weird I have to say people’s full names on the show. Sarah Stahl, who’s going to talk about Retreat. But last question, where do you guys see yourselves going in the next few years?

Do you want to just continue to [00:30:00] scale this? Do you feel like you’re going to diversify more into the add ons you’re talking about? And what’s the vision here if everything falls the way you would love it to fall? 

James Martin: Yeah, I think I think we are, there are plans to scale at a modest rate. We’re more into getting the products right and making sure that our customer service is right.

That’s our focus and we have got some ideas for some new products that we’re releasing over the next year or so. Some that are about to be released this season and then some in the pipeline for next season. Including new designs of the actual main product, the main glawning product. We’ll we’ll see how they go.

Sarah Martin: It’s still just the two of us we’ve got to work together and try and Lots of cool things 

Brian Searl: were built with only the two of us, so 

Zach Stoltenberg: I’ll tell you, one of the things that I think is really cool about what you guys have done is that you focused on, on really the lifestyle and not the product and, hosting events [00:31:00] like client fest and things, bringing those people together it’s building the lifestyle.

Which then creates the customer base for you. That’s doing that. But I think that’s a good kind of lead in to some questions for Sarah. Glamping in the U. S. it’s certainly, and to our previous discussion, it’s the bug that people have to catch, right?

If you can get them to come out and do it once, sometimes, they’re, That’s the gateway drug, right? We can get them to come back and try other stays or other units or other accommodations. But I’m curious, from that lifestyle perspective, because you guys manage multiple sites and locations.

Like how much of that has been a successful part of your business and important to, getting return guests or repeat stays, especially where you’re one of the only options in your area. 

Sarah Stahl: So you’re talking about the lifestyle piece, as far as the customer perspective goes? Yeah, this open air industry, that’s a great name by the way.

This is my [00:32:00] favorite industry to be in. I absolutely adore it. And just from a marketing perspective, I love getting to know the customer and solving problems and then turning them into business development opportunities. So our customers specifically from a lifestyle piece are the moms who have sons and husbands who are more adventurous.

They want to. Have these outdoor adventures and the mom is no, I’m not having it. We have taken glamping up a notch with all of our units have AC, private bathrooms, kitchenettes, you could cook in there. It’s we say we’ve taken glamping and gone pro with it because our guests are the ones who are like, really scared of the outdoors.

And I’m a hiker myself, so I’m outside all the time, so it is interesting to interact with people who are like, they see a bug fly by their head and they’re like, freaking out, running into things because they don’t want to interact with the outdoors, there’s just like a fear of it, so [00:33:00] glamping opens up a whole new opportunity as far as a customer base because there’s just a way for people to enjoy the outdoors who wouldn’t have otherwise, a more traditional way.

So as far as retreat is concerned, we noticed that probably about 50 percent of our customers are outdoors. And again, we’re a startup, so we have marketed it as a resort, but we’re actually building the resort as we’re bringing in income from rental, from the rental properties. And so we’re constantly adding amenities and excursions because people want that.

At least our customers in our region want that all inclusivity of I want to bring all 15 of my friends, we each want our own unit, we’ll rent out the whole property, we want you to supply the caterer, we want you to supply the activities, you tell us what to do and where to go, we’ll pay [00:34:00] for it and show up.

We actually can’t even keep up with all of the demands that the customers want from us. Part of it is location based. We’re located on Alabama’s largest lake, but it is a more rural community. People ask us questions like, is there a grocery store there? I had a girl call yesterday.

She’s flying from Louisiana and she asked if she had to bring all her groceries on the plane because she didn’t know if we had a grocery store. And so it’s neat to have, to be the only one. Solving these problems because it’s going to be really difficult for somebody else to gain market share.

Brian Searl: So talk us through how Retreat got started. 

Sarah Stahl: It got started. So the owner actually is a serial entrepreneur. He actually has another national business that he also operates. [00:35:00] And him and his wife are entering into their retirement years. They’re not completely retired yet. They moved across the street, bought a lake house, and fell in love with this little property.

And they wanted to actually put fishing cabins because we were the bath capital of the country and you There’s anglers there fishing the lake year round, but the, it’s basically the property’s on the side of a mountain. And he determined that would be too steep for them to, bring their trailers up.

It would just be too difficult to park. His daughters, who were in their late 20s, said, Dad, you really need treehouses. You really need glamping tents. He just went with that, and he started with six treehouses. And then he expanded to six glamping tents and six tiny cottages. And he’s only built on about a third of the 40 acre, 40 acres that he owns.

And so now he’s building four more two bedrooms [00:36:00] overlooking the property. There’s like a lake, there’s a lake view. Because we have such a demand now for bigger groups and people wanting multiple bedrooms. And the cool thing about launching in phases is he’s just been able to maintain a good cash flow to continue to invest in building more properties.

Brian Searl: That’s what I’m interested in and, I think, Zach, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think most of the projects that we hear about from a glamping perspective are funded in advance and they’re built in one shot and you open up and you’ve got almost everything that you intend to have.

Is that fair, Zach, or no? Most. No. No? Okay. 

Zach Stoltenberg: I 

Sarah Stahl: don’t know the industry, but I don’t know that route either. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, I would say almost every project we do we design the property as a whole, and we definitely go through the entitlements and permits for everything that we want. But almost every project is phased.

And I, again, I think it’s 1 of those advantages of this industry that makes it a little bit more approachable. When you look at [00:37:00] a lot of, really well established operators now, they started with five, six, eight tents and then maybe upgraded to nicer units, after a couple of years, or just like Sarah described going to more hard side units or larger units, multi bedroom units and part of that is being responsive to the industry and your growth, you start out and you do your homework, you get a really good, Market analysis, feasibility study work with some consultants on what you think the demand is in an area, but you never really know until you open.

And so that phased approach, knowing Hey, we tried this unit, it’s booked 96 percent of the year. So let’s build more like that one. Or the same with missteps, we’ve got a client outside of Atlanta. Put a couple of vintage Airstreams on their property, when that was the craze and, AutoCamp was launching and everybody was really into that and they looked, a year later and said, these are our lowest performing, they booked the least amount of time and it’s just not, as comfortable or unique as [00:38:00] some of our other, And so in the last year, they sold both the Airstreams and converted them to luxury tent sites.

And so I think that’s one area where glamping tends to be a little more nimble, and give operators a chance to see what works, test it out without a major investment in it. But, todd, do you want to weigh in on that piece of it at all, with your background and experience with that? 

Brian Searl: I want to hear from Todd, and I also want to say I think my ignorance will lead to a good question that maybe we can follow up on after Todd.

And that’s, maybe, talk us through a little bit, and this is a question to the whole group, right? How do you decide, then, your phases? Obviously, a lot of it is how much funding you have, but if you’re coming at it from, I have all the funding I need, How do you decide, how slow do you go, is it two cabins, is it six cabins, is it ten cabins, is it those kinds of things, right?

But go ahead, Todd, please, first. 

Todd Wynne-Parry: Yeah, approach is typically the same as well in terms of guiding whoever the [00:39:00] visionary of the product is, go from the end and work backwards from there. And if you can do everything all in one fell swoop, then that’s great.

If not then a phased approach is you can do that. I think you have to be conscious of if you’re constructing. During a period when people are actually staying there that can get you some really bad reviews if people are hearing saws and hammers and things like that when they’re trying to have a peaceful time on campus.

So that, that is tough. But, a lot of the, a lot of the stuff that, that I work on tends to be, Brian Searl, Cara Csizmadia, Darryle Busa, Modern Campground, Insider Perks, Canadian Camping RV Council, MC Fireside Chats, Canadian Campground, Insider Perks, Canadian Campground, Insider Perks, Canadian Campground, Insider Perks, Canada.

Principal or the sponsor is going to be there potentially cleaning bathrooms and changing beds and doing all those things. And then once you get over 20 units and you start getting a decent amount of cash flow then you can start having an on site manager and whoever [00:40:00] was the sort of creator of the space might be able to take a step back and do another one somewhere or look for the phase two or whatever but it just you know up until, and this was the same when I was looking at.

Bed and breakfast, and I was looking at motels, and there’s just a line of demarcation at some point where it’s your lifestyle and you’re living and breathing it, and then it’s actually a business, but but if you can do it the way that Sarah’s boss or owner is doing it that’s fantastic because you’re hopefully never getting out in front of your skis because in the world of sort of risk things with a lot of seasonality going from, again, the lowest risk is typically a commercial hotel that has tourists, and it has business people, and it has groups, and it has events coming up.

That’s the lowest risk because you’ve got all these different demand generators coming at it, and then you work your way through to resorts that are open year round. And then you have resorts that are open, seasonally, and then you have [00:41:00] islands. And that’s like the most risky thing.

But so this is still purely a leisure play, maybe some corporate meetings that you get midweek in the soft periods, but it’s still a risky thing. So if you can stay out in front of your skis or not out in front of your skis, keep that debt and that cost below what you’re operating cashflow is generating then That’s good because it’s still relatively small business and you don’t want to get out in front of your skis and have too much debt overweighing you for when the flood or the fire or the downturn or the labor unrest or whatever it might be, there’s always risk in this particular industry.

Brian Searl: So Miguel, I’m curious, and I want to talk about phases, but you’ve been a little bit quiet over there, Miguel. Do you want to talk to us about how you built some of your resort? 

Miguel Huerta: Yeah, sure, definitely. The first one, it was out of luck, true to be told and we started with three inflatable bubbles in the center of Mexico.

And then, because we had the database with the largest [00:42:00] tour agencies in Mexico, we went viral. The second one, and the most important one, eh, it’s right next to the Firefly Sanctuary, the center of Mexico. And I think that, eh, and now We have two more and there are two others that are coming up this year and when we design our resorts, first of all, we need to take into consideration the client experience and by that that each tent has their own private bathroom, that they have hot water, internet, private security, and lately we have been incorporating things like To make it more business oriented, so we can host larger groups.

Now, all of these insights that we have learned, it’s because what we have been seeing in the last two months in Mexico, Specifically, is that the industry is consolidating, so it is very [00:43:00] well worthy to understand that you cannot rely on those leisure clients because at the end the competition is high there are other categories of hospitality that people are taking into consideration.

So you have to have at least a certain number of units and then try to market that and prioritize occupancy over the ADR, but that will depend on a weekly basis. The last thing that we have done and that I will strongly recommend everybody to incorporate to plan their demand, so we are very strong on numbers we have already came up with a methodology that allow us to identify regardless of the location, how the demand is going to look like in a specific week.

So for example this week on the tree glamping site that we have opened, One, we expect we expect this week to be [00:44:00] a high season week, and for the other two, we expect this this week to be low season for these two lamping sites. So the numbers are critical, and now with the consolidation that we’re seeing in the market, you have to incorporate that into your design and into your operation, because again, the, those operators that Are the most professional will be the ones that will prevail in the market.

Brian Searl: Are you seeing any changes in glamping behavior in Mexico? Like we are a little bit in the States 

Miguel Huerta: and. Canada 

Brian Searl: and Europe. 

Miguel Huerta: Oh yeah, definitely. I think that people are being more price sensitive. And I think that Zach mentioned that before, that with the Fed, that is not decreasing their interest rates here in Mexico, we just have a president, presidential elections.

And we’re seeing that people are less likely. to splurge and they want to be more cost sensitive, [00:45:00] which I think that it’s great. And operators, they need to, again, to be very close to the numbers to see, okay, let’s say that I have a small glamping resort with three units of Okay, maybe I can have a large rate or but in my case that on average I have 12 units per glamping site.

There are weeks in which we rather have or we prioritize occupancy over the ADR. And the other thing that we’re seeing is that a lot of glamping operators, sadly, they are exiting the market. So in the last week I got offers to acquire four glamping sites in Mexico. And I think that the industry will clean itself.

I think that even though that is challenging. These are pretty interesting times. And again, the ones that are the most professional will prevail. 

Brian Searl: Are you seeing that, Zach, a little bit too? More people are maybe up for sale? 

Zach Stoltenberg: I wouldn’t say I’ve seen [00:46:00] a lot. We’ve had a couple of clients that, got to the financing funding stage and decided that they needed to exit.

And looking at a, basically a shovel ready project. That they would rather sell to a potential investor who wants to come in and build it and do it. I think we’re starting to see not really consolidation yet. I think, we’re still a couple of years out from that, but certainly we’ve seen some partnerships.

The announcement with Hilton and AutoCamp I think Marriott’s getting ready to make an announcement sometime in the next couple of months. And I know that there’s other established hotel operators that are looking at how do we partner with somebody to, to get into the camping industry?

What I’ve seen a lot of re recently is a launch of some of these soft brands where you look at I think one of the biggest right now is Nook where Nook is a soft brand, but they’re pulling. A lot of these very unique properties still independently [00:47:00] owned, independently operated, but they’re bringing them together under one portfolio of a nook experience and the, the soft brand stay.

And I think that’s the early steps towards a consolidation model. So I think, yes, we’re starting to see that, but I think a majority of. The sites in the U S are still independently owned, independently operated. And for a lot of the reasons that Todd highlighted earlier, if you’re on a small site or smaller location, it really only works under that sole proprietor model to, to have something that’s third party management or, something that would fit into a hotel portfolio.

You really need just a larger unit count and a larger site to do it. 

Sarah Stahl: I’d like to echo something Miguel said, if that’s okay. Miguel, you gave really good advice. I just wanted to dive into that a little bit about understanding your [00:48:00] numbers moving forward. So we’ve actually already set all of our pricing for 2025 according to what we’ve done in 2024 and then set aside certain blocked out weekends.

Cause we actually lost a lot of business. And we lost out on full property bookings because our calendars opened for so long in advance with just a couple of different individual unit bookings and we lost out on full property bookings. So understanding like the projection of what customers are historically doing and the way that they’re traveling is really important.

And I’m glad you brought that up. 

Miguel Huerta: Yeah, in our case, that definitely has been a game changer because I think that with professionalization comes different business practices that some glampers Our glamping owners are not used to revenue management. So for example, in our case, we have sold the same tent for 50 bucks a night, all the way to [00:49:00] 400, and which I think that 400, it’s quite competitive even for North American standards.

And I do think that people need to pay attention on that. Sadly maybe this is me being a numbers guy, but for example, I’ve seen a lot of different softwares that they are how can I say this? But they don’t react in in a purposive way. They wait for your competition to raise their prices.

And now that tells you, okay, you should raise your prices too. So you’re being very reactive. 

Sarah Stahl: Is there a software that you prefer? 

Miguel Huerta: Not really. I do Excel, and hopefully 

Sarah Stahl: they 

Miguel Huerta: sponsor the podcast, which will be great with AI. But my point is that we run the numbers ourselves.

And that has been life changing. I think 

Brian Searl: also that, to be fair, I think there’s less choice where Miguel is for [00:50:00] software companies than there is in the United States, Sarah. 

Zach Stoltenberg: I think that’s an interesting topic, though, that I’d love to hear from everybody on. 

Sarah Stahl: And, 

Zach Stoltenberg: Alluded to earlier Sarah James mentioned that, their product It’s a an impulse buy, right?

Somebody sees it and they’re like, okay, we’re going to we’re going to buy one of these. We’re going to do it. And I know that is feedback that we’ve gotten industry wide as far as how far out are people booking a glamping stay? And I’m curious because we have a lot of established operators here.

What are you seeing? Is that an impulse buy? Is it people looking to book for the next weekend or, a couple of days out? Or are people booking? A couple of weeks or months in advance because, to Miguel’s point, I think for those larger group accommodations, and Sarah, you talked about groups as well, that becomes the challenge is how much do you open?

So I’d be interested to hear. Kind of what all you guys are seeing as far as lead time for bookings, how far out are people going? And then how are you [00:51:00] managing that? 

Alessandro van de Loo: We go everywhere from 12 months in advance until 24 hours. But we definitely see we divided our guests. It’s something we did recently in, in some groups.

We have one group that’s really, when they check out, they tend to book the, At least to block the period for the same type of holiday of the upcoming year. So here you have some very popular holiday periods, especially in April, May. And really we are already now at almost 90 percent occupancy for next year because all those people are like rebooking.

Sarah Stahl: Then you have 

Alessandro van de Loo: A very big group traditionally in Europe that’s booking around Christmas for the summer holiday. And that’s because in some type of jobs, you have to communicate your vacation at the beginning of the year. And the one who is like. Asking the days the first it gets like the best day.

People working in hospitals, this kind of of jobs in, in Europe. And then actually traditionally nothing happens or not that much happens in March, April and May. [00:52:00] And then in June, July, we have a lot of last minute for arrival, July, August. So we have this basically three big booking moments during the year.

And in Europe, it looked like a couple of years ago, the trend was going much more towards last minute and actually after COVID, we noticed that it’s going back a little bit more to a traditional pattern like that we used to see 10 years ago. So more people booking in this December, January period. And less people waiting for the last minute.

Sarah Stahl: For us, we most, the majority of our bookings happen three to six months in advance for individual. And then we fill our gaps last with last minutes. But for group bookings, we book a year in advance.

Alessandro van de Loo: Yeah. And we also see very clearly that the sales channel is very different because when we book in advance, it’s mainly through our direct channels. So our direct website or like people calling or sending [00:53:00] emails and when it’s last minute, it’s a lot through OTAs. Like we are working with live connections with all, actually the OTA portals.

And that’s the real traffic source that’s there in last minute. So I also think in last minute, people are much more price driven while the ones booking in advance are much more. I would say offer driven because they really want to secure the spot on the site. They choose in the period they choose.

Sarah Stahl: Those are facts right there, . 

Miguel Huerta: Yeah. But I think that, now that we have a larger supply what we’re seeing is that the lead time between the the booking and the checkin dates. It’s getting shorter, so that part of the industry I don’t think that somebody should take a word for granted.

What do I mean by this? I love about the glamping resort in Alabama, looks quite appealing to me, and I’m pretty sure that because of their market [00:54:00] conditions. Their lead times are way different than, for example, in my case, that I have a glamping site in San Miguel de Allende. There are internal and external factors that I think that it has to be considered on a base to base basis.

I agree. On a case by case basis. 

Sarah Stahl: Yeah. Our market is much different and we’re literally the only one within a 2 2 hour, in the state and then regionally, 2 3 hour radius.

Brian Searl: Good problem to have. Alright we’re a couple minutes over here, I want to make sure we wrap the show in time. Again, as always, I’d love to have a, continue to have a great discussion with all you guys. Thank you, Zach, for picking up my slack today. I’m just discombobulated and not all together today.

Appreciate you guys joining us. Does anybody have any final thoughts about anything we’ve talked about? We’ll just go maybe around the room and just briefly, and if you need to head off, please go ahead. I know we’re a little bit over, but just tell us where we can learn more about your respective business and get ahold of you on your website or something.[00:55:00] 

You want to start Sarah? 

Sarah Stahl: I just want to say this has been a great conversation and on my day to day I don’t get to talk to industry professionals. So is there like a place where you guys meet for ongoing conversation? That’s 

Brian Searl: a good question Zach. Is there a Facebook group or anything that has been put together for glamping specifically that you know of?

Zach Stoltenberg: I think I should probably start one. . 

Todd Wynne-Parry: The A GA is a Slack. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, I was gonna say if you’re a member of a GA yeah, they’ve got a lot of good resources for operators. I think they’ve got a Slack channel. There are a couple of Facebook groups that they’re more oriented towards I think traditional campgrounds RV campgrounds.

There’s some ownership groups in there. Certainly, reach out to any of us. I’m always happy to. Connect you with other folks. I’ve made kind of some mentorship referrals to some of our clients, Hey, I think you would really benefit from getting to know this person or something along those lines.

But yeah I think that the AGA is a really good resource for glamping in the US. 

Sarah Stahl: Okay. Thank you, [00:56:00] sir. 

Todd Wynne-Parry: I’m happy to give you some advice on capital tech stack and revenue management. I’ve got people that I work with very closely that set up the whole commercial strategy and can give you advice on the various different software that will maybe improve those last minute.

Sarah Stahl: Yeah, 

Todd Wynne-Parry: as opposed to the year out. Contact, I think we’re connected on LinkedIn perhaps. 

Brian Searl: Okay, Sarah, where can they find out about more about Retreat? 

Sarah Stahl: Super simple, RETREAT. FUN. That’s R E T R E T. 

Brian Searl: Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate you being here. Miguel, where can they find out about more about either of your resorts? Give us both or the Mexican Glamping Association. 

Miguel Huerta: Yeah, sure. Our company is Nantli.

travel, N A N T L I, that travel. Or they can reach out to me over LinkedIn, Miguel Huerta. And of course the Mexican Glamping Association, Although everything is in Spanish, Asociación Mexicana de Glamping, but I’m pretty sure that will be around, or if [00:57:00] not LinkedIn is always a good idea.

Sarah Martin: Great. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you for being here again, Miguel. Sarah and James. 

Sarah Martin: Yeah, you can find us at Glawning. com. Lots more information there. There we are. So yeah, it’s been really interesting to talk glamping on a global scale actually, because we’re, we often feel very blinkered with our UK view of it, don’t we?

James Martin: I was very interested to hear Sarah’s points about the organizing excursions for people because that’s a very unusual model for us here in the UK. It’s usually give me the keys and leave me alone 

Sarah Stahl: but, 

James Martin: But I like that idea of people turning up and saying, look, just organize the whole thing for us.

Brian Searl: And when is the next Glance Fest? Is there one 

Sarah Martin: May, 2025 ninth, the 11th of May, 2025. Yeah. 

Brian Searl: So we just missed it. Okay. All right. We just missed it, 

Sarah Martin: unfortunately. 

Brian Searl: Alessandro? 

Alessandro van de Loo: Yeah. More information about us. It’s on iCal [00:58:00] quar.com, which is impossible to spell, but I think easiest way is just look me up on LinkedIn and then you will find the links.

Okay, 

Brian Searl: perfect. Thank you for being here again. Alessandro Todd? 

Todd Wynne-Parry: Yeah. I’m at howorth htl.com. Also on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram under those names. Anytime. Gimme a call. Awesome. Last 

Zach Stoltenberg: but not least, Zachary. You can get me at my email address is [email protected] or website is clockwork ad.com.

And I’m on LinkedIn, Facebook, it’s all the channels. And always happy to meet new folks especially folks that are expanding or building something new and happy to help however we can to get more people in the industry. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you all for being here. Really appreciate it.

We’re going to wrap up another episode of MC Fireside Chats. We’ll be back next week talking about with some campground owners and things like that with that segment of the industry. But until then, thanks guys. Really appreciate your time for joining us and for great conversation. We’ll see you guys in a month for glamping again.[00:59:00] 

Alessandro van de Loo: Thank you. everybody. 

Brian Searl: Bye. 

This episode of MC Fireside Chats with your host Brian Searl. 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.