MC Fireside Chats – March 26th, 2025

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to not episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name’s Brian Searl with Insider Perks. Super excited to be here with you for our RV industry outdoor recreation focused episode. I don’t know what Lisa is doing but she’s popping things up all over my screen. She’s typing and in the wrong box. So that was fun experience to start to show.

Thank you, Lisa. We always gotta have something that entertaining to start the show here. Welcome everybody for our, some of our recurring guests here. We have Eleonore Hamm from RVDA of Canada. We have Shane Devenish from the Canadian RV Association (CRVA). Greg Emmert here from where are you from, Greg again?

Greg Emmert: Akron, Ohio. How’s that? 

Brian Searl: Okay. Akron, Ohio. Greg from Akron, Ohio. Just somebody we stumbled in across in the street and we’re like, come into the studio. 

Greg Emmert: Man on the street. 

Brian Searl: You’re on the show today. So that’s Greg. And then we have Phil Ingrassia, who’s sideways from RVDA. That’s a really cool take. I wanna do that, Phil.

I like you literally are sideways in your camera. 

Greg Emmert: Looks like he’s skydiving into the show. 

Brian Searl: It is super cool. Like he always,

Greg Emmert: It is actually. 

Brian Searl: Is he the attention grabber in the meeting? Shane and Eleonore? Like he’s always gotta be the one that’s I’m different. 

Eleonore Hamm: Not usually, but no. 

Shane Devenish: Things are upside down today anyway, Brian, 

Greg Emmert: It’s, yeah, it’s upside down day.

Brian Searl: That, that works.

And then we have Aaron Bannon from the Executive Director of American Outdoors Association who was here and now Aaron, we’re seeing like, I don’t know what that is, like a skirt or a pillow or a curtain or, I don’t know. Something fun, Aaron. But if you can hear us we’ll get you on here and we’ll talk to you.

But let’s start off with the the stuff we don’t wanna spend too much time on, but I feel like we need to touch on at least briefly. And I don’t like, I’ve given plenty of commentary on this on Outwired our other podcast that will air later today, but we’ve talked about that with Greg, who’s a cohost.

And I feel like it’s just, I’d like to just turn it over to maybe the, either Eleonore or Shane first to just give your representation of how you feel the issue is and where we can go or help or how it’s impacting things. So who wants to take that? 

Eleonore Hamm: I guess I can start. We’ve been, as an association just trying to guide our members, with as much information as possible pertaining to the potential tariffs. Obviously the situation changes. It’s, every few days. But what we know now we do have an advocacy toolkit on our website. Our website is RVDA.ca. We have information from members in terms of, key messages if they’re talking to government officials.

And this really has to do with the potential counter tariff measures that will come in May at this point, come into play on April 2nd for the RV industry. So some key messages. We have samples of letters that we’ve sent to government. And in our, the main message is that we’re trying to get RVs exempt from phase two of counter tariff measures because we don’t have an adequate supply chain of manufacturing within Canada to be able to supply the dealer network with the appropriate product.

I think we said last year of the 30,000 RVs that were shipped into Canada there were about 33,000 units sold and over 30,000 came in from the US. So the lack of Canadian supply chain is really going to impact us. And, the dollar right now is the exchange rate with the US dollar is not great either, so it’s gonna make products more difficult for dealers to purchase and have on the ground.

We’re just trying to keep everyone informed and ensure that we give them the best information to to talk to politicians and and fulfill the consultation program sets, for their business. 

Eleonore Hamm: That’s on our side, Shane. 

Shane Devenish: Yeah, and thank God for Eleonore keeping our dealers up to date, which is an extremely difficult task because I think things change a lot every day.

And even today, right before this meeting, we got a call from a manufacturer who is still uncertain about timing and and when they need to get the units outta their yard in, into Canada. So it’s hard to keep everybody informed when things change so much. Her group’s doing a great job of of of letting know exactly what’s going on for the dealers.

So it’s a difficult situation for us. 

Brian Searl: For those of us, for those maybe us too, but like for everybody who maybe doesn’t understand exactly how or when this impacts RVs, like obviously the inventory is a huge issue as you just brought up, Eleonore, but when does this. Potential tariff. When will it hit the RVs?

When the shipment crosses the border at the purchase point and then later delivery is like, when did that happen? 

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, it would be at the border. As of, and again, this is what we know right now. There’s a consultation process that goes on until April 2nd April break that the US administration is going to is going to reveal whatever their studies have shown.

And that’s the date. Theoretically, right now that phase two of the Canadian counter tariff measures come into play and RVs all on phase two. So at midnight of that. Day of April 2nd when a unit crosses the border the tariff will be 25%. Tariff will be imposed. The one exception is that if it was already in transit prior to that, so in transit means it’s sw the yard with the driver has a blading.

And then it can so there’s a few days grace period. So if it’s already on the road on the way to the dealer lot. But the other thing is that for dealerships, they’re going to have to pay that that surtax at the border at the time it crosses. So depending on the dollar volumes of inventory crossing, it can be quite substantial tax that will definitely impact the cash flow of our dealers. And ultimately may make product more expensive. 

Brian Searl: And obvious. 

Shane Devenish: Yeah. Brian? Yeah, if I can add to Eleonore, so it’s the Canadian response, they’re called countermeasures. And that they would take effect should the Trump administration put tariffs on Canada’s goods.

So we certainly wouldn’t do anything if if those tariffs weren’t imposed first. 

Brian Searl: That’s what I wanted to ask too. And just to clarify, because, and obviously this is a very, as we’ve noted, fast moving situation for a number of different reasons. But for, I guess my question is that this initial batch, as I understand it, that is supposed to come, not initial, but our second phase of our response in Canada to the United States tariffs that are supposed to come into effect, as you guys have noted on April 2nd, that is a response to the tariffs that are already in play, correct.

No, not these new reciprocals that the United States is threatening. In addition. On their own April 2nd. 

Eleonore Hamm: So no, that would be, so all the tariffs right now, the initial 25% tariff on all Canadian product going to the US was put on pause. Yes. Until April 2nd by the US administration. There are some tariffs but those be things that would be not under the current free trade agreement.

So it’s called Kuzma in Canada and it’s called U-S-M-C-A in the US. 

Brian Searl: And steel and aluminum too. 

Eleonore Hamm: So RVs are included in that, so that’s fine. But because so everything was supposed to be on pause, but then I think on March 13th, the steel and aluminum tariffs. Came into play into the US so an all steel and aluminum.

And at that point in time our government put in some countermeasures or counter tariffs for a small percentage of products, which is phase one. And as they wait for the response to the study done by the US administration, they’ve highlighted what phase two will be and that will be April 2nd. So I know it’s, 

Brian Searl: The reason I was trying to clarify is I’m just curious at what point do you think the government of Canada would back down on all these new tariffs for RV industries or everything else? In my mind it would have to be a, the original 25% would’ve to be off the table, right?

Generally speaking, like obviously we can hope and lobby and 

Eleonore Hamm: yes 

Brian Searl: for, right. But 

Eleonore Hamm: I think in simple terms, if there were no tariffs put on Canadian product going to the US if there were the ability to, and I think the ultimate game is to renegotiate the free trade agreement. If those negotiations were started and put into play then I think our government, I would be hopeful that our government would take those counter tariffs off the table.

Brian Searl: And has there been an increase in things leaving the yard to beat these tariffs, even though you’ve had short notice? 

Eleonore Hamm: Anecdotally, I feel there has been. We did see shipments were up in February 6%. I don’t know. I’m gonna say that’s probably March shipments will be up as well. Just because our dealers are trying to get as much product as they can prior to April 2nd. 

Shane Devenish: Yeah, we’re, what we’re doing, what we’re seeing, Brian is a large number of dealers, rent a lot on, just on the other side of the border. So Port Hu on the other side is Sarnia and people are are renting lots there and then cutting their trip in half.

So they’re just going from Elkhart dropping it off in Sarnia, going back to Elkhart, and he is getting in as many into the country as possible. We’re hearing a lot about that. 

Brian Searl: So a little not a lot, but a little bit of good news that we’re able to get some in. Obviously that’s not, we’re not happy with that.

But it’s something. Phil, you’re in, did I hear you say you’re in Washington D.C? 

Phil Ingrassia: I am. 

Brian Searl: Do. You wanna touch briefly from the American side of things? 

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah. I think Eleonore summed it up quite well. We were fortunate to have Eleonore and her volunteer leaders at the RVDA convention or at the RVDA board meeting earlier this month.

And, I think the industry is very concerned about this because, as Eleonore pointed out, 30,000 units is a lot of units for our industry. It depending on the year, it’s between eight and 12% in recent years. And anything that impacts our manufacturers, our US manufacturers ability to be profitable and weakens the whole system.

We’re very hopeful that the administration and the US and the Canadian government can can get this worked out because it is a North American RV industry. Yes. Meaning US and Canada. And we’ve been very, closely aligned for many years and we, we don’t want to see anything jeopardize that unity.

Brian Searl: Have you seen any movement from your discussions down there? 

Phil Ingrassia: It’s a big issue. It covers a lot of different industries and it is a fluid situation. It just depends on what day and even what hour it’s, and but we are letting the administration and Congress know that these types of trade wars can really cripple the industry and we just want to see fee free and fair trade.

Fair trade, as well. The industry is. He was very unified on this issue and trying to work through this as best we can. I know that’s a wishy-washy answer, but 

Brian Searl: That’s the best you have right now. I think. 

Phil Ingrassia: It’s and the group, they are doing a great job. 

Brian Searl: I think my question to you then, just to set the expectations for our audience, that is, I would say mostly a mix of primarily campground and RV park owners, but obviously we have some dealers and manufacturers and people like that who watch, who aren’t even well communicated with everybody on this call.

I think we all know what the best case scenario is to get rid of the tariffs. Is there a sense of playing devil’s advocate with the worst outcome we could expect is if the, these do go into place. Like what will the impact on the dealers, I think you’ve already said that they may not have inventory.

What would be the impact on potentially private campgrounds and, ’cause I did see an email from Kara as well. It was lobbying for this, and there’s downstream impact on the campgrounds too, right? 

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, I think there’s gonna be a couple sides. The positive side is in Canada, people are looking to, to camp locally.

May not be traveling as far it’s almost like a repeat of 2020. Camping locally. We’re hearing anecdotally from local campgrounds that that they’re getting that they’re getting extra bookings. With the stronger American dollar, weaker Canadian dollar, we’re getting people that have campgrounds across, or close to the border where they’re, I think they’re getting lots of calls from from US campers that wanna come across and take advantage of.

Of the price point. From that side, from a tourism perspective I don’t know that it’ll be that there’ll be that much harm on the Canadian side of the border. Obviously for our dealers it’s really gonna depend on how long this lasts, right? We hope that if there are the tariffs, it’s short-lived and then business can return back to a sort of a normal state if long term if the tariffs go on longer term I think you’ll see dealers canceling orders and maybe looking at pre-owned product to sell.

It’ll definitely impact the manufacturers and pack the consumers at the end. 

Brian Searl: All right. Will anybody else have anything to add before we turn to happier topics? 

Shane Devenish: Anything’s happier. 

Brian Searl: Anything’s happier. How about Aaron Bannon from the Executive Director of American Outdoor Association. Aaron, are you happier?

Generally speaking? That’s the opening question I have for you. 

Aaron Bannon: Am I happier? Happier every day? Thanks for asking, Brian. 

Brian Searl: Alright, good. 

Aaron Bannon: I had some connectivity issues for about the first 10 or 15 minutes, so I apologize. 

Brian Searl: That’s okay. It’s just me talking mostly for the first 10 to 15 minutes.

You didn’t miss much important. Now we get to the real meat of the important stuff. So although you did miss Phil, he was important and. So tell us what is the American Outdoors Association for the people who don’t know who are watching the show? 

Aaron Bannon: Yeah, happy to and pleasure to be here.

Thanks so much for having me. It’s great to connect with bridge audiences. I think we share in our own membership, a lot of folks who are engaged with your community as well. So America Outdoors Association is made primarily of. Membership organizations who are outfitter organizations, they’re providing facilitated recreation experiences on public lands.

A lot of our outfitters are providing like rafting or paddle sports experiences. So a single day whitewater trip or maybe a multi-day raft supported kayaking trip in some of the most iconic. Landscapes in the Americas. There’s obviously a ton of connectivity between the work that we do in providing these experiences in the places that people stay to have them.

And in fact, we have a sizable class of members who are in the adventure resorts arena. And they’re running experiences but they’re also providing campgrounds, other lodging restaurants, like that whole inclusive experience. So those folks are interested in all aspects of what I expect we’re gonna talk about today.

Brian Searl: I don’t know what we’re gonna talk about. I have no plane for this show, but I wanna make sure that Greg is unmuted ’cause I saw he had an X by his name, Lisa. Just in case we’re like controlling his mute and he can’t 

Greg Emmert: No. I muted. I muted on purpose just in case I got the sneezes today. So I just wanted to be, I wanted to be prepared to stay the load.

Brian Searl: I’m so looking forward to do two hours Outwired with you later. That’s gonna be amazing. 

Greg Emmert: I bet. I’m going back to mute. 

Brian Searl: Okay. So Aaron I have in my notes obviously we wanna talk about a little bit about sustainability and conservation efforts. I’m interested to hear your take, and I always ask first before we get to that, for the people who we have on from associations who are outside more of our traditional audience, that blend together. Obviously there’s a ton of crossover, but how do you feel your, the, out the American Outdoors Association or the people that you serve, the consumers of the businesses really cross over and interplay with the RV industry and camping just in your own kind of words and thoughts.

Aaron Bannon: I would say pretty extensively even to the point that a lot of guides who are operating in their seasonal situations, they’re often living in RVs. An essential component of the infrastructure of a lot of these these outfitters business businesses.

While some folks are gonna have inter integrated experiences on their land, a lot of them are gonna be depending on a robust travel and tourism industry that’s coming through their town and and making a stop and taking some time in a rural economy to have an authentic recreation experience.

Plays very naturally into the RV industry. I think where there’s not explicit partnership, there’s an implicit symbiotic. Mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship for sure. 

Brian Searl: Is there any changes that you’ve noticed in your industry over the last year or so in either behavior or types of camping people are doing or activities or, and the reason I ask that is because we’ve had a lot of discussions on this show as well as on out wire, just about the, for example, the RV industry.

The trend toward smaller, camper vans is, in smaller rigs versus the larger ones. They’re still buying all those things. But that trend is there. The trend in the camping industry, you’ve seen people, maybe who might have been tent campers before who are becoming ampers now.

And some of those are obviously buying RVs. So is there any trends that you’ve seen that you think are important to, to maybe highlight among your audience of people? 

Aaron Bannon: Yeah, definitely on the glamping front, more folks who are branching out into that and trying to provide, I.

In addition to maybe more traditional rustic cat and lodging they’d be providing some some wall tents that are pretty nice, like some enhanced camping experiences. So you’re still in the outdoors more or less, but yeah, living as large as you can in that situation.

Clamping is a place that a lot of folks are interested in looking and going. And you know what I thought to point out when you mentioned that would be, I we’ve seen a kind of a tightening of trips. So what that means for our multi-day trips is, it would’ve been easier to fill, say a two week drafting trip.

Certainly pre covid, but I would say the trend I’m talking about has been outgoing for probably 20 years or so. And yeah, the idea is just to try to pack it in a little bit more, get as much done as you can and then either head onto your next destination, but people pack it in.

And so our our industry has adapted and kind to provide shorter trips. I would say there’s probably a bit of a trend away from perceived riskier trips too. More family friendly experiences are definitely on the rise. 

Brian Searl: What would you like 

Aaron Bannon: Yeah?

Brian Searl: Just for our audience, what would you define as perceived riskier, just in your own?

Aaron Bannon: If you’re looking at like a whitewater trip, right? There’s classes of. 

Brian Searl: Okay, so riskier, like dangerous wise. Okay. I didn’t know if that was long-term driving to, that was where I was thinking it was going. I just misunderstood. Okay. 

Aaron Bannon: I say perceived though. Like I was intentional about calling it perceived risk because really on any of these on any of these very safe, the inherent risk is, the inherent risk is real, right? And the competency of guides who are leading like class four and class five rapid trips is extremely high. Yeah, the inherent risk is always there when you’re participating in a recreation experience on, a landscape both with natural features and like natural obstacles, but yeah guides can help mitigate that risk significantly.

Brian Searl: I think it’s interesting that you bring up the shorter trips and maybe Greg or even Shane, from your expertise with the Canadian Camping and RV Council, or Association, sorry. How long is it gonna take me to get that? But either one of you, if you two would like to weigh in too, ’cause I know we’ve had these discussions from the camping side of that people are spending less time on their trips, like shorter nights, maybe shorter duration stays.

And so that kind of lines up with what Aaron is saying, I think. I dunno if either of you wanna touch on that, but we’ve seen some of those kind of trends on our side too. Scott Bahr, who is on our Outwired show, who appears in the show too, has been mentioning some data points about how people have been packing the outdoors in trails and hiking and all the things in Maine where he lives.

But he’s seen far few of ’em staying overnight and we don’t know if that’s budgetary or we assume it is, but we don’t really have that data yet. 

Greg Emmert: Yeah, I have no real hard data to offer, but definitely seeing a trend anytime. The economy gets uncertain. People, they seem to stay closer to home. They seem to pack it in, as Aaron said.

That’s a great way to, to put it, it it kicks off an old nineties rap song in my head. Pack it up, pack it in. It’s very it’s all about time and disposable income, like discretionary income, right? Like how much do you have If it tightens, the trips get shorter, you get closer to home.

Fuel costs are a big part of that, I’m sure. But I know my experience as a campground owner was definitely that in the in the oh eight crash we watched all of our guests start to come from a tighter and tighter circle around our property. Not surprising that’s happening now, being that there’s a bit of uncertainty. What do you think, Shane?

Shane Devenish: Yeah. Definitely with the price of gas getting up there people are looking more locally. But I just spent a a weekend at a, at an RV show in Monkton, new Brunswick out east, and it was amazing how many people came by. And said that they were taking a long trip across Canada This year, I it was one of the first shows I’ve, ever had the chance to talk to so many in this role, which was.

On a camping association for Nova Scotia desk sort of thing. But there was a lot more people than I thought that were looking at at taking longer trips and that’s great to see too. 

Greg Emmert: That’s interesting too. I wonder if that’s a bit of lag, right? It always feels like maybe those folks had that trip planned.

Didn’t expect what’s going on now. ’cause of course, who can, nobody’s got a crystal ball. And if you do, it’s never that accurate. So I wonder if there’s lag, like next season is when we really feel the effects of these. Hopefully it never happens. We don’t ever feel the effect of it.

But you seem to wonder about that. What do you think about that? It’s maybe, 

Brian Searl: I’m gonna interject and say maybe, and then let them, let the experts actually give their opinion. But my thing is maybe, but also like lots of Canadians aren’t gonna cross the border in as much numbers. 

Greg Emmert: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: And maybe they’re enjoying their own country.

Greg Emmert: Already seeing that go down.

Yeah. And good for them. Yeah. For keeping it at home, if that’s what they feel they need to do. 

Brian Searl: But go ahead. If somebody has data, please. I don’t, so. On the long border trips. 

Shane Devenish: No. Yeah, I don’t have any data. Just Okay. Just what people were saying. And, I think to Greg’s point. Did they wake up in February and say, we want to go across Canada now?

It’s probably, for whatever reason, maybe these decisions were made last year ’cause you gotta do a lot of planning. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, for sure. 

Shane Devenish: Yeah, and it could be that, or it could be, just the climate today and they wanna do it, but it was just interesting to talk to so many people that was their plan for this year.

Brian Searl: So I think it’s interesting, let’s spend just a few minutes talking about how the different businesses in all our sectors would pivot here in what we think might happen in, let’s say a mediocre scenario, somewhere in between, best and worst case, which is probably what’s likely to happen. So we’ve got the Aaron from the American outdoors Association, like how do businesses like yours?

You talked a little bit on it briefly. I’m gonna ask three questions to prepare all of you guys for this, and then Aaron can start. But how do you, how do your, ’cause you represent businesses, right? Or do you represent consumers? I’m sorry, I don’t know. 

Aaron Bannon: Yeah, businesses, outfit or businesses. 

Brian Searl: Okay. So how do your, like you’ve talked a little bit about how they’re pivoting for shorter trips and things like that.

How do you, how do they pivot in your mind to either maybe go after more locals instead of people from further away? There’s obviously really famous using your example of whitewater destinations that people would come across the country to see, right? Tennessee and around the Smoky Mountains.

I remember going there, North Carolina there. But so how do those businesses pivot and whether they’re a temporary consumer during whatever we’re going through? I. Or whether they’re a couple year consumer or it’s a permanent shift, how do they adjust their marketing to attract those people? And then the same question goes to, Greg, for campgrounds, if we’re talking about reaching people who we’ve seen a shift toward marketing toward more longer term for a lot of our properties because the trans lead isn’t there.

But then there’s also that play of if your circle is tightening, how do I get local people more? And then for the RV dealerships specifically let’s play this devil’s advocate of what if they don’t come across the border and they have to ship to shift to selling more used RVs? How do they market those effectively ’cause they’re still great units, right? So Aaron, you wanna start? 

Aaron Bannon: Yeah, sure. A couple of thoughts like it’s not universal and certainly like these last couple years haven’t necessarily told the story, but in oh eight. When there was that pretty significant economic downturn the short term effect was heavy, but the, in the next year or so, like we saw a surge as you’re describing of folks going less further afield.

But but going to find those nearby recreation experiences. Outfitters in those kinds of situations are often like looking to that metropolitan draw that they can reach. So if you’re in Moab you’re trying to reach more to Salt Lake City, or if you’re in Grand Junction, you’re trying to pull from the Denver Metro area folks to your experience.

It’s it’s not there’s not always a one-to-one in how the economy impacts outfitters. It’s more like in how the, how economic pressures play out. Conversely, like to that, that shorter experience thing folks will are just compelled to adapt the experiences they have to offer.

So they may diversify, right? And put something in if they’re able to if they have the private line to support it, like a ropes course or a Zipline course that folks can do quickly. Or they might even try to find a new place that they could operate and try and get permitted to provide a shorter trip or trip that’s closer to a bigger metropolitan area to expand their operations.

Brian Searl: And I think it’s important too, as we talk to, to campground owners, and we’re gonna pivot here in a sec, Greg, in his opinion, but I think it’s important to understand like a lot of these places that Aaron represents. Are wonderful places that you should be advertising as packages or businesses to go to when you come, stay at your campground in your rv.

Because these are things that will draw locals out and maybe they’ve never seen or heard or experienced them before because they’ve never stayed in that tight knit circle or haven’t for a long time. And so using these local businesses in all this stuff, I think is a great way to enhance your offerings without infrastructure capital outlays.

What do you think, Greg? 

Greg Emmert: I think next time you gotta let me, because you just took it, you just walked all over where I was headed. What do you And now I got nothing left to say. I’m going back on mute. Hold on a second. No. That’s one of ’em for sure. Partner. If you’re being and we talked about this a little bit before on out Wired, or maybe it was on here.

It, Aaron said it perfectly. There’s no one-to-one. If you’re a park and you’re within an hour, or if the economy starts to squeeze even two hours of a decent population center, okay? You’ve got someplace you can market to. You can try to change your not necessarily amenities, but your activities, your experiential offerings, right?

To try to bring people in. You might have to adjust some pricing, run some different specials, and see how those work. Offer your long-term customers that have been coming to see you for years. Get those email blasts. Go and try to offer them discounted pricing, if that’s what it takes to fill those sites.

But if you’re not near a population center, if you’re one of those parks that, people from the East coast cross through as they go to the mountains or to the west, you might, that’s a really tough one. How do you talk somebody into taking that long trip when they’re not taking that long trip anymore?

So typically during the downturns, those parks suffer more. Unfortunately then that’s a lot harder to remedy. Yeah. But, try to get those experiences going. To your point, Brian an organization like Aaron and his members, boy, if you’ve got something like that near you. Just try to latch onto it.

If you’ve got a town near you, maybe there’s brewery tour or something you can put together there. There’s so many different things you can do through partnerships, and I think that is, my work as an independent consultant for outdoor hospitality, I think that’s a lot of the times overlooked.

And sometimes even, I forget to mention it to clients because it, to me, it seems so basic, but it’s not to everybody. And it’s so powerful because you’re grab, you’ve got your audience and their audience you feed off one another. So partnerships are the way to go. And again, your experiential offerings, I think that’s your biggest pivot.

Try to find those groups that maybe typically don’t come to see you, those demographics and what do they want? Can you offer it through an experiential offering where you don’t have to try to do major changes to your business to attract them out to your part. 

Brian Searl: For sure you can. We’re gonna talk about that on Outwired later because you, I dunno if you saw that, Scott, the whole like, yeah, we got a Gen Z-er, outlaid futuristic campground and all kinds of stuff we’re gonna talk about later.

But so Shane and Eleonore first, whoever wants to take it, just your perspective from that pivot on the RV dealer side, because it’s a different pivot in Canada than it would be for Phil in America for his organization and his dealers, right? ’cause he’s gonna have inventory down there. 

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, they’re gonna have they’re gonna have inventory.

They might have, the Class B manufacturers that manufacture in Canada, they’ll have a bit of an issue with that because if there’s a 25% tariff on Canadian product, we’ve got, a couple class B manufacturers, truck campers some of the smaller units. So some of their dealers may experience a bit of it, but then they’ll have.

Potentially other suppliers that they can choose potential inventory from. I think from our side, the dealers hopefully will be okay for the next few months because they’re bringing the units in a few areas for them to focus on. As I’ve mentioned before, as, pre-owned, pre-owned products.

Trying to, we know that sort of anecdotally, probably over 50% of the pre-owned product is so sold privately. To try to tap into that market to maybe get consumers to work with the dealerships trying to sell their units. We have a great program at our association’s, a pre-owned certified program that has like a 91 point inspection checklist that dealers can work through to make sure that that the units are, it’s for units 10 years and newer, so that they’re in good shape.

Obviously dealers will probably focus a bit more on the servicing side and make sure that the service departments are working effectively if people are not purchasing as much, but maybe trying to extend the life of their life, the life of their own current rv. And I think there’s a few different tactics that they’ll put in play.

One thing I’ve learned in my many years here is that the dealers are incredibly resilient. 

Brian Searl: Yep. 

Eleonore Hamm: And resourceful. And hopefully it’s not a long lived situation. But I don’t know, Shane, if you have any other insights, you know 

Brian Searl: Shane, I’d love to hear your take on just the, ’cause you, your association is all the parts and all the 

Shane Devenish: And the manufacturer yeah.

Brian Searl: Yeah. So you have a different take I think on pivoting. 

Shane Devenish: Yeah. So we’re our members are 50% in the US, 50% in Canada. So when there’s tariffs no matter what side of the border you’re on, you’re gonna get, you’re gonna get hit. At current some of the Class B manufacturers are getting I guess tariffs going down to the US to some of their dealers if it’s outside of Kuzma.

And I think that depends on where they get their chassis from, if I’m not mistaken if that’s covered under the free trade agreement. So some of our guys are getting hit now and should the, more tariffs come on and countermeasures, then all of our guys are gonna get hit, whether it’s a manufacturer or one of our parts suppliers.

Brian Searl: So is there a way for them to pivot? It feels like probably not. You’re in a rock in a hard place. 

Shane Devenish: And I don’t really, I’m not up to speed on tariffs from China and other places. Yeah. But that’s the only other avenue that I, they can order stuff from.

Yeah. I don’t think there’s any way to get out of this. 

Yeah. Unless it doesn’t happen in the first place. 

Brian Searl: Let’s hope that, yeah. Phil. 

Phil Ingrassia: I would just say that the situation right now, and I know that the US RV Manufacturers Association, RVIA is serving their members right now to see, what the potential impacts.

Are on the US market because, over the years Harvey manufacturers have sourced different components and different parts from different places. And it’s unclear what the impact would have to be on the end use product once it’s assembled. When you get all these components coming in from wherever they come in from, whether it’s Mexico, China, or they’re domestically produced.

And over the last two years, manufacturers and dealers have worked very hard to hit certain price points to make the unit more affordable. And right now we just don’t know exactly, what those, what the tariff situation will have on the ultimate end use price which. The manufacturers and dealers have worked hard to get to certain levels and to make it as affordable as they possibly can in a higher interest rate environment over the last several years.

And that’s impacting, projections going into the year. So for the US the latest projection is probably for 2025, about a 5% decrease in US retail. Now, certainly there’s a lot of dealers who are gonna try to outperform that. Yeah. But that’s where we are for the US national outlook.

And again the uncertainty makes it difficult to project. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. Because, and then a lot of it is also due to consumer sentiment and whether they’re actually interested in buying in the first place. 

Phil Ingrassia: Exactly. Consumer sentiment is a key thing that we watch because. If people are unsettled about their job prospects or the stock market or gas prices or whatever it is, that’s all baked in to consumer sentiment.

And with a discretionary purchase, whether it’s a boat or an rv, that has a lot to do with the health of the industry overall. 

Brian Searl: Okay. Back to good things. Let’s talk about some emerging leaders. You guys had a thing where you announced some really cool emerging leaders in the future who won’t have to deal with the problems you guys are gonna solve for us, right?

So they’re the lucky ones, but talk to us about the emerging leaders. Who wants to tell us about that? 

Phil Ingrassia: I can jump in on that. I was at the conference that they had in Phoenix earlier this month, and that’s a program that RVIA initiated several years ago. It felt some of the mid-level managers weren’t getting to some of the more important industry meetings, so they created this meeting that they now have every march, and it’s a great opportunity to bring not necessarily younger people, but newer people in from different companies.

There’s campground people there, there’s manufacturers, there’s suppliers, there’s finance companies, and there’s dealers. And it’s just an opportunity to get together. They do some team building exercises and they just do a fantastic job of creating a a cohesive community of people in the RV business.

And a lot of business connections are made there as well. So it’s a it’s a, it’s very great event that that RVIA had started a number of years ago. 

Brian Searl: And is that just the United States or is that a blend of both countries or? 

Phil Ingrassia: No, there’s Canadians there. Okay. We’ve met a number of people from overseas as well.

In fact, they had a delegation from Australia there this year. And it’s it’s something that post covid, we lost some of the events that we typically had. So this is a, this is just another way to bring people together. 

Brian Searl: And why is it so important? I know the answer to this question, or I think I do generally speaking, but why is it so important to focus on these emerging leaders and make sure that they’re participated and they feel heard and all those things?

Phil Ingrassia: I think Eleonore and Shane would agree that, the RV business is very relationship based. And you can be in the industry three to five years and you’re still a newbie. In some people’s minds. And I think anytime you can build the connections, the personal connections within the industry, I think that’s very important.

And there’s a lot of long-term people in the business. I’m one of ’em. I’ve been working in the business for more than 25 years. 

Brian Searl: No, come on Phil. You’re not that old. 

Phil Ingrassia: Everybody has the, that longevity and Shane and Eleonore are long term association execs too, and they know that it’s, it can be difficult to break some of the walls that can come up if you’re a new person. 

Brian Searl: How do you handle this? Aaron, at the Outdoors Association, are there programs for emerging leaders or young people who want to get more involved and be heard and have new ideas? 

Aaron Bannon: Yeah, absolutely. And we, it sounds like what you guys have going on at the RV Industry Association is a little bit more robust.

But a lot of folks who are engaging with America Outdoors are, managers in their first few years climbing, climbing the ladder at their respective outfitting businesses. We provide a virtual managers academy every spring that has been really solid and it’s something we started up since Covid, when it got it made, started to make so much more sense to have these virtual experiences.

And we talk about risk and we talk about liability, and we talk about marketing and budgeting and just give ’em some few basic tools so that they can be a little bit more prepared when they head into their their new roles or their recent roles. And, there’s a lot of training that happens at our conference too, so it’s programming intensive. 

And we usually, over the course of two or three days, we’ll have close to 40 different sessions either on, on leadership, on marketing, on operations, on risk management, on legislative affairs and people come for the community, but they also come for those learning opportunities.

Brian Searl: I think one of the most interesting things for me is when you bring in people, and it doesn’t matter if they’re young or old but who are new to an industry, whether it’s the outdoors or Harvey or campgrounds or whatever else, they often have those fresh perspectives that make you think of something maybe you didn’t in other ways.

Is there anything that sticks out in your mind that recently somebody said that you’re like, oh, I didn’t think about that way? That’s nice to have that perspective. 

Aaron Bannon: That’s interesting. I do see a lot more, like businesses, especially businesses that are being started by young people who are, just got a permit and got some boats and are trying to get something going or other ways that tend to be a little more mission driven in their efforts. 

Not only are they like trying to provide a solid guest experiences, but they’re, trying, they’re thinking about workers’ rights, they’re thinking about being good stewards of the land and they’re thinking about, providing these experiences to folks from all walks of life.

Sometimes they’ll be partnering with urban programming to facilitate an experience for folks who would never otherwise, like boys and girls clubs or something like that. Folks who would never otherwise have an opportunity to do something like multi-day backpacking trip or a multi-day rafting trip.

That’s some pretty cool programming I’ve seen, and I, it seems like it’s, it takes a lot of work, but the effort that folks put into it does seem to produce dividends and it’s really admirable. 

Brian Searl: Eleonore, Phil, Shane, you have any examples you wanna share? Anything you can think of? 

Shane Devenish: The only thing I want to say is it’s good for the the companies to bring forward their young folk to to go to that, that emerging leader and the RVIA convention or meeting they just had, it’s I had a the chance to go a couple years ago. And the young people there were very impressive and it was great to talk to them. They felt good.

They felt valued. But all companies now have to create that next generation. And by creating the opportunity to get noticed, I, for the young people out there, I think is a great initiative. 

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah. And it’s also for companies that are new to the industry. It’s an opportunity, especially like for RV adjacent type companies, whether it’s an IT company or perhaps a component manufacturer who’s in the housing business and wants to get into RV’s.

It’s an opportunity to meet established companies in the RV business for these new entrants as well. 

Brian Searl: Alright. Does let’s switch topics again real quick. I’m doing really good with my transitions today, as you guys can tell. So does anybody know from the RV industry side of things, do you guys have any knowledge that you can talk about the Go RVing experiential events that they unveiled recently?

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah. In the US Go RVing does a number of events every year they’ve been doing this, oh, I don’t know, probably the past 10 years or so. And what what those events are really, if you’re known that marketing terminology top of funnel, that means people who have very little exposure to RV and camping.

And so where these events are typically located are at for instance, they’ve been the GoPro event in Denver. Or they’ll go to a state fair, like a large state fair, like in Minneapolis. And people see RVs and then in an event that they weren’t typically expecting to see RVs.

Yeah. And so they have an opportunity to tour those units and and work with local dealers if they’re interested in learning more. So it’s a real top of funnel type of event to expand the market for RVs. And that’s where go RVing is working, is at that top of the funnel.

Brian Searl: That’s super important because like you said, we’re seeing like, we’re doing this on the campground side. There are so many people who are converting to glamping or who are going from tenting to glamping and who just have never been experienced or exposed to that RV lifestyle, right? And so there’s ways that you, that we can work toward in our marketing efforts to say Hey, look, this is over here.

You never would’ve searched for this before. You never would’ve thought about it, but you’ve, but we got you into your, through a GoPro event or through something else. And now it’s in the back of your mind. It exists and maybe you’re not buying on day one, but it’s there. It’s top of funnel, right?

And that’s crucial for the future. 

Phil Ingrassia: Right. A lot of these folks, and I’ve been to it, several of ’em, and you go in and they’ve never even been inside an rv. They have no clue. And then now you’ve got a whole new generation, the Van Life people. And the more out the people that are more rustic campers who don’t really consider themselves r.

But the vehicle itself becomes a means to experience whatever they want to do. And, that’s where, you’re talking about the people that want to really get out there and do the stuff that that America’s Outdoors works on, and their errors and their permit holders on public lands. 

Brian Searl: Is there, Eleonore, do you know if Go RVing in Canada does attends any events here? 

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, absolutely. The budget it’s a bit of a different budget and I know that, I don’t know what events they have. I don’t know if they’ve announced their list of events for this upcoming year. Gorby Canada has their next board meeting on April 8th.

But typically they do probably about four or five events throughout the year. They always, in Vancouver, they do Craft Beer Week. That’s the one I know of, but I know they’ve gone. 

Brian Searl: That would get me to go RVing. 

Eleonore Hamm: They’ve gone to music festivals in the past. They’ve been to some different, some of the different, outdoor shows as well.

And it’s exactly what Phil said. It’s to showcase an RV to talk to people that wouldn’t necessarily think of RVing or even, or have that idea to use their RV for the activity that they’re going to be doing, whether it be, a rock climbing or outdoor adventure. And so hopefully we’ll get maybe on the next show I’ll have the list of events that they’re participating in this year.

 But definitely something that is one of the marketing strategies that, that we use as well. 

Brian Searl: I’m counting on you having that list ’cause it’s like once every three years that I pre-prep and bring things to the show to talk about. So then I need you, I’m gonna have Lisa look this up. We’ll close the show with this maybe, and then some final thoughts of course.

But Lisa, will you Google this? I’ve got it on my phone. But pebble to showcase AI powered RV innovation at NVIDIA GTC 2025. It’s a medium article that I found, but if you can find any article about it, we can just screen share. Have, first of all, has anybody heard about this on this call? Greg?

Greg, you meant maybe you have? Or just 

Greg Emmert: I know about Pebble. I have been following them for quite some time. It is an absolutely beautiful RV and a really interesting concept being essentially a massive battery bank on wheels that also doubles as an RV can park itself via an app. You can spin it in a circle in your driveway.

Really cool. And I did happen to catch something about this, but no, I don’t know a bunch about the the NVIDIA integrations. 

Brian Searl: Neither do I. We’re about to learn together real quick. It looks like there’s not that many pictures here in this article that we’re showcasing, but there’s one at the top there.

It says that all electric Pebble flow leverages the NVIDIA Drive AGX Orin. Man, they know how to name stuff, don’t they? To redefine intelligent travel. So let’s see if we can find out. So Pebble is a California based startup, defining a new way to work, live, and explore from anywhere. Then this is NVIDIA, GTC.

That happened, I think last week March 7th through the 17th through the 21st. It says, by harnessing real time automotive grade AI processing Pebble is eliminating the traditional hassles of RV-ing, making, hitching, towing and set up effortless. 

Greg Emmert: Yep. 

Brian Searl: It says the startups flagship all electric trailers designed to bring a new level of intelligence. Magic hitch enables fully automated hitching, allowing the trailer to self align and connect to the tow vehicle with the push of a button. Yes, I’ll take that. Easy Tow with active tow assist optimizes energy efficiency and driving dynamics in real time, adjusting to road conditions and terrain to enhance safety and ease of travel.

Whether towing with gas or electric, it reduces strain and maximizes range. Yeah. And remote control allows users to maneuver the trailer with position. That would be wonderful. Can you imagine the campground owners who’d be like, yes, I want all my campers maneuvering their trailers with remote controls ’cause they already can’t drive them. 

Greg Emmert: They use the remote. But it ruins that Friday night at the campground for the folks that show up early enough to get a beer and then wait to watch everyone back in. Their entertainment value is gone. 

Brian Searl: That’s an experiential event for the campground though. You could market that if you knew it was coming. 

Greg Emmert: It is pretty sweet. You can spin it 360 in place too, because each side has its own motors, so it extends your vehicle’s range, whether gas or electric by actually pushing. A little bit, right? So you’re not fully towing it, it’s actually adding some thrust.

So it extends the range of your tow vehicle. But then when you get to where you’re going, you can put the little wheel under the tongue and you can spin it 360 degrees if you need to. You can back it up, pull it forward. It’s amazing. And the interior is absolutely as beautiful and innovative as the exterior.

It transforms from office space to living space. It’s I’ve been following it for a while and poking them online, hoping they’ll just send me a prototype model. So if you’re listening, 

Phil Ingrassia: founded that or Tesla, former Tesla execs. And it’s it’s quite a technological marvle, but I would advise anybody thinking about one to start saving now.

Greg Emmert: Yes. 

Brian Searl: You can turn off the screen here. Yeah. It says this one is that, so this is the Pebble Flow. It’s built for energy independence, 45 kilowatt LFP Battery. Integrated 1.1 kilowatts of rooftop solar provides seven days of off grade living. 

Greg Emmert: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Backup power supply capable of powering a home when needed.

I don’t know how big of a home, but sure. Okay. 

Greg Emmert: It’s about 140K, right? I think so. 

Brian Searl: The pebble flow starts at $109,500. 

Greg Emmert: Okay. 

Brian Searl: For an upgrade option to the magic pack for $135,500. So 1355K for the things that we’re actually talking about and care about, or at least geeks like me do. But again, that’s, this is a way to bring, just like we were talking about top of funnel Phil, this is a way to bring people who are tech, social media, computer Gen Z into the realm of RVing, right?

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah, no the whole electric vehicle and electric rv, or e rv, whatever you wanna call it, will certainly appeal to people that we may have never, ever seen in an RV dealership before or in the industry before. And it just shows you that there’s always innovation going on in the RV business.

Brian Searl: Yeah, I’m excited to see it. Will we, do you think we’ll see, do we see or will we see Pebble on RV dealers lots. 

Phil Ingrassia: Right now they’re direct to consumers, my understanding. But, and I’ve talked to a number of these startups that are building E-RVs and I’ve told ’em, if you want to scale up. 

Brian Searl: This is the way to do it.

Phil Ingrassia: Leadership model is the best way to do that. However, the Tesla model is direct to consumer with company owned stores. So we’ll have to see where, which route they go to. But many of the ones that started as direct to consumer are now bringing dealers on for sure. 

Brian Searl: The niche of the dealership is the answer in the future. Coming from an outside, like not everybody has the billions to start their own dealer network like Elon does, right?

Phil Ingrassia: Correct. 

Brian Searl: So yeah. 

Greg Emmert: The other best way to get them out is to send one to Greg. My address is call me, call.

Phil Ingrassia: Just drop ship it. 

Greg Emmert: Got it all set. I’ll take care of it. 

Brian Searl: All right. Any final thoughts, guys on the conversation? Show anything? We’ll start with Eleonore. She’s in the top right corner of my screen.

Eleonore Hamm: No I think that’s good. Thank you very much for the opportunity. 

Brian Searl: Thanks for being here. We couldn’t do the show without you guys’ insight and commentary and all that kind of stuff because nobody wants to listen to me. Greg. 

Greg Emmert: Yeah. Only final thought I have is I was listening to everybody talk about the sort of like the generational handoff, right?

Essentially is what you guys were getting at before, like that next generation of leaders. Whether you own a single campground or you own a franchise, or you’re part of O High and the greater outdoor hospitality industry. And there are a lot of places that are already leaning into this, but I don’t see enough individual owners or franchise owners or small maybe small system owners looking at developing their next leaders, their next generation, so to speak.

That handoff, it’s really important. It’s easy to say. It’s not so easy to do. Everybody talks about how do we tap that, that Gen Z audience. Hire some Gen Z people and train them to be your leaders and listen to their insights. 

Brian Searl: No, all the Gen Z people are lazy. They’re all on social media, Greg.

Greg Emmert: Yes, of course. As are the millennials. We still, I still hear people talk about millennials. He seeing millennials are still living in people’s basements. Like Brian that’s, I am interest in his parents’ basement. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. I’m in my basement. 

Greg Emmert: He’s a lazy millennial. Hire those people, they have insight as to their tap their brains and they can lead you to that.

And then you have a leader ready to take you into the next phase of whatever that business is. ’cause it’s changing really fast really fast. So lean into that. That’s my final thought there. Thank you. 

Brian Searl: That’s a really fast thing coming off the walking robots we’re gonna look at later.

Yeah. All right. Aaron, final thoughts? 

Aaron Bannon: Yeah, sure. Phil and I worked together on a bill that passed Congress in late December called the Explore Act. And that was an achievement by the way. And thanks Phil, and thanks to everybody outdoor recreation round table and beyond to help make that thing happen.

It’s a big deal for us. There’s a number of provisions in there called the simplifying outdoor access for recreation. And those provisions relate directly to permitting, right? And one of the real thrusts of that was to make it more achievable. Not only if you have an operation and you wanna grow it, and you wanna be able to interface with the agency to change the face of your permit to do that, but it lowers the threshold for new operators.

If you’re in an area where you see recreation potential, whether you wanna try to pursue a public a public land experience that you would provide or you have some potential in someone that you could promote to do that. I think the, yeah, the landscape has not been this good for quite a long time for startups who wanna try to go that way.

Yeah, I hope to see a lot of partnerships as Greg mentioned earlier bubbling up from the outcome as they implement that bill. And I look forward to checking out a lot of your campgrounds. I’m poking around this country in my work. And where can they learn more about the American Outdoors Association?

Oh, thanks. They can definitely check out our website, America outdoors.org, so no n in the middle, just so people catch that. And there you can go and find a directory of all of our outfitter members. You can find a directory of suppliers. It’s built a little bit for. The casual browser and built a little bit for the outfitter owner too.

But so that’s a great way to see a little bit about the kind of work that we do and a lot of the advocacy that we do for our membership and a lot that our members do to try to provide their experiences to folks coming from around the world. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you for being here and I appreciate it.

Aaron Bannon: It’s an honor. 

Brian Searl: Shane, any final thoughts? 

Shane Devenish: Yeah, it’s you can see our new logo there CRV eight’s 50th anniversary this year. So we’re gonna be doing some special things throughout the year. And 

Brian Searl: What do the leaves symbolize? You’re gonna mention your logo, I need to know what the little leaves symbolize.

Shane Devenish: Those are, I think they look like wheat. 

Brian Searl: But you, 

Shane Devenish: I don’t know. It’s before my time, Brian. 

Brian Searl: Oh, okay. All right.

Shane Devenish: But check out our social media and our website for updates. We’re doing a lot of neat stuff this year. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you, Shane. Appreciate it. And Phil. 

Phil Ingrassia: Just, I’m glad to see it’s warming up and we’re getting ready for a big season.

Sure, certainly there’s some challenges, but I always like to think that the basic reason people want to go outside is never gonna leave us. And we just all need to be prepared to, to serve our customers and get ready for a big spring and summer. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Eleonore, I do wanna give you one more chance for a second.

Can you just tell them where they can find that petition to? 

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, absolutely. On our website, rvda, www.rvda.ca and a look at the top, there’s a link for advocacy and the advocacy toolkit and all the information will be in there, including the links to the government consultation. 

Brian Searl: And who’s eligible to fill that out.

Eleonore Hamm: The consultation, any Canadian whether it be an organization, a business, an individual anybody can put it’s a comment period on the tariffs. We do have specific tariff codes that we’re looking for exemptions, but really any comment anybody can comment. 

Brian Searl: The, those codes are available on the website or. 

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah.

And if they’re not, they can email me at or email our association at info, [email protected]. We’ve got a bit of a template with the different RV they’re called HS codes. The harmonized codes for for import at CBSA. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you for being here, Eleonore. Appreciate it. Thank you guys for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

We’ll see you Greg and I’ll see you in about 47, 57 minutes, sorry, 57 minutes on Outwired. We’re gonna talk about Gen Z. We’re gonna talk about how to design this crazy campground that just starts from a scratch that’s gonna appeal to hesitant travelers, also Gen Z, and then maybe even Gen Z when they’re camping with their robots in a few years.

So we’ll have some fun talking about that. And then we’re gonna talk about state parks too a little bit about state parks and the trend toward maybe people staying there a little bit more than they have in the past whether that’s budget or something else. So looking forward to that discussion.

Other than that, we’ll see you guys on next week’s episode of MC Fireside Chats. Really appreciate you joining us. Take care. 

Shane Devenish: See you everybody. 

Greg Emmert: Bye-bye. 

Phil Ingrassia: Bye. 

Aaron Bannon: Thank you.