MC Fireside Chats – March 5th, 2025

Brian Searl: Welcome to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks. Super excited to be here with you all for our first week episode. We have a couple recurring guests joining us who couldn’t join us last week or last month. I feel like the whole crew was almost missing. So we got Miguel Huerta here from the Mexican Glamping Association. We have Simon Neal from Camp Map.
Simon, you’re feeling better. I hope you’re not still on your bed from
Simon Neal: No, I’m good. Thanks.
Brian Searl: Good. Rafael’s here from Blue Water, welcome, sir. Excited to have you as a recurring guest. I’m sure we’ll have some good conversations. Got Matt Whitemore, who’s basically like a podcast host, too. I made, I think I’ll just turn over the show to him, Lisa, and we’ll probably leave.
Matt’s, we’ll talk about your new podcast, Matt. I want to hear about that and some of the cool things you have going on. Good to meet you. And then Shari, I know we’ve met before, but from Sage Outdoor Hospitality. Excited to dig into some data and insights with you, potentially during this show.
So is there anything for my recurring guests? I know this is our first episode together of this new format of trends and insights and things like that. We’re missing our big data guy, Scott Barr, who’s actually in Arizona today, I think, at the RVIA meetings. And so he’s going to be on the show briefly, our other show Outwired.
In about an hour to, to talk to us about some of that stuff, but he’s missing today. So Sheila or Shari, you’ll have to fill in with for him. And we’ll talk about some data and insights and trends. But is there anything else that’s come across your guys desk? Miguel, Simon, Rafael is our kind of recurring guests that you think we should talk about as a first point of order.
No, everybody’s going to be quiet.
Miguel Huerta: What I was telling the guys before hello everyone that is watching the show is that at least here in Mexico, 2025, it’s is the year where we are investing on laying out the foundations for 2026. 2026, we will be hosting Mexico, Canada, and the US the workup, which is probably one of the most important events that drive tourism to certain locations.
And so I think that’s a huge trend that it’s already happening.
Brian Searl: Tell us more about it. You can’t leave us hanging, right? You tell us like the title of the name and what it’s going to accomplish. That’s you set yourself high for a goal here, Miguel. So tell us what we’re looking forward to.
Miguel Huerta: Yeah, sure, definitely. For the people in the audience that they don’t know about the World Cup, this is the Super Bowl for soccer or football, as we would like to call it in the rest of the world. And it drives so many attendees. For example Mexico last in the last edition it’s held every four years.
The last time it was held in Qatar and Mexico sent a little bit over 60, 000 people. So can you imagine there in Mexico, we have three host cities. Canada has, I think, one in Toronto and the States, I think that it has a little bit over 10 cities that will be hosting the events. And 64 nations, they compete for the most prestigious a trophy, which is the World Cup trophy.
And they just announced that Coldplay will be hosting or will be part of the celebrations. But my point is that to the people that are in the outdoors industry. A lot of movement will be held during the summer of 2026, and not too many people, they have catered their businesses towards that. I know a lot of people that they will be renting Arby’s, driving across the states, Mexico and Canada to watch the games.
I know a lots of people that they the hotels right now, their rates are huge. In places like New York. It’s at least 500 a night. And the, I already know as a fact that the availability for rooms in New York for summer 2026, it’s quite limited by now.
So a lot of people, they will looking at alternative options. Like glamping sites, camping sites, RV parks, and that’s something that not a lot of people have disclosed discussed out in the open and that’s huge. But before that 2025 it’s again, it’s a year where we will be laying foundations. There’s a lot of consolidation in the market with with the interest rates being as high as they are. A lot of people They are leaving the industry because sadly they were not as prepared as they should.
So my point is that, this is a consolidation year. It’s a year where we’ll lay out foundations and shows like these. It will provide a lot of insight to everyone in the industry. I know, what do you think about that?
Brian Searl: I have two questions real quick. And one, I wanted you to explain football for our American friends who may be thinking it involves their hands.
So that’s why I had you. But for two questions real quick, so one, if you’re, if you are a glamping operator or a campground or an RV park or RV resort, that’s in the neighborhood of where fans will be congregating for the world cup, whether it’s in the United States or Canada or in Mexico, my first question is, and maybe to the whole group, whoever wants to take it certainly you can take it Miguel too, but how do you prepare to take advantage of such an event?
What’s different to your campground? What do you do to prep for such a thing? And then two, how do you deal with like setting those rates in advance? Cause obviously they’re much, much higher than they would normally be for a non spectacular event such as that, but also like inflation keeps rising and prices keep going up.
So you could be underpricing yourself, even though you’re overpricing yourself now when 2026 comes around. Does anybody want to tackle those 2 questions?
Rafael Correa: I’m happy to jump in with respect to the pricing question. I think that that’s the casino that we play at every single day in the hospitality industry when we’re trying to assign pricing and I think it’s with these peak demand periods.
You have to be, you have to be careful. And I think we saw that in COVID, where we really took, arguably, and if we’re just being honest with ourselves, took advantage of demand, right? And started charging prices where the value proposition of the guests got out of proportion with the price. And and there was a lot of people that.
I’ve heard feelings about that and feel a certain way about it. And then to have to retreat from that point, is not a good look either. And so I think when those types of peak demand situations, and we have a similar 1 in our, just in my backyard here in Ocean City, Maryland, we have a 2 huge concerts, one’s called oceans calling it was called country calling with big headliners like jelly roll and OAR etc., etc.. But we see this giant demand rush come in with those ticketed events and we definitely price ourselves appropriately to the market and we have a lot more comparable price points.
And I think that’s probably the most relevant. thing you have to do is that not necessarily look at yourself in the microcosm of your property. And did I leave money on the table, but where’s the market at? What’s the market commanding? What is the kind of a guest responding and buying towards and just trying to price it at a point where you’re not going to be the first guy that sells out because you gave it away.
And, but I think that. Nowadays, and the benefit and the advantage that we have as an industry is once upon a time, it was rate card city and people weren’t really adjusting rates. And you didn’t have those reference points, now we do. And I think the more you can leverage those reference points and make good decisions with strong revenue management, best practices, that’s where you’re gonna do the best and get the best out of those high peak demand situations.
Brian Searl: Matt, do you want to? Oh, go ahead, please.
Miguel Huerta: A main thing that we also need to take a look on the supply at the end, because the demand will be there but as Rafael was saying the price point, this is a casino and I’m pretty sure that you can, you could always say I could have charge more for that night, but I think that especially for the workup, the supply it’s critical because right now we’re telling you with almost a year and a half in advance that you can talk with your local authorities.
To say, hey, I’m gonna, for these two months because of the workup, I’m gonna put, I don’t know, 10, 20 bell tents in my property. Sure, they will be sharing a bathroom or what’s not. But people, they will look for that because it will be probably maybe a less expensive option than if they stayed in a hotel.
That’s number one. Two, how the, all the transportation part of things, it will be critical because, for example in Qatar. It was they the Qataris, they put some sort of glamping sites, if you may call them. They were temporary accommodations that they built with containers. And so they used that in order to increase the supply.
Then the transportation is a huge part. And finally, we will have the, there’s I don’t know how you call it, but when they it’s like a raffle where they say, okay, these teams are gonna play in these cities. That will be critical because you can cater your marketing and your commercial efforts to those countries.
So let’s say for example, countries that they send a lot of people, Mexico is number one. Brazil is number two. Peru when they made it in Russia they send a little bit over 4,000 Peruvians. And maybe you can even talk with the soccer federation for those countries to have you as part of their activities.
Because it also opens new marketing opportunities like, okay, maybe my glamping RV or camping site can be like the Peruvian house for, These specific match, so it’s quite interesting because at the end, it’s something that we’re not as used to, even though that I think that Taylor Swift last year, it was huge for hotels.
I think that this is like Taylor Swift for two months. So it’s going to be huge.
Rafael Correa: That’s a, it’s a great point, Miguel. And I can tell you that I’m going to leave this and reach out to my team and we’re going to do a survey of all of our campgrounds and those cities and make sure we’re getting ready. So I appreciate you bringing this up.
Brian Searl: Yeah, Matt, what do you think from a consultant standpoint? And please briefly introduce yourself. We jumped into the World Cup and didn’t even have a chance to introduce everybody who’s been speaking real quick, but just introduce yourself briefly. And I’m curious what you think from a a consulting standpoint of what you would advise people who were near the World Cup to start.
We talked about pricing, but just generally, how do I prep my campground for that?
Matt Whitermore: Yeah, thanks, Brian. Matt Whitermore here, managing partner at Soma Hospitality, also an owner operator of three campgrounds in the Northeast US. So I just quickly looked at a list of the locations, and I would assume this is probably more of a phenomenon in Mexico where there might be people traveling from a greater distance to the stadiums, maybe not in Mexico City, obviously, a hugely populated city with tons of housing stock.
My first reaction looking at the US cities is these are urban locations, or at least close to urban centers. So I’m not sure there’s. A huge kind of application to the outdoor hospitality or glamping industry would assume it’s Airbnbs, more urban stock, hotels..
Brian Searl: I don’t know. I don’t know about that.
I don’t have data to refute what you’re saying. But the word is like hundreds of thousands of people. So I imagine there’s a percentage that is RV glamping that does it at other times of the year. That’s used to it. That stayed in it before that might. So I think there’s surely some opportunity there.
But let’s assume
Matt Whitermore: Right, of course, I would assume more so in Mexico where there’s just more demand for going to a soccer event than than there is in the U S obviously, there’s a, it’s been a long kind of developing story about,
Brian Searl: Maybe that’s true. Americans don’t realize what they’re missing yet. So they’ll go there. They have a year and a half.
Matt Whitermore: But yeah, we see it at some of our campgrounds. We have a couple of campgrounds that are in close proximity to the original Woodstock. The site of 1969 Woodstock, so
Brian Searl: Rome, New York, right?
Matt Whitermore: No, so that was the 1999 infamous one where the whole place burned down.
This is Bethel Woods, Bethel, New York. And so like when fish shows up, it’s crazy where we’re 45 minutes away, but it’s we’re around the corner, the whole campgrounds full of people going to fish. So that’s where I was going with this is that in probably Leslie dense, less densely populated locations with less housing stock, less urban Airbnbs and whatnot, I could see a huge impact.
where people are traveling from 30 miles away or something like that. And you get into more of the sprawl in the rural areas. Yeah, it’s we see it. We see it with events that are a lot less consequential than the World Cup. It’s a balance of, I think Miguel made a comment of, or maybe it was Rafa of you could come away and say, Oh, I could have charged more for that unit or that site or that room.
Do you want to, be perceived as price gouging people? I think it’s just finding that balance with your dynamic pricing and special pricing for once in a lifetime, maybe a event like that, where you’re probably going to be a hundred percent occupied. It’s just a question of how far you want to push that.
And it’s, it ties into your brand, it ties into your customer base, especially if you’re a place that has repeat customers. Do you want to give your repeat customers a chance to enjoy, that, that weekend, those weekends? So it’s a really interesting kind of big question that ripples out through the rest of your business.
Brian Searl: Shari, is there any data that you’ve come across that kind of lends insight into whether people are willing to travel for events like this?
Shari Heilala: I don’t think it’s funny yet. I’ve been quiet on this topic, but thinking about our data and how we might be able to run some reports and specific markets on how the rates have performed.
But I unfortunately don’t have specifics on that. Making a note that might be valuable to many.
Brian Searl: I think it’s an interesting conversation because I think Matt is right on some aspects that obviously if you’re going to a stadium that’s in a downtown urban area, then, especially on multiple days that you’re going to want to walk to that stadium.
You’re not going to want to fight the traffic, especially in someplace like New York City or something like that, where you have to wait an hour and a half before the game sitting in traffic. But I do think that for such a large event, there’s probably a subset of people who would be interested in finding accommodations like that.
Rafael Correa: I have to imagine when you have, something that only happens every four years and it’s going to create a massive influx of international travel to, North and Central America like that, there’s no way even the displacement doesn’t have some sort of positive effect on tourism.
As a whole, because maybe it’s a displace in the folks that would normally go to the city at that time of year, and they’re going to be looking for these options that don’t necessarily need to be next to the stadium. So that demand search, can’t be a bad thing. We saw the reverse of this last year in our industry where people search into the cruise.
Back into cruises, they started traveling back to Europe, all the stuff that they had put off or delayed in their covid time. And they rushed into our business. We saw that exodus, right? Where people were leaving the country. And, that without a doubt, in my experience, especially in the transient, everywhere, it took a toll on demand.
So the reverse of I imagine has to be true, right? I like to believe maybe it’s my eternal optimism, but it has to be true that it’s going to create a great demand when that World Cup comes through.
Brian Searl: I think it will.
Simon Neal: I think
Brian Searl: Go ahead.
Simon Neal: Mind if I just,
Brian Searl: yeah, I was actually going to try to involve you somehow.
I was thinking maybe I should ask Simon if there’s been a Europe World Cup recently and he has data on this or anything like that. But go ahead, please.
Simon Neal: I don’t need data. I just need the European mindset football. Probably also Miguel can relate to this very well at the same time. The World Cup is the biggest thing to exist in the football community.
It’s absolutely enormous. So I think every single stadium is going to be full for every single game. That’s not an issue and there’s going to be a mix of demand. Particularly in this tournament, you have the people who are going to plan in front. So they know their team is going to play in the early rounds.
They’re going to plan a year in advance, year and a half in advance and book up. And that’s probably, you need to look out for that demand and take care of that. But then there’s going to be a second level, which comes when you get towards the quarterfinals, semifinal and final, which is an enormous, unbelievable demand where anybody is going to do anything they can.
To come and see the game, whether that’s spending their life savings, quitting their job, finding any way possible, they can get a flight, any accommodation possible they can find. So that’s really going to happen. It’s going to be enormous. So those last, I don’t know if it’s two weeks of the tournament, there’s going to be enormous demand and you need to be ready to accept guests, any guests, finding any accommodation, and then the other opposite of that is long term planners.
So you need to think about both of them.
Brian Searl: Yeah. Go ahead.
Shari Heilala: I think there might be some parallels that could be drawn from data in the hotel industry as well. Because the data is much more robust. You could probably look at multiples on average daily rates and see what’s happened. Internationally on that end as well.
Rafael Correa: And I would imagine, right? If I’m. Let’s just say the reverse was true, right? And I was going to Europe for a World Cup game. I wouldn’t just go for a game, right? I would make it part of an adventure and a trip and, man, if if I would start in a city, watch the game, then maybe I’d go check out a national park that I’ve always wanted to check out.
And, or, experience this glamping concept that has gained so much popularity in the U S. Like I said, demand surges are demand surges, and you just gotta be prepared and find your way into getting your fair share of that market.
Brian Searl: And that’s part of the reason I wanted to bring it up and I carried it on for just a little bit is you have to be able to think about not just your accommodations and how to prep for that, but also how to market to that audience.
Because as to Matt’s point, right? This is not something you normally do. This is not something people maybe normally consider is staying 45 minutes an hour and a half outside of the city. But if you market to them and tell them the story of why they should and why you’re a better experience and why they can relax in nature and, have a couple of beers after the football game is over all those things, then I think that you have a better than strong chance of attracting that crowd, but you’ve got to let them know who you are and what the difference is between you and staying downtown, right by the stadium, right?
Rafael Correa: Yeah. And I don’t think there’s any secret of the increased interest from international visitors into our industry. That’s a known growing demand sector.
Miguel Huerta: Yeah, and I think that there are a lot of parallels, as Shari was saying for example, I think that the closest will be when the Super Bowl comes to town, there’s a search on demand around that, or for example, in Europe, when the the Champions League final or the Europe League final comes to town, because it’s pretty much like the Super Bowl.
There’s a huge search on that and I can tell you first hand that there are a lot of federations that they’re looking to have that. So for example, because at the end they, you can be partners with them. You can sell all the lodging. Plus they can do marketing below the line activities and bring their country and it can be your property because you cannot do that in a hotel.
But anyway I think that the workup is one of the major trends. That everyone in the hospitality industry should cater their offerings towards that. But I think that we can do, and we can talk on more recent events. I don’t know, Brian, how would you like to proceed?
Brian Searl: How would I like to proceed? Why am I in charge? I thought Raf was joining the show to co host with me. So
Miguel Huerta: Yeah, co-host
Rafael Correa: I think we should talk about the obvious elephant in the room for the industry is what is demand looking like for the season? And I can share our experience and kind of what we’re seeing early on
Brian Searl: Go for it.
Rafael Correa: Bookings and talk about, it’s hard to interpret the data sometimes, especially with different changing trends that we have in a less mature industry that we are, but similar to some of the recent stuff that Toby said in her February updates to the franchise is, we’re seeing an increase in long term stays, that’s up that consumers out there, people are settling into their favorite RV resorts, and there’s a lot more availability.
Some communities has pivoted heavily into that space as well as many other campgrounds. And, what once was maybe a fully transient RV resort, you’re trying to establish what is that balance of long term stay and you’re seeing a lot more of that. So nights are up, but your rate is obviously a significantly lower from there.
Transient RV is slightly down. I don’t panic yet because I also have seen year over year. This booking window continue to shrink and that’s a function of a consumer that’s become more adept at using the constantly improving property management systems that allow and empower them to book. They know there’s inventory available that covid demand.
They know it’s not there. They know they can book later. And and then the last piece, which is the vacation rentals or the glamping, which in our resort portfolio, we always have glamping components that are complimentary to our RV resorts. That’s up and we’re seeing great demand for that side of the house.
And granted, it’s, depending on the property, it can be anywhere from, smallest of 10 percent sometimes up to 50 percent of the revenue, but we’re seeing great demand in that space and a lot of it coming from the ability to market alongside and right compete with Airbnb and with hotel rooms.
And so that VR sector continues to grow. We’re seeing an ability to grab those customers, pull them in. And then the key for us is really converting those into direct bookings in the future by giving them just. A tremendous experience, right? Which I contend as an RV resort, we can deliver something that hotels and Airbnb simply can’t deliver, which is this incredible sense of community and the safe place for your kids to roam and a strong set of amenities and proximity to great places that most times those compete to things that we’re competing with can’t deliver.
And so that’s what we’re seeing big picture. And we’re aggressively pursuing all marketing channels to make sure what, when people make that buying decision that we’re top of mind.
Brian Searl: So let’s unpack this one by one here, just for sake of you mentioned a couple different things, right?
Lisa, I think somebody might have popped in the room. I don’t know if that was Sharah or not. Yeah, there’s Mark Koep joining us. Okay.
So Raf, you talk about longterm stays, cause this is a conversation that we have with a lot of our marketing clients is, they call us on the phone and what about longterm stays?
I want to focus on longterm stays. I want to pivot. I want to, and I’m like you, I’m not panicking yet, but I’m also not super happy either. So just planning for the, preparing for the worst type thing to have a contingency plan. But my question to, a lot of the industry is how many people can pivot to long term, because before we run out of people who can’t long term. Because it feels like everybody’s doing it right.
And I think there’s always been this kind of mindset, not among everybody, but among a chunk of people who think that there are these millions of full timers on the road, 365 days a year. And I don’t know whether that’s influencers or, what happened during covid or whatever else. But, and I think there is a large number of them, but I don’t know if they’re in the millions, to fill all these parks that people want to pivot to long term for. So what are your thoughts on that? And anybody can take it, but
Shari Heilala: I have an initial thought on that. I think that long term demand isn’t just from full time people necessarily on the road, but we have a housing affordability problem and in markets where you can live in your RV year round.
I think there’s quite a bit of demand. Just, the Phoenix area where the price of living has gone up. Tourism areas where workers can’t afford to live anywhere near where they work. I think that’s the stronger driver to be able to being able to convert to long term.
Brian Searl: Can I be a devil’s advocate just for a second?
And I’m not saying I believe this, right? I just want to play contrarian just here for a second. You talk about housing affordability. I think I agree with you that’s certainly an issue. But are the people who own RVs the ones who are struggling to afford their houses? Some of them are, yes. But if you can afford to buy an RV, aren’t you already probably a little bit better off than the people who are struggling to afford housing?
Rafael Correa: Not really. It could be that you don’t have the house.
Brian Searl: I’m just playing devil’s advocate, right? Disagree with me.
Rafael Correa: That is, That is home, right? And I see it big time, especially in places like Texas. And a couple other markets where we specialize in more long term parks where, that are year round.
That is home. It’s, it is home and people are choosing this more affordable lifestyle, prioritizing the things. And it’s not sometimes a question of it’s a foreign affordability issue, right? This is what I can afford. I’m comfortable with it. This is not people that are just like downsizing to simplify their lives.
This is what they’re having to do.
Shari Heilala: You can buy a brand new travel trailer for 20 grand and live comfortably in it
Brian Searl: Okay
Shari Heilala: which is convenient.
Rafael Correa: Clear? Yup, it’s real.
Brian Searl: So that was probably my missing gap, right, and I’m not as familiar with the RV industry side as I am the campground side but and we do have people on here who are guests talk about it all the time But the gap was me for price, right?
Like when I hear can I hear RV I imagine two, three, four hundred thousand dollar plus units and but that’s not the case, especially with the trend we’ve seen down toward vans and other things, but it actually is more affordable to get into that lifestyle than I thought.
Rafael Correa: Yeah, not definitely not the class A’s and the buses and all that good stuff.
We’re talking about the towables and the things that can be big enough to be a home.
Matt Whitermore: I think this discussion really highlights the regional differences that you find with travel behaviors and camping behaviors. And as an operator, I can only really speak to the Northeast, but it’s super interesting talking to people that are not familiar with campgrounds in the Northeast.
Most campgrounds in the Northeast are closed for the winter and probably most northern states across the country. You eliminate that affordable housing element because people can’t live there in the winter. The stock of campgrounds has evolved into catering to full season renters. So campgrounds become like kind of the affordable version of a vacation home HOA, where it’s their weekend getaway, but they leave their camper there for a season, 20 seasons, 40 seasons even. In that, they upgrade trailers in the same site. It’s just interesting that, there’s, we see so much demand.
If you’re doing your marketing right, if you’ve, if you’re operating the property you should have a waiting list years and years long for these seasonal sites. I think that’s because it’s hard to develop in the Northeast as well. So there’s a supply issue, but it’s such a stark difference from, Texas or Arizona where it’s a lot easier to build.
It’s probably a lot more common though, to live in an RV no matter what your circumstances. I think. that’s a piece of data I’ve been searching for, a long time, the most reliable thing I’ve found is an article from like 2018 that cited RVIA data, but you can’t really find the RVIA data, but it said there were a million full time RV users across the country.
Brian Searl: I believe that.
Rafael Correa: I think too, to your original point, Brian, your question you’re asking, is there cannibalization, right? Are we cannibalizing the same customer? And I think. To Matt’s point, and in certain markets, like coastal beach markets that are highly transient resorts, and I’m selling seasonals, yeah, that’s 100 percent cannibalization, right?
More often than not, that’s somebody that probably stayed three or four times, they did the math, and be like, let’s just do a seasonal, right? And it’s gonna be about the same money. And there’s going to be a component like Shari’s, right? There’s this component of affordability and housing and that’s a new demand surge that’s coming into the space.
But the shift to long term is going to create some cannibalization. There’s no doubt. But and to that end again, this is a reason why I’m not overly concerned the volume of how much I’ve up and I’ve sold long terms versus how much I’m down in transient. Is actually like encouraging, right?
I’m not cannibalizing to the point where I’m, it’s not a, it’s not a tit for tat. I’m way more up in long term, but I’m down in transient, if you follow what I’m saying.
Brian Searl: Yeah. Simon, I’m curious from your side over in Europe, is there a behavioral shift that’s happening as in Europe or is it different because they’re much closer together?
Simon Neal: Yeah, it’s a different market. So Europe is hugely, holiday driven seasons. And it’s really very strong. So most of the guests are going to be families, transients coming in and out for three months a year. And then either side of that you had the retired couples, maybe the digital nomads moving around.
The shoulder seasons, and that’s pretty much the trend. So you’re not really seeing much difference. You do get some snowbirds who will come because it’s all driven by weather in Europe. So you have whole of Northern Europe, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Northern France, just move South in the summer to get better weather.
And that’s as predictable as anything happens every year, and it’s not really changing much. I think the only difference that we are seeing now is the unpredictability in the market where the last couple of years there was a big increase in price for, per night stays. And that kind of was fine, and then it got a bit of a plateau last year, and there’s a lot of uncertainty in Europe at the moment with, the economy and everything else going on.
So it’s whether these people say, okay, screw it this year, I’m going to stay home, and I’m going to find something locally, or I’m still going to go south. So I think that’s the biggest uncertainty that’s happening here, but certainly the balance between long term and transient isn’t really changing.
A lot of the campgrounds still are actually trying to move out the transient, the long term. Sorry. So that was a big sort of trend 10 years ago. But with the market shift, the new younger generation coming in, everything that’s happened since covid, they’re actually reducing the number of long term sites and catering more for transient.
So that’s it’s a very different market here.
Brian Searl: And it’s more, I think, closely related to the northeast, like Matt was saying, where they you know, they can’t, they could, but they generally don’t stay all year, 12 months a year because of the weather, right? Okay. I’m curious
Simon Neal: Most campgrounds are are gonna shut for the winter.
It’s very rare that you get them opening all year round.
Brian Searl: I want to spend five minutes and I don’t want to delve too deep into it because we usually tackle controversial stuff that upsets people and outwired later on the other show, but we did have some interesting research. We were talking about an outwired about speculation of whether travel to the United States would be impacted by tariffs by the weak euro.
Same thing with Canada and China and Asia, right? I’m just curious on your take on that. Simon, do you have any sense of whether people are staying closer to home versus traveling overseas?
Simon Neal: No, I think at the moment, what’s happening now isn’t really going to impact on that much. I think it’s just a general uncertainty about people deciding when they’re going to spend.
And you’re probably just going to get a delay in the booking. And it’s going to be closer to the season. That’s all. But people love to travel. People have to get away from the crappy weather. That’s just the biggest pull there is. Yeah.
Brian Searl: Okay. Mark, you’ve been quiet because you joined late and we didn’t introduce you yet.
What do you think of all this?
Mark Koep: It’d be small sample size, but I’ve got a client that purchased a property up in Pennsylvania about a year and a half ago. It was only open during the summer season. So only short term guests and their entire business model is they wanted to be open year round and not to seasonal guests, but to long term and short term guests.
And as we implemented their campaigns and did that, they’ve been very successful this last winter. They have been very full of long term guests and they’re not in a warm area. They’re up in the mountains there in Pennsylvania. And what we’ve seen through their marketing is there’s a significant amount of demand for those long term stays just by keyword searches, people looking for long term parks in Pennsylvania.
So usually the problem with those regions is the parks were designed at a point in time where their water lines weren’t deep enough. So they would freeze and all that type of stuff. And so they actually had to do that investment early on to drop their lines deeper and knowing that they’re building the park for that.
And they’ve been successful with it. So I believe there’s a little bit of a mind set there too. If you buy a property, it’s seasonal. You’ve already got guests in there. Why go long term? And I can tell you that people do choose the RV lifestyle, whether it’s to be stationary in one spot or to travel around.
That’s their decision. But it’s definitely a good market. Talking about the long term aspect of it, it’s a good time for that. As you see this development of factories and so forth occurring in places like Texas, Arizona, and as these deals get announced all over the country.
Brian Searl: You’re talking about the AI stuff, the big stuff in Texas?
Mark Koep: The big stuff, yeah. The AI, there was the chip factory announcement yesterday in Arizona. The auto manufacturers started starting to tool up. Those are high paying jobs that are short term in nature, right? Anywhere from six months to two years. And those folks are more likely to live in an RV because it’s going to be something that they can move with once they’re done with that project.
And so parks that are around those areas generally see a boom with folks checking in and staying there. And then in regard to the The tariffs and the exchange rates with different currencies. We’re not seeing any real material drop in search traffic from these foreign countries. We still see folks from Germany, France, and so forth, performing searches for campgrounds and RV parks.
I’ll agree with Simon that we’re not really seeing a material impact. What I will say though, is we are seeing. It’s almost like political. It is. It is political in nature where people are so pissed off, especially Canadians right now, so pissed off over be called the 51st state that you actually are getting folks calling in and canceling their bookings and making the point of saying, I’m canceling because we’re not your 51st state.
Generally, we see those type of trends taper off as the news cycle changes, but we are definitely seeing that right now where there’s some people that are really motivated politically to make their purpose and points. And so that’s always dangerous. Whenever you’ve got, we all just went through an election year and all the nightmare of that.
I just worry that continues into this year based upon the news cycle. So I don’t know how that plays out within the Canadian to US. Travel market. But we’ll see.
Brian Searl: Yeah. Again, I don’t want to spend too much time on there, but just speaking as someone who is an American who currently lives in Canada and talks to a lot of people up here, like it’s not a pissed off thing.
It’s not a political thing for us. It’s a, what are you thinking? We’re nice to you thing. And and that’s, we won’t get into all that stuff for a controversy sake, but.
Shari, I’m curious running big data analytics and market research that you do at Sage, how do you look at if you’re a campground owner, who’s heading into 2025?
And you’re saying, I don’t know what the market’s going to bring. I don’t know if I should pivot to long term, stay short term. What should my mix should be, whether I should add glamping, not add glamping. Like, how do I react to what is really a, we don’t know what’s going to happen situation yet.
And it all could be fine. But how do they use data and analytics to guide some of those decision making?
Shari Heilala: That’s a really good question. And using data and analytics. To guide it as much as we do have a lot of that data. It’s still very bare bones, I guess is the is the right way to say it.
We use our data.
Brian Searl: You’re supposed to be selling yourself, Shari. I just threw you like a softball question. You’re supposed to be like, yes, they have all the data in the world. Come find us.
Shari Heilala: I’m a humble bragger, Brian. I’m going to tell you what I can’t do before I can tell you what I can do sometimes, but I think that.
Looking, if you are looking at the data, I made some notes before this call about my thoughts about 2025. And there’s a lot of there’s a lot of pros, but also a lot of cons in terms of how things could go. And even, us talking about tariffs and the impact on demand internationally, this is so recent that, they actually held to reinstating them.
What was it? One business day ago, two business days ago. I think that you can look at past data, but looking forward is a little bit difficult, just to be honest, and our strategy and a lot of ours is for people who are opening up new resorts and trying to project what the first couple of years are going to be like based on the data.
So I encourage we try to be middle of the road, but our middle of the road right now is a little bit conservative because of the unknowns in the market. And we do have some clients in. The right locations that have moved to saying, I want to go with a longer term strategy because I know there’s demand there and then eventually shift to shorter term strategy.
We know from our data, how glamping is performing in certain markets and if you have a highly seasonal RV clientele then because of weather, then glamping and hard sided units can mitigate some of that risk as long as you have the right demand drivers or just an amazing site and experience that will draw people in from close enough.
I think there’s a lot about having the right mix that can mitigate your risk in, what I think should be an okay year, but there’s a lot of things hanging out there like the potential for really high inflation or, the news about not being sure if you can get into a national park this summer for your trip that just might push things down in a way that we don’t want to see.
But yeah, so I think that it’s just really erring on the safe side of the occupancy and rates and in looking at your year going forward and coming up with other income streams to that can boost boost any decreases in your lodging or RV revenue.
Mark Koep: And i’ll add on to this Brian.
One of the things that we’ve seen over the last year is the advancements with companies like Harvest Host and Hip Camp really drawing in a lot of the short term guests, the overnight guests into these alternative camping opportunities, right? Making it easier for folks to avoid RV parks and campgrounds, notably when they’re traveling, right?
So if they’re going from point A to point B instead of staying overnight in an RV park, they can stop in at a harvest host location or whatnot. And we’ve seen a really big trend towards. That obviously the RVs are built a little bit better for that type of living. And I don’t think we’re capturing that in the data right now, the impact of those alternative camping styles on our industry.
And what I can say is that definitely Hip Camp in particular has done a really good job of encouraging these non campgrounds to draw on those types of guests. And so maybe there’s some data that you can collect on that and see how many people are actually, instead of staying at RV parks or campgrounds, they’re actually staying at these alternative style accommodation units, this year in particular.
Brian Searl: Yeah, we can look at that. I think that’s what interests me more is the pivot, right? Is the opportunity to pivot. Because we talk about all these what ifs and there is a lot of uncertainty and it could all be fine. It could be great. It could be terrible. It could be like we’re going to know here right within a month or two pretty quickly of which way this is going to head.
But there’s a lot of unknowns that we’re uncertain of. And so I’m of the mindset that like we should prepare for the worst. Let’s make a plan for what if there aren’t as many long term stays or what if there are, aren’t as many transients or what if they stay closer to home instead of traveling halfway across the country or what if the national parks are dirty and they’re people who want to still go camping, but aren’t going to stay close to them like all the things you think about that I feel like you need to like, I posted about this on LinkedIn this morning.
I’m probably going to get like everybody in the industry, whoever has done a research report to hate me for the rest of eternity. But I basically said I’m tired of seeing all the fluff and it’s not that it’s wrong. It’s that there always seems to be when a report comes out, RV travel is strong, millions of people want to go camping, and maybe that’s true, but millions of people wanting to go camping is not the same thing as millions of people will go camping.
And so I think there’s a, for people who put out reports.
Rafael Correa: Yeah, sometimes you got to will it into existence, bro.
Brian Searl: And again, I’m not, I didn’t put in there, right? I’m not saying I want all doom and gloom, I’m just saying if you don’t present both sides, you don’t give an owner an opportunity to think about what is my alternative strategy if that happens, if they’re just thinking it’s all good, right?
Mark Koep: No, you’re right. We were talking to some data providers that have access to real time fuel purchasing. So they actually know where our viewers are purchasing their fuel over the last month. And we’re like, man, there’s so much value in that. If you combine it with the data we have at campground use about 4 trends where people are searching for campgrounds and RV parks.
That would be actionable, right? We would know where people traveled over the last month and we would know where they’re looking in the forward month and be able to start setting up trends and so forth on that, but it goes back to the data problem of that partner just didn’t see it and see the value of it and whether or not they wanted to go pull those reports and it’s you’re going to help a lot of folks. Yeah, but it doesn’t really help our business that much. Other than getting our name out there. And it’s that’s actually a challenge in our industry is getting the data from the sources that, that actually shares. So everything ends up becoming anecdotal, right?
It’s all here’s what I’m seeing in this area and here’s what this park is getting and so forth. And you’re like, anecdotally, I’m in an area that’s. I’m up in the Black Hills in Wyoming, but near Rapid City, and we’re starting to see RVs already on the road in this region here as things have warmed up a little bit.
So anecdotally, we’re actually already seeing that happen here in this region, and I know from clients across the country that, most of our clients are actually seeing an uptick in search traffic. They’re seeing an uptick in bookings compared to where they were just a few months ago. So overall we see kind of positive trends, but everything’s anecdotal.
I can’t pull into a report and say, here’s what’s going on.
Brian Searl: We’ve seen that too. The first two months of the year, right? A lot of our clients are saying we’re up the first two months out of the year and number of bookings versus 2024. So again, I’m not saying that it is doom and gloom. I’m saying there’s a lot of uncertainty out there that could go either way. That we need to pay attention to is all.
Matt, what do you think? Like, how do you pay attention to some of these trends and insights from both your parks that you own and you’re consulting to advise your clients.
Matt Whitermore: I have a few thoughts here. I would say there’s some macro trends afoot here with, In the RV space. There’s some questions as to a transient demand. Maybe I’m an eternal optimist, but I still feel that if you have a good location, if you have good marketing, if you’re doing all the things,
Brian Searl: You’ll be fine. I agree with you.
Matt Whitermore: You have nothing to worry about, and we see it on like the Facebook groups and the chatter of Oh my God, I’m down, 20 percent revenue year over year. And it’s Okay, let’s go through the list of 10 things.
Brian Searl: Do you have a website? What’s that?
Matt Whitermore: Yeah exactly.
Yeah, right. And and I think there was such a rush for investing in the RV park space. And it’s such a small niche. Like I’m fresh off doing a deep dive into the annual reports from sun and ELS that were just released like a week ago and something stuck out for me and it, they have it every year at the beginning, ELS.
They say there are 1300 RV resorts that have 200 sites or more, and that always just like it just sticks out to me because it illustrates what such a small niche this is, and there’s so much hype and the investment side of the industry, the RV park gold rush, in my opinion, it’s over, it’s been over, unless you can figure out how to creatively monetize those sites, those parks that are
Brian Searl: Or you wait for the people that overpay to have to sell their park.
And then that’s a little mini gold rush.
Matt Whitermore: Sure. Yeah, I do. I do expect some degree of that in the coming years. I think separately on the glamping and outdoor lodging and landscape hotels and resorts. That’s, Shari, you guys, you guys have the data, the best in the industry, the presentation that you guys did at the glamping show, what, there’s less than 400 professionally managed glamping locations, 7000 something units.
That’s such a tiny industry, but that’s really where the booming growth is. I think so many people came into the RV park industry post COVID and they looked at these insane numbers. And they’re seeing it as a disaster that in 2025, we’re returning to maybe a more of a trended like 2019 number.
So I don’t think anything disastrous is happening. I think it’s normalization, but I think on the lodging and glamping side, that is just absolute, that’s where really the huge opportunity is. And there’s all these tiny campgrounds that investors are going to pass over. A lot of investors, at least the big known players are going to pass over that I think can be reinvented into something really special that can make a lot more revenue than a 50 site campground would make if it has the right location, if has the right site.
Brian Searl: Yeah, the right experience is the key thing is you’ve got to imagine, we have a couple of clients who want us to market for their cabins in a market that’s an hour away and in between where that destination market is.
And they are, there’s 130 really cool, unique Airbnbs and maybe they’re not all great. And nobody’s saying they’re better than, but they’re different than, and not everybody wants to be in the side by side cabin with 20 of them lined up next to each other. Lots of people will and right from an affordability standpoint or a community standpoint, like Raf said earlier, but you have to be, whatever it is, whatever your reason is, if you want to go outside your normal market, you’ve got to have an experience.
You’ve got to have something different. You’ve got to be able to tell your story and that’s on your website. That’s on your marketing. That’s on your phone calls. That’s everywhere. Why should you come stay with me either in my vacation rentals or my glamping units or, and it’s really obviously RVs too, but that is the, I agree with you.
That’s the big opportunity is, can I tell a story that will convince people that who would normally stay in Airbnbs who would normally stay in a hotel that I have a better opportunity for them? Specific to me, like generally speaking, just because you have cabins doesn’t make you a better opportunity.
Certainly there are people who want to be outside and enjoy nature, but there are also people who hate bugs and want to be inside, you still have to tell your story and why you’re different. I think, but if you can do that. Then you then the opportunity is absolutely massive, I think, and I’m not worried at all.
Shari Heilala: Yeah, and just
Matt Whitermore: thank you so much.
Shari Heilala: Oh, no, Matt. Thanks for the mention of the glamping data. Just for reference. We’ve continued to see rate increases. And strong occupancy along with really high growth in the number of glamping operations 11 percent year over year in the number of units from 2022 to 2024 rate increases averaging almost 5%.
We are looking at. Maybe not being quite as gung ho on stabilizing occupancy within a couple of years because there is, there are more options out there, but I do agree that there’s still more opportunity in that segment compared to most markets for just RV. But, the barriers to entry on our, on both sides are getting harder and harder and who knows where construction,
well, I think we know which direction construction costs are going to further go this year, at least in the short term. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any opportunities on RV there. There still are in the right direction.
Brian Searl: Oh, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. But again, even if you’re just RV, you need to learn how to tell that experience of why your RV park is different.
I don’t think it’s enough to just have a swimming pool and miniature golf course anymore. You’ve got to say, why is your swimming pool different? Why is your mini golf course different? Why is your service different? Even, and it doesn’t have to be a multimillion dollar water park. It can be as simple as double trees, warm cookies at check in or a beggar smile or waving into your guests in your golf cart. It doesn’t have to be a capital outlay, I think.
Rafael, I’m curious what you think about this, just because we recently put out, and I admit, I haven’t read the whole thing and probably you haven’t either, but Scott Bahr put it out for us in Modern Campground. I skimmed it. We were talking about blended travel and it just came out, I think earlier this week or last week when we were talking about, there’s a lot of guests who will take a longer trip that is blended between, some stays will be at glamping. Some stays might be in an RV rental. Some stays might be at a hotel and it’s not just a one size fits all trip like it was in the past.
So is there any insights that you could share with us on that? Just because you own your own hotels and campgrounds.
Rafael Correa: No, absolutely. The classic concept and I know that you’re the king of all things, AI and outdoors. But we, we definitely now don’t just make sure we’re optimizing our search engine results.
We’re also say, what are our AI search results? Because that’s becoming a more and more real powerful tool really spending a lot of time digging in with all the various trip planning tools that are out there and making sure that we’re showing up. Yeah. I think there’s a giant world. The campground views had a great conversation last night with with your colleague Mark last night about kind of the direction you guys are going and the attack that you’re taking, which is very unique and isolated in the sense that you don’t really have any real direct competitors, but they’re coming from multiple angles, and I agree with you. People are trying to make the most out of a travel experience. And I think these again, are all opportunities for us. And the way we’re going to win is ultimately focusing heavily on the value proposition, right? And everything that you’re getting that you can’t get somewhere else.
And that, to me, is the thing that I’m talking about in my marketing and my revenue management and promotions on property, right? Is that is the value proposition. And I think that when I can offer you a warm smile and a greeting. Versus here’s a code, check yourself into a door, right? And if I can offer a fire pit versus a deck that’s sitting right next to somebody else’s outdoor patio these are the things that we need to focus on so that we can win that customer and show them and connect them with this beautiful community.
Right? Which is again, we talk about our competitive advantage and it’s community. In these parks and these properties and there’s a place for the micro glamping. There’s a place for hotels. There’s a place for everybody in this space. But if you really want to capitalize on the RV resort or the scaled glamping experience, you have to really stay focused on what you’re providing that can’t be provided elsewhere.
Brian Searl: And it starts with understand. Sorry, go ahead, please. I thought you were finished.
Rafael Correa: Oh, no, I was just going to add I listened to the wall street podcast every morning while I’m getting ready. And that’s like my thing. And so most recently. Hilton has done two things and they’re like advertising all over this podcast.
One thing that Hilton, the first one was adjoining rooms and guaranteeing adjoining rooms, which has been a big campaign of theirs to directly compete with Airbnb because Airbnb has those really snazzy commercials about showing you sharing a hotel room with your kids and the nightmare that can be versus having, a whole house to yourself.
And then the second thing that they’ve done heavily is immerse you in this experience of auto camp, like in the background of Hey, if this sounds like amazing s’mores and they have the crackling fire in the background, it’s like the audio for it. And if this all sounds great, you need to cash in your Hilton reward points and stay at an auto camp.
And so you can tell that there’s a huge interest in the experience that we’re providing and we have to really capitalize on those. Differentiators and take those and deliver that to the customer through the buying process and then through the actual stay. Because that’s when they’re going to be like, when I want to spend my disposable income, when I want to spend my free time, I want that experience and guess what?
I can only get it there. And I’m just to give you a just and I know this is a long response, but I’m an avid surfer. I love to surf. And so one of my favorite places in the world to go is Costa Rica. And why do I keep going back there? It’s because every time I go, I know I’m going to have a great time, great hospitality, but I’m never going to get skunked on surf, and I’m going to spend this like week with my family, this precious time off that I have. I’m going to do what I love and be with the people that I love. I want assurances that I’m going to have a certain experience. And I think that’s what we have to capitalize is one, promote that unique experience. We provide that competitive advantage, and then two, deliver on that promise.
Brian Searl: And yeah, and make sure that you’re talking to your potential guests, which is a big, that’s a big thing we’re focusing on our side with our clients this year. Is one size doesn’t fit all on website copy, just be talking about me being the AI guy.
But I’m not throwing website copy into Chat GPT and regurgitating it out, even though I could. And that would be really quick. I’m using AI, but I’m doing it thoughtfully in a way that like your specific resort in a specific area. What is your specific type of ideal guest? Let’s do some focus group market research.
Let’s write website copy. That’s tailored to that person. And not only see that person to what that goal is, you want to accomplish if you want to be that glamping person or that vacation rental person that takes somebody from a different market, then there needs to be a page that’s written for that specific type of person.
And I think putting those thoughts into things, both from a amenity standpoint, operation standpoint, like you’re talking about, but also from a, like the whole thing is marketing and branding, right? How do people perceive you to get you from just, like you said, the commercial.
From Airbnb to Hilton to AutoCamp there’s just needs to be, I think, more thought put into some of that stuff
Rafael Correa: And it’s tough. We’re managing over 60 resorts today. A combination of owned and doing it for third party for other folks. And the reality is that are we ever going to deliver the same level of service than, mom, pa, Joe.
That when they own that property and delivered it, it’s very difficult to do that right at scale. But, when you empower your people, you give them the tools and you really stay focused on the mission we can get pretty damn close and. And that’s the thing that we strive to do at an institutional level is make sure that we’re creating and really embracing what made this industry at its core and what made it blow up to start with why people came to it to begin with.
And we have to stay authentic to that. We can’t get can’t go full corporate on this thing, Matt, like your post the other day, put out there with the unreasonable hospitality crew coming in, which I am a big fan of that book, but I understand the humor of that post, but man, you got some reaction from that.
But keep it as authentic as possible. And I think that the reality is that, and just and you mentioned the gold rush is over. I don’t think it’s over. It’s evolving, right? Not everybody that went out into the gold rush was successful. There was a lot of people that failed a lot of people that fell on their face and didn’t make it, but there’s still a gold industry out there and the fittest always survive.
And I think at the end of the day, it’s making sure that you’re fit on all facets financially and also on what you’re delivering at a service level.
Brian Searl: And we’re just seeing,
Rafael Correa: we’re seeing a calling is what we’re seeing.
Brian Searl: Yeah. And it seems overwhelming, but you just have to start small, take it brick by brick and figure out what you can do tomorrow to begin to build that house up back in order.
And it can be something as small as what we’re talking about to the cookie example to like Simon’s got really cool digital maps. He’s working with KOA for right. Those little touches and things change the guest experience and make people remember you and make you stand out and make it easier for them to navigate, find information and ultimately to stay with you.
That’s my shout out to you, Simon, because I haven’t talked to you enough. So like that, like it back into your good graces.
Rafael Correa: Yeah, I apologize guys. I have to hop leadership conference and I’m going to go in there and see what the the RV dealers and manufacturers are saying
Brian Searl: Before you leave, Raf, just tell them about Blue Water real quick and where they can find more information.
Rafael Correa: Sure. Blue Water Hospitality. So we are a owner developer and we also do third party management in the RV space, really specializing in kind of institutional investors that are operating multi property scaled operations. Our websites B. W. D. C. That’s bravo whiskey delta charlie dot com. (bwdc.com)
And then you can follow us on instagram at B.W. Experience.
Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you, Rafael. Appreciate it. We’ll see you next month.
Rafael Correa: Thank you,
Brian Searl: Matt.
Rafael Correa: Take care, guys.
Brian Searl: Matt, we’re going to find out more about Soma Hospitality and your new tell us about your new podcast real quick. If you have to jump off, you can, but let’s give Matt a chance.
Matt Whitermore: No, I’ve got time.
Brian Searl: Tell us about your podcast real quick. If anybody has to jump, let me know and we can let them go.
Matt Whitermore: Yes. So Good Morning Outdoors is a live podcast. Thursday is 10 a. m. Eastern. It is in conjunction with the team at Hospitality FM and Good Morning Hospitality. So we’re under the Good Morning Hospitality banner. I think it’s an interesting angle into the industry. It’s caters largely to, traditional hospitality professionals.
So the idea was that we can, we can, serve some curious minds that are in the hotel world or resort world, not so much in the outdoor world. And I’m sure they’re seeing all the buzz in the industry and everything. 30 minutes weekly, news based for the most part.
And then Soma Hospitality is three person team right now. My, my partners are Samuel Morton, who was head of development at getaway for five years up until 2021. He founded Soma build at that time. I became a client of his with my campgrounds and quickly saw that he was the best in the business when it comes to developing these types of properties.
And opportunity came up to become his partner and I couldn’t pass it up. And then Alex Birkett is a veteran on the side of marketing and ops, he’s GM a few RV resorts and campgrounds. And then he’s also run a marketing agency. We’re attacking the industry and helping operators and developers from 2 angles here, development advisory, 3rd party project management on the development side, and then marketing and marketing services, digital marketing.
Brian Searl: Okay, so where can they watch your podcast? Is it tomorrow? And then where can they learn more about Soma Hospitality?
Matt Whitermore: Yes. So the podcast is tomorrow. It’s broadcast live on LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter. So you can find us on LinkedIn, but you can also find it Apple podcasts. It’s under Good Morning Hospitality.
There’s a few shows that are on that same RSS feed. So we’re Good Morning Outdoors where the Thursday show under Good Morning Hospitality, and then somahospitality.com S O M A hospitality. com. You can learn a little bit about us there.
Awesome.
Brian Searl: Thank you for being here, Matt.
Miguel, where can they learn more about Mexican Glamping Association?
I feel like you’ve been quiet too. I feel like I’m ignoring my, we talked about soccer and then I just ignored you guys for the rest of the show. If you were in the United States. I’m sorry.
Miguel Huerta: Yeah. No, it’s really good. I think that this year it’s a reality check type of year. So I love what Matt said that there are a lot of operators and owners that are out there and they don’t have their stuff together, it’s critical for them to do that real check and see where they’re standing on different fronts, marketing, operations financial. Because this is going to be quite an interesting year. I was running a couple of numbers while you guys were talking and I can tell you that at least on the Mexican market there’s a 10 percent decrease.
On searches for flights to the US. Yeah and I think that Rafael, he was on point when he mentioned that the gold rush is not over, but I think that it has changed and I think that tourism will be on a more regional basis. So a lot of people, they were out and about in Europe, in Asia, in this exotic places.
But they will keep on traveling, but on a more regional way. So I think that RV parks, camping sites, and glampings, they need to cater their marketing efforts to their, in a regional way. That’s something that is critical. They need to see their price structure, their cost structure, because at the end they need to survive.
And it’s critical for them to, I think that we have different industry leaders in, here in the in the podcast that they can reach out in order to get the system they need. And here in, in the Mexican market Associ Mexican Glamping Association, sorry. You can always find us on our website association, asociacionmexicanadeglamping.com.
It’s in Spanish. I know that a lot of Spanish speaking people they listen to this type of podcast and they are eager for this type of content. In our case, we are starting to produce that type of knowledge and sure you can always find me on LinkedIn. Miguel Huerta. Yeah, I’m always happy to help.
Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, Miguel. I’m really interested to see where this goes because Shari was saying, and I’ll let you wrap up in a sec, Shari we’re talking about Sage and where they can find more information about you guys. But just like you were saying, the data isn’t quite there yet, but we are seeing like, we know this is happening.
We know border crossings from British Columbia is down by February 2025 or 2024 into the States by 30%. So the data is starting to trickle in. We know the Canadians aren’t coming in the same numbers. They’re canceling WestJet flights and Air Canada flights the same way as Mexico. Miguel just said is maybe only 10 percent down there, but this is happening.
Could it reverse? Yes, of course. Good. Nobody knows what’s going to happen tomorrow. Apparently it’s really exciting down there in the States. You guys like to keep it that way. So it’s entertaining for us and outside looking in, but sorry, wrap it up for us. Tell us where they can find out more about Sage Outdoor and all the good work you guys do.
Shari Heilala: Oh, thank you. Yeah. And it definitely is interesting down here, isn’t it? So Sage Outdoor Advisory, we are feasibility consultants and appraisers. We do feasibility studies and valuations in the outdoor hospitality world. We’ve got about 12 people across the country have worked on over 300 projects.
And we are curators of our own data that supports what we do. And little. little advanced announcement in the glamping world. We are about to start issuing reports on our glamping data that can be purchased on our website. We have reports by state and soon we’ll have them by radius where you can really understand competitive data for rates and unit types and amenities and that kind of thing.
But I appreciate being able to be part of the podcast today. Our website is sageoutdooradvisory. com. And I can be found on LinkedIn as well. Shari S H A R I. And my last name is H. E I L A L A. Halala, like falala. Doesn’t make sense.
Brian Searl: Thank you, Shari. Appreciate you being here. Simon, last but not least.
Simon Neal: Yeah, so I’m from CampMap. We’re a digital platform that helps out those hospitality businesses like campgrounds, glamping sites, RV parks, improve their guest experience. Improve revenue, reduce costs with digital professional maps. So essentially we’re replacing the traditional PDF, JPEG map with a digital version. Allows you to solve all sorts of other problems in a better way.
For example, arriving in big sites, GPS navigation integrated with booking, so it’s easy to see location context for where sites are and amenities are very clearly. So were based in Europe, but we’re growing quite nicely. Now we’re been in the U S for a couple of years. We have quite a few customers here and also this partnership with KOA where we’re supporting them and presenting the campgrounds on KOA.com and also now integrating with the booking flow. To allow this, like my site feature to be very dynamic and interactive.
So you can find us at campmap.com. Our email’s there. You can book a call with me directly there as well. Otherwise reach out on LinkedIn, Simon Neal, Camp Map. You’ll find us there, no problem.
Brian Searl: All right, I’m looking forward to your continued growth, Simon. I’m counting on you being here in a couple years because I’m going to come to you. I’m gonna say I need to use your API to program the humanoid robots so they can navigate around the parks. And obviously mapping is critical for that, right?
Simon Neal: Yeah, we have a navigation API. It’s ready.
Brian Searl: All right. It’s got to be good for humanoid robots. So I’m giving you like 2 years max before I’m going to need to do this for campgrounds. It’s coming fast. All right thank you guys for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Really appreciate the good conversation.
We’ll see you next week for another episode. If you’re interested in hearing me talk more, which I don’t know who in the right mind would be, but I have another podcast starting and I don’t know, 37 and a half minutes. So we’ll be over there and Outwired doing kind of an uncensored data dive. We’re going to be talking about, coincidentally, humanoid robots today.
Some of Scott’s findings from RVIA, he’s down there in Arizona and some other cool things. Join us there on Outwired. We’ll be starting shortly. So thanks guys. Appreciate it. And we’ll talk to you next week.
Simon Neal: Thanks, Brian.
Shari Heilala: Bye.