MC Fireside Chats – May 28th, 2025

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name’s Brian Searl with Insider Perks and Modern Campground. Super excited to be here with you guys all for another week. We’re gonna talk RV industry Outdoor Rec. We’ve got a couple of our recurring guests here that are always here.

Eleonore Hamm from the RVDA of Canada, and Phil Ingrassia from the RVDA of America. It sounds so weird still saying of America, I don’t know how I’m gonna ever get past that. I was born in America and now I’m in Canada. I don’t know. Anyway, thank you guys for being here. Appreciate it.

And then we got two special guests here who are joining us. We have Ilia. I can’t pronounce your last name. I don’t wanna butcher it. Say it for me. 

Ilia Smirnov: Smirnov. 

Brian Searl: Smirnov. Okay. I have also have bad eyes. Oh, it is Smirnov. Okay. Sorry. I have bad eyes. It’s signing on my screen. Owner of Cape Fear River Adventures and the Cozy Heron Glamping Resort.

Gonna share some information about that with us. We’re gonna talk to him about his resort and his adventures. I’ll have you introduce yourself in a second, Ilia, and then Lisa Green from the Decatur Wheeler Lake, KOA Campground. Welcome guys. Appreciate you all being here and giving us a little bit of your time.

Do we wanna just go around the room and Eleonore and Phil, you can start and just introduce yourself for the, I don’t know, one or two people on earth, who don’t know who you are? 

Eleonore Hamm: I’m Eleonore Hamm. I’m president of the RV Dealers Association of Canada. We obviously represent dealers across

 canada and goals for our association or education advocacy and just trying to ensure that our dealer members are profitable and sustainable.

Phil Ingrassia: And I’m Eleonore’s counterpart in the us Phil Ingrassia, president of the RVDA of the US. We have very similar goals for both organizations. Our mission is to help dealers. And we also work with the manufacturers suppliers on various other projects including the Go RVing program here in the US. And then Canada’s got their own Go RVing program to promote the RV travel and then the RV lifestyle.

Brian Searl: Is there an RVDA of Mexico?

Phil Ingrassia: No.

Brian Searl: I think you should start that, Phil. Like you look really tan today. That’s why I was. 

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah, I’ve been out in the yard working last weekend, so. 

Brian Searl: It might be a good retirement gig when you decide, like obviously 30 years from now you’re still young, but 

Phil Ingrassia: Right. 

Brian Searl: Okay. And then we have Lisa here. Lisa, do you wanna introduce yourself and briefly about your Campground? We’ll go into more detail about it, of course. 

Lisa Green: It’s a great day at KOA at Willer Lake. My name’s Lisa Green and I’m the general manager here, and we run an activity driven Campground. 

Brian Searl: Thank you, Lisa. I appreciate being here. Excited to dive into that a little bit more. And Ilia Smirnov. Sorry I didn’t see your name. I was blind. Welcome. 

Ilia Smirnov: Thank you. Yep. My name is Ilia Smirnoff, owner and operator of Cape Fear River Adventures in Cozy Heron Glamping Resort. We’re located kinda about 30, 40 minutes outside of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Brian Searl: Welcome, sir. Appreciate. It’s been a couple years since I’ve been to Raleigh, but I did like it, like I seem to remember there was like some kind of indoor party center we had an event at for Arabic or OHI, the convention there one year. Anyway, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. So before we get to our special guests and talk through a little bit about their stories and things that they have going on Eleonore and Phil, is there anything that’s come across your desk?

I guess we were talking prior to the show about maybe just an industry update from you guys as to , I think we, we haven’t done it in a few months. But what’s happening in the industry, shipments, retail sales, anything that you guys would like to share from both a US Canadian perspective or wants to start?

Phil Ingrassia: Sure. I’ll kick it off. The April wholesale shipment numbers that RVIA compiles came out this week and pleasantly surprised that retail was up about 4% in April compared to April of last year. There’s been well-documented concern about consumer sentiment and RVs certainly are driven by how people are feeling about their job prospects, stock market, their savings, gas prices, all that. Things are hanging in there. It’s gonna be a very similar year to last year, I think, when it all is said and done. I will say that we don’t have the retail for April yet.

And retail is lagging a little bit. I think dealers are building up a bit of inventory and Eleonore can talk about the challenges that the Canadian dealers have faced. 

Brian Searl: Are you willing to share with us some retail numbers for March? 

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah, it was down about 14%, I would say. 

Brian Searl: Year over year? 

Phil Ingrassia: Retail was up about 14%. So there’s certainly an inventory build going on. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. But that’s obviously like we’re still recovering a little bit.

Phil Ingrassia: And we’re getting into the season, so dealers are stocking up. 

Brian Searl: For sure. Eleonore. 

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, it’s actually pretty similar here. The wholesale shipments were higher than retail sales.

You have a unique situation whereby, the dealers in Canada were building inventory very rapidly because of the concern of the tariffs and the counter tariffs. So between February, March and April, April was ninth was the date when the counter tariffs on motor homes came into play.

But fortunately towables were excluded from that. So that’s really good. But there was so much uncertainty. So I, when you look at the wholesale shipments, that’s pub that are published from RVIA, they’re up it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the year goes because I know our dealers, if they’re in motorized, are probably not making any additional purchases at the moment.

Because 25% additional cost to motor home is could put the units.

Brian Searl: Significant. Yeah.

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, it’s significant. So there was the buildup of inventory. We’re seeing, sales were down. We, again, have the stats to the end of March. So year over year we’re down about 10% new unit sales from year prior.

So again, it’s small numbers, right? 

Brian Searl: Yeah.

Eleonore Hamm: There’s not a lot that gets registered necessarily in that timeframe. So we’re hoping that things are picking up. Consumers were a little bit concerned, consumer sentiment price point. Just the uncertainty I think has made people potentially postponed their purchase decision. But at the same time, we’re hearing anecdotally from the Campground industry here that, bookings are strong. So I think people will be purchasing and going RVing. It just probably be a pretty flat year this year. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. And that’s okay. We have to have flat years. We can’t be up forever always right? We could be, it would be nice, right? But what comes up must come down is what I was always told since I was a little child. But so for clarity for the Canadian, and I don’t wanna touch on this other than the one question, but for the tariffs. Towables are currently exempt, but motor homes are not.

Eleonore Hamm: Correct. Yes. So.

Brian Searl: I don’t, why about that conclusion? 

Eleonore Hamm: Because it comes down to HS codes, which are duty codes. And motor homes are a subcategory of automotive. And so that’s why a lot of the counter tariffs and tariffs were removed, but there are still the fentanyl tariffs going south on auto.

And then as such, there are still counter tariffs coming into Canada on the automotive. So it’s any component or any part that even if it’s UZMA compliant or US MCA compliant, so like the free trade agreement if it’s compliant with that, there is a tariff on the US manufactured component or part of it.

So if it’s anything that’s not Canadian or not Mexican built, we’ll have the 25% tariff. So as most of the motor homes are primarily built in the US. And as much they would get, a 25% tariff on that part of it. We’re encouraging our dealers to work with their customs brokers ’cause it is a little bit confusing.

Brian Searl: God bless both of you. I don’t have the patience to deal with all this stuff, 

Eleonore Hamm: And we’re, advocating and having some pretty strong messaging to government. Government is back in session this week finally since, January. So hopefully we can start having some meetings and trying to remove the motor homes from that code and that tariff.

Brian Searl: Cool. I’m looking forward to it. Okay, so that, I promise that was my only question related to that. With the retail sales, I’m curious, is there a time of year that you look to where you think you could gauge a more accurate prediction of how the rest of the summer sales season would go?

And here’s the reason I ask that because we’ve been looking at this heavily on the Campground side wondering, how is, obviously we just went through Memorial Day in the states and we had May long weekend in Canada the week before that. And I’ve heard anecdotes from multiple people.

Some are up, some are down, some are flat, some are, it depends on the type of camper they have. But I think we’re all waiting for down here from a transient standpoint is the kids get outta school. Which is gonna happen really in two, three weeks. And then we’re gonna, I think, really have a clear understanding of how this season is gonna go for average for a lot of people.

So is there any kind of date that you’re looking at there to say, now I have a really accurate pulse? Or is it just all over the map? 

Phil Ingrassia: In the US I know that really right now we’re right in the beginning of the season for most of the US. You look at April, may, June into July for kind of the bump in retail where a lot of the volume is done.

Of course, it’s not like that for every dealership. Certainly dealers in Florida, Western southern California their season is not as I guess cyclical as it is for Northern and Midwestern dealers and dealers in, even in the Northeast and Pacific Northwest. So it’s still really, the volumes for most of the country are driven in this early summer period, late spring, early summer.

Brian Searl: Anything to add, Eleonore? 

Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, it would be the same for us. This is peak season and I would say usually by the time we get to June stats, the thing is our stats are a bit lagging. So like we would get June data at the beginning of August. By then we would have a pretty good.

Brian Searl: It’s a little too late to correct for summer. 

Eleonore Hamm: But it is difficult to make those adjustments, so.

Brian Searl: Is there any data that’s being collected, like we hear, we talked about retail sales, we talked about shipments. Those are obviously important indicators, both dealers and to, as a guideline of where the industry is going in the future from RV purchases. But there’s obviously like millions of people who still own RVs and who are still using these to go Camping. Is there any indication of people not renewing their regular registrations? Is there any data on whether people are using these as frequently in the summer, whether they’re, ’cause you have to renew your registration every year, right? Like a car.

Phil Ingrassia: Correct.

Brian Searl: Is there any data on that? 

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah, there is. And it’s called it’s frankly, it’s a proprietary number from a company that collects all registration data for all motor vehicles in the US and the RVs and operations number has actually been growing through the pandemic and beyond. So people are tending to hold onto their RVs and renewing.

We lose a, some, we lose some. But that, that base number, when I started looking at the, that base number, I’d say about 2010 or so, we were right around three and a half million RVs in operations. We’re well over six and a half million now. Okay. And so that takes into account this big gain that we had throughout after the severe financial downturn of the late two thousands.

We had pretty much uninterrupted growth with a couple of exceptions through the pandemic. And then we had the pandemic bubble and Go RVing Research shows that many of the pandemic buyers like RV travel, they want to continue to camp. And some of the doom and gloom, oh, we’re gonna lose all these people.

Brian Searl: That just hasn’t occurred. So we are adding to the, I guess the installed base of RVs even when we have little downturns in sales. 

So recognizing, you said the numbers proprietary and you probably don’t wanna say it and that’s fine. You can just refuse to answer any question I have.Which is okay. Are they up year over year? 

Phil Ingrassia: I haven’t seen the year over year numbers. Usually I get them at the end of the year. But it is a proprietary number that company sells this data. You can imagine.

Brian Searl: Yeah. That’s why I’m not asking you to say it. 

Phil Ingrassia: To have all the registration data that goes through. They do share a top line number with us. 

Brian Searl: Is there any sense, last question about this, is there any sense of how much of that number came during the COVID boom of the six and a half or whatever? 

Phil Ingrassia: We sold about a million and a half RVs in North America that time. During that time. 

 we’ve never seen those numbers. Basically double what we’re selling now, the peak of the pandemic in 2021-2022 

Brian Searl: So we almost want more pandemics, Phil or 

Phil Ingrassia: No.

Brian Searl: Okay. Okay, so.

Phil Ingrassia: Nobody wants that. No. 

Brian Searl: Pandemics where people don’t get as sick, but still wanna go crazy and buy RVs. How about that? 

Phil Ingrassia: No, we were in a fortunate position because, people wanted to be outside. They wanted to be in a contained environment with their family. RVs fit the bill. They couldn’t go on a cruise. You didn’t wanna go to a resort didn’t wanna go overseas. So boom, that’s what happened.

Brian Searl: Oh, where did I go? Did I just disappear? 

Eleonore Hamm: You? Yeah, we lost you for a second. 

Brian Searl: That’s fun. I’ve having weird issues with the internet here, where it like, just go off during the show happened the last two weeks. Anyway. Any other data that you guys would like to share with us before we move on to our special guests that you can think of, that’s important to highlight?

Phil Ingrassia: No, I think I think we’ve covered it. 

Brian Searl: Okay. Who wants to start first? Lisa or Ilia? 

Ilia Smirnov: Oh, I’m glad to start. 

Brian Searl: Alright, Ilia spoke up first. So Ilia, you own two different businesses. Cape Fear River Adventures and Cozy Heron Glamping Resort. Which one was first? 

Ilia Smirnov: Cape Fear River Adventures was kind our flagship for, we have about five companies around build around the river operations, but we have 14th year of Cape Fear River Adventures, which is Canoe, Kayak, Paddle Board Rentals, River Tubing and we gonna, between Raleigh and Fayetteville and Fort Bragg, central North Carolina.

Brian Searl: I’m trying to look up as I talk to you on a map here, because I’ve been down there and I went whitewater rafting with like my super young stepdaughter years ago. I don’t think it was Cape Fear though, I think it was somewhere else nearby, but it was a pretty big rapids place there in North Carolina. I can’t remember.

Ilia Smirnov: Was that in the mountains or Raleigh area? 

Brian Searl: It wasn’t in the Raleigh area. It was in Western North Carolina. 

Ilia Smirnov: Okay. Yeah western part of the state definitely got a fair share of rafting companies and rafting opportunities. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. I can’t remember the name of the city, but anyway, it was just like super, it was like class two, it wasn’t anything crazy. Obviously I was with my stepdaughter. She was like seven years old, I think, at the time. But anyway, it’s fun. I enjoyed the area and been to North Carolina many times. So talk about Cape Fear Adventures first. How did this come about? How did you decide that this was your thing that you wanted to start? A river, is rafting, I’m assuming. 

Ilia Smirnov: We used to do some rafting. Mostly we offer on self-guided trips. A lot of it takes place on flat portions of the river. And so we arrange you out canoe, kayak, paddleboards and you go at it. And probably our most popular offering is the Lazy River tubing.

And people hop on the tube and stay very lazy for, up to five hours is what usually takes to cover that river section that we operate on. And yeah, but it started back in 2012 out of all places, me and my wife found the small business for sale on Craigslist and seemed like that was a very fascinating and then, the business kept growing every year and took us for quite the journey of outdoor businesses and living. It’s been a good journey. 

Brian Searl: I will admit, I’ve done one of those, I guess they’re more float trips than rafting is what you’re talking about, right? 

Ilia Smirnov: Yeah.

Brian Searl: I did one of those on the Bow River up here, I live in Calgary, and so they have those where you can go the floating three to four hours.

Ilia Smirnov: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: It’s through the city, but then, but yeah, and then they come get you at the end. Like I thought the first time that I did that, one I was gonna get really sunburnt, but, and then two, that it was just gonna be boring for me ’cause my mind always has to be active, but it was really quite pleasant and interesting and relaxing.

And we took my little Yorkie dog who’s laying right next to me. But it was more interesting than I thought I’d been. ’cause I’d only ever been on like rapids and stuff like that before. But yeah, it’s a great way to chill out and relax and. 

Ilia Smirnov: That’s exactly right. And I think a lot of people, find the experience you described exactly that it’s gonna coming out and being somewhat lazy and enjoying your friends and maybe a couple beverages and just spending a day on the river. 

Brian Searl: Phil, was it really yard work or were you on a float trip? 

Phil Ingrassia: I wish I was on a float trip. It was pulling weeds and cutting grass.

Brian Searl: At least your yard looks better now, right? 

Phil Ingrassia: That’s correct. 

Brian Searl: I never, yeah, I had to hire somebody to do that. I’m too lazy, Phil. But so Cape Fear Adventures turned into, are they on the same property? Is the glamping resort on the same property? 

Ilia Smirnov: Yeah. So Cozy Heron came around. We are now in a third year of operations and we worked for a few years to get this resort opened and it enabled provide additional, obviously, services to our offerings and we were able to move on to multi-day destination having a restaurant on premises and of course, things to do.

And now we introduced lodging, which was in a form of Conestoga wagons and so that we opened that in 2023. 

Brian Searl: So how did you determine there was, I guess my question is enough demand for the, you talked about a couple various things, but specifically for the glamping resort, because there are a lot of business owners out there, I’m sure, who are in similar positions to you, not necessarily owning float trip companies, but owning something that is loosely tied to outdoor adventures or activities or, bike rentals, boat rentals, all those kinds of things who are looking at opportunities like glamping and saying, could that be a right fit for me? So how did you determine that glamping was the way you wanted to take your business and expand it?

Ilia Smirnov: I think several factors came together to make it all possible. Overall I was always interested in as we were developing our operations and offerings, I was interested in a multi-day destination as a concept and having operated a restaurant that, at this point we no longer operate, we have a third party who takes care of that now.

But it seems like we have all the ducks in a row to, to introduce some sort of lodging operations. And we had a opportunity, we had a fairly large several acre field with a river front, but it was in a floodplain. And so for a long time I was considering to build more standard cabins per se, but they would have to meet, of course the flood codes and all the requirements around it.

And on one of the trade shows, I came across Conestoga wagons and seems like that’s when the light went on and seems like that was the answer to a lot of the challenges that I was facing to move into that space, given the property that we had. And so once I saw the wagon, I walked inside of one and I was like, man, this is it we’re gonna do this. And then of course, nobody believed me, sure enough, about three years later we opened for operations, so.

Brian Searl: Nobody ever believed you. That’s the point of being an entrepreneur, right? It’s the people who don’t believe you, that aren’t the entrepreneurs. 

Ilia Smirnov: Yeah. And we allocated right in town and but I think that the property, it’s a riverfront experience and you can walk to our river operations, a hundred feet away from your wagon. You can walk 150 feet to the restaurant so you can really come to the property and have a full, whether it’s a weekend family experience.

That’s generally what we target our target market. Even though we get, folks of all kinds from military base to corporate outings to, college kids and everybody in between. But I think, a lot of families really enjoy to get out and we see this glamping experience as a bridge.

We get a lot of customers who have never experienced outdoors, maybe never been Camping before. Being outside, can be intimidating for some folks. And I feel like we’re providing just a bridge experience that yeah, there might be some discomforts, but they’re not gonna be like full on.

Brian Searl: Yeah. 

Ilia Smirnov: Outdoorsy discomforts, you still get your AC and a king size bed inside one of those wagons, but if you happen to see a bug crawling, that’s because it has a canvas on top of it and they do climb inside sometimes, even though we do our best to prevent it. And we also try to familiarize folks and that’s part of the experience, and that’s what makes glamping is kind this hybrid experience between full on Camping and something more with more modern comforts.

Brian Searl: You have a hybrid between glamping and RVing, I think. ’cause I think the Conestoga wagons qualify as towables Eleonore, if you wanted to bring them in without tariffs. But I think that would be a good bargaining gig to see one of the giant Ford Lightning trucks towing a Conestoga wagon down the highway.

Ilia Smirnov: Yeah it was quite the sight because frankly I had to do just that and I had to tow those wagons while we were organizing the resort. They were in storage and at some given points I had to tow ’em to like trade shows or eventually when we were setting it up and I literally had people stop on the highway, take pictures and wave at me while I was going seven miles an hour. But it was a fun experience. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. I think Camp Spot did a study that said this was the year of nostalgia. I think that just fits right in, bring back the Oregon trail, be adventurous and interesting. I used to play that game in school. Did you guys have that in school or am I too young?

Ilia Smirnov: Yeah.

Brian Searl: Too old, young. I don’t know. Okay, so then what kind of results have you seen now that you’ve got the glamping resort up and running, you’ve got the Conestoga wagons. Have you seen that have an impact on the other businesses? Have people done longer float trips or multiple float trips?

Have they done, obviously they’re probably eating more at the restaurant that’s a given, right, but. 

Ilia Smirnov: Yeah, I think we’re right on track to provide the experience that in a way we intended to provide. And so folks come out, they rent the wagon for, sometimes one night, sometimes two, sometimes three, like this past Memorial Day weekend and yeah.

And absolutely some families will get on the river once other families will be on the river, for multiple days doing different things, going from tubing to kayaking and maybe even trying different river sections. But so far, I think also huge benefit is that we are very local to major frankly inside major metropolitan area.

So the experience that you might have had with your daughter when you guys went to the mountains, would require, five, six hour drive. Where for our experience, a lot of the guests we get, they’re 20, 30 minutes away and they jump in the car and they just want a change of scenery or maybe change of experience, and they come down the road and stay with us.

And that happens quite frequently. So I think the experience that we’re able to introduce in the area is very unique, very much in demand. People curious about outdoors. People want to be outdoors and, I think again, that gap that we’re filling with this bridge experience, also connecting them to explore the river more and just, when you’re spending multiple days on in a riverfront facility, I think that natural feature in Harnett County is just gonna draw your attention and draw your interest and you’d be more and more familiarizing yourself and eventually drawn to be on the river.

Brian Searl: Oh yeah. That’s where I’ll eventually build a house on the river, man. I gotta have water. Like rivers are my first lakes are my second oceans are my third. But the water it is interesting because you put yourself like, probably not intentionally, but you are in a place that, like you said, is outside of a major metropolitan area like Raleigh, which I think in somewhat in some cases will maybe not recession proof you, but certainly make you much more recession resistant than a more rural Campground that people have to drive to glamping resort, river adventure or somebody who’s on the way to somewhere else. I think those are probably the parks that I’m most concerned about getting data for ’em from a Campground glamping perspective side is, are people taking the longer trips this year? Are they staying closer to home?

There’s a lot of data that says they’re staying within 50 ish miles, or, sorry, I’m up in Canada. I don’t even know the kilometer equivalent to that, but like 60, 70, 65, something like that. I think there’s a lot of data. So what have you seen so far for your business this year? Has it looked 

Ilia Smirnov: well and, to your point, which is very hard broken and was somewhat involved with the aftermath of a hurricane Helene. And, unfortunately Helene had a major impact on a lot of the rivers in North Carolina and a lot of the similar operations, whether it was guided services on rivers or some of the resorts, glamping resorts and other similar businesses that were heavily impacted. Some were shut down, some are still trying to figure out how to move forward.

And to your point that generally people would be packing up, driving to the mountains for those experiences where now in some ways those experiences are limited and potentially closer to home, qutlet is also somewhat in a higher demand knowing that, you might not have to drive five hours to get outdoors. And there are those are things that right in your backyard just a few minutes away and still be able to get on the river and have great experience. That was kind a fairly major event that happened in the last year and having impact on us. And so it does on the businesses in the western part of the state. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. The impact of multiple things, right? Like you always want to have that impact on the local businesses. Where and when I say local, that could be like, I was on Vancouver Island a few weeks ago.

Could be Canada as a country or a whole as a United States, like local instead of traveling overseas, but you always want that local impact, hopefully with, there’s a way to balance that with the people who are recovering from such an event like Helene and get their business back. And then still people like the local stuff and that stuff.

And so that’s what I think everybody hopes for. But it is interesting how sometimes, like we never want a disaster. We never want a pandemic, as we talked about earlier, but sometimes those things can encourage you to discover like what is so close and right in your backyard that you often don’t look for.

Vancouver Island was a good example. We were up in, I dunno if you’ve ever been Eleonore, but in Port Hardy. 

Eleonore Hamm: Yep. 

Brian Searl: And we were and the guides up there were talking about what happened during the pandemic and it was all so just crowded into these like 35 people towns that have no parking lot and nobody knew where to go or what to do, but everybody was coming up from Vancouver and from Victoria and just they couldn’t go anywhere else outside off the island for a while.

But they discovered that and like it’s slowed way back down now, but I think still that appreciation is there for Hey, we have this in our backyard.

All right, Lisa, let’s talk to you for a second. Decatur right on the water. I’m looking at you on a map in Alabama, right?

Lisa Green: Yes, sir. We’re at Willer Lake and it is a damed up lake that’s right off the Tennessee River. 

Brian Searl: So talk to us about your KOA, what do you have? You have any glamping cabin rentals? Obviously you have RV sites. 

Lisa Green: Yes, we have primitive tent sites. I have water and electric tent sites, RV sites, and we have five cabins.

Brian Searl: And how long have you been there as the general manager? 

Lisa Green: I started as a general manager of a Campground. A really bad timing on July 2nd of last year. 

Brian Searl: It is pretty bad timing. Okay. 

Lisa Green: Yeah, and I had never done anything like this. I have 37 years in food and beverage. So yeah, to start on July 2nd was quite interesting.

Of course the Campground is completely full and I have zero experience. I mean, I have experience Camping, but not running a Campground. 

Brian Searl: But they’re already there. It should have been a little easier, right? Like, they’re already there, they’re already in their site. They’re already like, we’re gonna have fun. Go shoot some fireworks. 

Lisa Green: I figured it out in a hurry. 

Brian Searl: So what was the biggest challenge that you had to overcome coming into a situation like that? 

Lisa Green: They didn’t have any kind of leadership for about three months. And the leadership that they did have, weren’t very customer service or hospitality driven. So there was a lot of recovering of relationships, with the staff and the community for sure. 

Brian Searl: Okay. 

Lisa Green: That was probably the biggest challenge, that just takes time. Takes time to go out and meet people and look ’em in the eye and shake their hand and apologize for the behavior of somebody else. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. And that’s hard because it wasn’t a you thing, but, and you’re not apologizing for an action you did. Sometimes I have a hard enough, hard time recognizing when I’ve done something wrong. I need to apologize myself, let alone go and apologize for somebody else. We all make mistakes, but, but talk me through the short term though real quick.

Like what, was it like? I don’t wanna say wake up on July 2nd right. But wake up on July 2nd, Hey, it’s July 4th and now it’s mine. 

Lisa Green: Yeah. Well, like I said, coming from food and beverage and running all those businesses, to the slower pace of a Campground, even though it’s busy, it’s not like.

Busy every minute like it is in a restaurant or a bar scenario. So, was like, what do we do now? And what do we do now? Like I thought I should be doing. 

Brian Searl: You’re like, nothing. Everybody’s here. 

Lisa Green: Right. that wasn’t the case. So, in a hurry that a lot of the Campground kind of runs on its own and it’s mainly about, maintaining and, the guests and having a good time yourself will help the others have a good time and relax.

Brian Searl: So what are some of the things now, you’ve been in it almost, year now, right? A little bit short, 11 months. What are some of the things that you think you have learned across your journey as general manager of the KOA? 

Lisa Green: One of biggest things I learned is that, for me, in this particular area, you need community support.

Come in and do activities or day passes for that auxiliary income so that you can keep the Campground at the standard it needs to be in and afford to buy the things that campgrounds need, withers it away. That’s one most important things that I learned that. I took this job so I could have a quality life and slow down. And it definitely is doing that for me. 

Brian Searl: Good. I’m glad to hear that. I’m curious, you talked a little bit about  auxiliary income, like selling the lake passes and things like that, right?

Lisa Green: Yes.

Brian Searl: That wasn’t in place before you started, or. 

Lisa Green: Well, literally, I have a pretty large city within 15 minutes of me. And I have even bigger cities within 40 minutes of me. And the numbers showed that only 2% of locals were coming out here.

So they were depending on a huge amount of people to come into an area that really isn’t very well known. Number is 98% locals that come out here. So you could only imagine how much that increased my day passes, or my canoe rentals, or my kayak rentals, jet ski rentals, boat rentals, rope courts and zip line and all that kind of stuff. All that money is necessary for a Campground like this, so. 

Brian Searl: And I think that’s an important thing that we’ve been kind of home to. And I’m on the Campground side than the RV side. We do marketing for about 500 parks and some KOAs. The corporate marketing team, but it’s been the things that we’ve been talking to our clients about is going into what appears to be a down economy, there’s to differentiate yourself. People are still gonna go RVing, they’re still gonna go Camping. They might not buy the new RVs or go to the fanciest RV resorts temporarily. Right? They are still gonna wanna do that stuff. So then how do you set your Campground apart? How do you make yourself different? And how do you focus on  auxiliary revenue like that, like jet skis or boat rentals or, lake passes or things like that to both raise your income and diversify yourself.

Super important in a economy or one where like there’s not many people going Camping in COVID. ’cause they have to choose between, obviously KOA as a brand is different than other campgrounds, but even if they’re choosing between KOA’s or different resorts, what is the thing that sets you apart?

So I think, I would love to hear your thoughts on, if there’s any amenities you added, if there’s any amenities you’re still considering adding for  auxiliary income and how you chose those. Because I think that would be helpful for some of our audience to hear. Like obviously you’re on a lake, right? So you have a built in advantage, but 

Lisa Green: Well, I am very outside the box and I know this area pretty well. I’m an hour and a half south of Nashville. I’m 40 minutes from Muscle Shoals, and both of those are very, large music communities. Right. I planned a huge music festival.

Brian Searl: Okay.

Lisa Green: That only has local bands. So actually my first annual one is going to be Saturday the seventh, but there’ll be like just 10 local bands and that’s it. Local vendors are coming out, local food trucks are coming out. To get people and all of this is income that we weren’t gonna have, right? 

Brian Searl: Yeah. 

Lisa Green: I have very small payout to pay for the music because I did just choose local bands. And then my profit is all the, you know, we have sponsorships too, so my profits all in t-shirts and coozies and renting all the stuff and buying stuff in the store.

And that festival sold out my entire Campground, every single site, including all the tent sites in two months. And I started planning this and opening it up and putting it out there in January, because nobody’s Camping in January, but I need income to come in January. So January and February, I had all this income come in that I could use to carry my labor and everything through until season started, and then I could build up the money that I need to pay the bands and whatnot. So. that for me. And then not only that, it’s bringing hundreds of people out here that even though I’m in their backyard, like you said, they have no idea I’m here. So, gonna be great for the Campground and for the community. I’m really excited to do stuff like that for the community and to give something for local people to do in the area that they don’t have to travel far to do.

Brian Searl: So if you look at. 

Lisa Green: Is like one of the best like auxiliary incomes, you could absolutely have. 

Brian Searl: So if you look at the typical KOA owner or typical Campground owner, I don’t wanna stereotype people, but how would you recommend that they approach the, how do I figure out what to add as  auxiliary revenue?

Obviously, again, let’s just discount the lake for a second. ’cause that’s an advantage or that you have, that’s common sense. Right. But it’s easier to figure out than a music festival. So how would you recommend a typical owner kind of go analyzing their area, looking at cities that are nearby, kind of the demographic and trying to come up with some things that could help boost their revenue in those ways?

Lisa Green: Well, for I definitely am a people person, so I went out into the community and talked to the community about what they may be interested in seeing out here and how could this park become a venue to support what’s going on in the area, whether they be farmer’s markets or fall festivals or like that.

I definitely joined the Chamber of Commerce in five counties that surround me. I go to those meetings, I talk to those people. I’m Involved in my personal Campground social media. I’m on it all the time. You Have to get information from every source that you can. And those sources, we’re in a world of change and constant change.

So those sources change all the time.. 10 years ago it was MySpace and then Facebook, and now it’s Instagram and Twitter and TikTok. And you have to keep up with all those things so that you could not only figure out what your target audience is, but reach them on a consistent basis. My Facebook page, gets almost 200,000 hits a month, which shows I’m putting forth a lot of effort there. My Instagram is probably 25 because I’m 53 years old and I haven’t got to know Instagram yet, my point that’s a market I’m missing because I haven’t put the effort into it.

Brian Searl: Yeah. But you.

Lisa Green: It’s like any business you put the effort in, you’re gonna get it out. 

Brian Searl: For sure. Some small slice of bad effort, but generally I agree with you. But my question is then how do you, I’m not sure you quite answered what I was going after, so let me start there.

Ilia Smirnov: Okay. 

Brian Searl: How do you, obviously there’s all these things that you have to pay attention to as a general manager, as an owner, as an operator, whatever role you are in, right? But if I look at like you’re looking at, like you talk about Facebook and Instagram, Instagram be something you’re still catching up on.

It’s a market you’re missing, you’re choosing to prioritize Facebook probably ’cause both, you know it better and there’s perhaps a bigger audience there that is your demographic.

Lisa Green: Right.

Brian Searl: So how do you pick and choose that? How do you pick and choose amenities? How do you say, here’s all these shiny things over on this side. I’m gonna pull this one out and do it first and this one out and do it first. Do those well, and then move on to the third. 

Lisa Green: Well, it’s definitely trial and error. I have tried some stuff at this park and it didn’t work. Tried it consistently because you have to try things consistently. So I didn’t just win at everything. That’s a hard question to answer because like, I try pop up market and nobody came for five weeks in a row. So I had to move on, tried live music out of the blue. I was like, maybe I’ll try live music. We have a stage here, why not? And then week after week that built and there was 70 people there instead of just two the first night. So I was like, oh, this might be something I could carry on with. Like the rope course and the zip line and stuff like that. it’s trial and error, so. 

Brian Searl: Go out and try something, figure out if it works or not. If it doesn’t, you failed and you learned a lesson, try it again. Try something, not something different again. 

Lisa Green: Right. just a whole different path, you know? But, like I said, I’ve never been a Campground manager. This is my first time, so I probably do more trial and error than others may, because I don’t really know about it quite yet. 

Brian Searl: But sometimes that’s good, right? Sometimes knowing too much can be an impediment. 

Lisa Green: True.

Brian Searl: Oh, there we go. I disappeared again. That was fun. 

Lisa Green: Welcome back.

Brian Searl: Anyway, so, but knowing can sometimes be an impediment, right? So, you know and you don’t need to know anything else. And so I think sometimes a fresh perspective and fresh set of eyes is good. 

Lisa Green: I agree. And I think always be willing to think outside the box to make money for your business, don’t be scared to try something. 

Brian Searl: Ilia, was it all roses for you? Did you succeed on everything you tried or. 

Ilia Smirnov: That would be Nice, wouldn’t it? I mean, I can relate to everything of course you’re saying. And that was part of the journey, you know, I think right now we’re operating five different companies, the recreation and some things worked, some things didn’t work. You know, like the restaurant on premises, we were in it and operated for six years and decided that the line of services that we’re not really interested in, rather outsource it. Whereas for example, we were the first, company to introduce River Tubing in Central North Carolina. And we had a lot of feedback, negative feedback in the beginning that the river, this is not gonna work. It was too low to rocky, too slow and all kinds of things. But, you know, and we tried it and, last of July we got over a thousand people on that river in a day. So something works and something doesn’t. And, fully relate that as an entrepreneur you try, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And you try something else, so. 

Brian Searl: For sure. Absolutely. Where do we wanna go from here? Is there anything we didn’t talk about your KOA, Lisa or Ilia about your glamping resort that you guys wanna talk about? That’s me, that’s my lazy question. Probably can’t think of anything right now. 

Eleonore Hamm: You know, what I think is interesting is that it never would occur to me to look at going to a Campground for activities if I were not necessarily Camping there, right. Like I would just assume, oh, it’s the Campground. Their activities are for the people that are Camping there or staying there. 

Lisa Green: Yeah.

Eleonore Hamm: It wouldn’t have been something that I would’ve thought, oh, let’s go see a music festival there, or take your ropes course or, so I think it’s something. I camp a little bit, not a lot, but I think it’s, you know, just educating consumers that you don’t necessarily have to be there to be Camping, to utilize some of the services and activities that you’re putting on at your property.

Brian Searl: Yeah, that marketing piece for sure is, I mean, me being a marketer, like that marketing piece is so important. It’s like the whether adding a music festival or you’re adding boat rentals, or you’re adding Conestoga wagons, or you’re opening up a restaurant or whatever you’re doing, that marketing piece to both, if you decide to go after the general public to let them know that you’re here, you’re available, you have something exciting for them to do.

They don’t need to own an RV. They don’t need to, perhaps in some cases stay in a glamping resort or a cabin rental. They can just come out for the music or they can just come out for the lake or they can just come out for a restaurant or whatever it may be, right? Or the river adventures or trip. But that marketing is so critical, and I think there’s so many people who put thought into what they’re doing, just like you did Lisa and Ilia with the Conestoga wagons, who put that thought in.

But then maybe don’t close the loop on, well, how do I actually market that and present that and package that in such a way. Like, it’s easier on a river, it’s easier on a lake, right? I’ve said this multiple times, but it’s not foolproof. That doesn’t mean it just automatically works ’cause you’re on a river and on a lake. I think is missing from a lot of the mindsets of, there has to be a concerted effort behind that to give the message that you want to give to the consumers. Whether it’s day use like Eleonore was talking about or whatever. I mean, I look at these Go RVing commercials, right? And a lot of the RV commercials have like, two to five seconds of the 30 as an actual RV and the rest is having fun outside and enjoying the adventure and which is important, right?

But it would be interesting sometimes to maybe see an RV commercial that showed activities at a resort or a Campground or things like that. Not saying that that’s necessarily a good use of the ad budgeting for Go RVing, but it would be interesting if a Campground could produce a commercial like that or something like that. Right? 

Lisa Green: I think if we don’t. Campgrounds don’t do more activities, we lose that market from 12 years old to 18 years old because they don’t wanna, it’s boring to them to go just sit in front of the camper and watch the water go by. Or you can only play so many cards with mom and dad or whatnot.

But if we keep it interesting, then when these people get older, they’ll buy these RVs that we need them to buy and they’ll keep the industry going. But if they grow up and they think, oh, well, camping’s boring, why would I wanna buy an RV and, spend all this money to be bored. So if we make things like this more interesting for that generation, it will definitely help the whole RV community.

Brian Searl: Yeah. And that’s a whole nother thing with a long game, right?

Lisa Green: Right.

Brian Searl: There’s so many people who aren’t willing to play. Or don’t think about the long game. Mostly, I think aren’t willing to play the long game because it takes so long to get here, right.

 What is happening now, like you’re talking about with the kids who are on the campgrounds. Are they just playing cards as mom and dad? Maybe whether they win against mom and dad probably impacts that perception a little bit. Or mom and dad kicked their ass. but are they playing on the playgrounds? Are they taking the boat rentals? Are they going out on the kayaks with mom and dad? Are they, I don’t, Ilia, what activities do you have at the Glamping Resort? I’m thinking of restaurant. I’m trying to use a Oh well the River Adventures, right. Are they going on River Adventures? Sorry. Float trips, with mom and dad, is what escaped me for a second. Because those things are gonna impact, like you said, whether they not just like buying RVs is certainly important and we want them to do that, and they will do that as a result of that.

But also, will they continue to go glamping? Will they continue to bring their kids and their friend’s kids and tell more people about that experience to bring them into the industry? It’s so interesting, I think even me, from my perspective, how rare it is for me to put myself in into other people’s shoes and think about that kind of long game. And Phil know, like I’m deep into the AI stuff. I was listening to Sam Holtman the other day, say that people between generations are using AI completely differently, whereas like a Boomer or a millennial will be using it to ask questions and just gain information.

Gen Z is using it to literally make all their life decisions. Like major life decisions, right? But this is where it’s going to go. Those people are going to grow up and they’re going to ask the AI, should I buy an RV? What type of RV should I buy? What type of model? And that’s impact the actual decision versus the information. And so it’s gonna become more impactful to play that long game in many ways. 

Lisa Green: Yes sir. And they’ll be quicker to buy if they have a memory of Camping or glamping. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, because they’ll have more of a trust in the experience, right. They’ll know what that was. They’ll have a frame of reference. Obviously the models will evolve and those will be different. And who knows what we’ll be dealing within 20 years. When Gen Z’s ready to purchase their first unit. But, that kind of still Camping experience will be the same. So 

Phil Ingrassia: Right. There a lot of debate within the industry about the value of program spending, marketing money on programs for kids and young adults. And had we made some of those advancements, you know, 20 years ago when they first came up, who knows what would’ve occurred. But I think certainly the research shows that people who camped with their family or their grandparents or what, however they camped as younger folks, they are much more predisposed to buy an RV, or go to private or public campgrounds.

It’s just, it’s off the charts compared to people who don’t do it. So it’s definitely worth, I think, the industry investing in those types of programs like you guys are doing to get, people outside. I mean, that’s the main thing. 

Brian Searl: Do we have a sense of whether those numbers are going up and down at all? Because I know the stereotype is, kids are always on their devices now and they don’t want to go outside and they don’t, I don’t think that’s as true as people say it is or perceive it is. So do we have a sense of whether there’s more kids who are going Camping with their families or less kids in research?

Phil Ingrassia: Well, there’s, there’s concern. I think some of the outdoor industry research is showing that people are participating in general more in outdoor activities. But some of the research is showing they’re not as involved as far as getting into it like big time deep. Like, I got a son, he loves to fish, but he’s not like totally obsessed with fishing like I used to be.

So that’s one of the things that research is showing. And they’re trying a bunch of different things and kind of seeing what sticks more than they were maybe. 

Brian Searl: I think that’s almost in some ways Okay. Or even in some ways better. Right? It’s a similar to the entrepreneur who tries and fails and tries something new and fails and then tries and succeeds. If they find the thing by trying fishing or trying kayaking, or trying float trips or trying whatever, then when they find the thing, they’re like, oh, I need to do that like once a month or whatever it is.

Then they’re more attached to that. It’s more sticky. It’s still probably, hopefully going to be an outdoor related adventure that can be linked to Camping and RVing, but I think that ends up making it more sticky. 

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah, and where I’m going with that a little bit is some of the outdoor equipment companies make most of their money as people go up through the chain, they buy more expensive gear.

Brian Searl: Yeah. 

Phil Ingrassia: So they’re really concerned about people just trying it for a little bit and then getting out of it. So that’s kind of where that research is. Like you say, make it more sticky so that they buy a cheap pole and then they go up to the Orvis stuff later on, that kind of thing.

Brian Searl: Yeah. Or they just need need more people like me. I’m the person who’s like, I’m gonna the best gear possible and I’m gonna try to learn how to go skiing and then I’m gonna fail and it’s gonna sit in the closet for the next 15 years. 

Phil Ingrassia: Yeah. Put it in the shed

Brian Searl: I bought high in gear

Phil Ingrassia: and it never sees the light of day again.

Brian Searl: Yeah. ’cause I wanna make sure that it’s me, right. I wanna that I go in that adventure. And it wasn’t the rod that caused me not to catch the fish. 

Phil Ingrassia: I hate to say it, it sounds like my expensive bike rack that I have sitting in my shed. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. We got a couple minutes left here. Lisa, final thoughts? 

Lisa Green: Not really. Enjoy a day outdoors. You’ll remember it. That’s my last word. 

Brian Searl: Good remember it or bad remember it. There’s all kinds of ways that could go. Anyway, thank you Lisa, for being here. I appreciate you so much. Ilia, any final thoughts? 

Ilia Smirnov: Well, first of all, thanks for having me on the show and nice discussion. As a outdoor, enthusiast and owner, we will continue kind of trying to introduce new things and find new ways to get folks outside just at the end of the day. We all know the benefits and the joy that it brings. And again, thanks for having me on the show. And, joy of outdoors will keep spreading.

Brian Searl: And where can they learn more about your businesses? 

Ilia Smirnov: Of course, online, we got all the social media presence and, website is capefearadventures.com.

Brian Searl: Thank you Ilia. Appreciate you being here. Lisa, I would’ve asked you the same question, but everybody knows it’s koa.com, so. koa.com. Lisa, do you want to, and you’re on obviously social media. You have big presence on Facebook. 

Lisa Green: Yes.

Brian Searl: Go follow her on Instagram. Make her pay more attention to Instagram. Eleonore any final thoughts? 

Eleonore Hamm: Well, no, thank you very much. I learned lots today. It’s always nice to hear from the Campground industry to compliment what we see on the RV side. So thanks for including us.

Brian Searl: Phil. 

Phil Ingrassia: Absolutely. No, it’s great to talk to people that are making it happen on the ground. Love to hear it. Congratulations to your success too. It’s great to hear. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Well, thank you all for being here, Phil, Eleonore. Appreciate it as always. Lisa and Ilia a great conversation. Appreciate you guys spending a little bit of time with us. And for those of you who are not sick and tired of hearing from me, I’ll be on another podcast in about an hour or so called Outwired with Scott Bahr from the KOA data reports, the North American Outdoor Hospitality reports that he does.

We’ll be talking about some data trends and insights. We’re gonna actually break down the type of people who go to campgrounds, into really granular niches to figure out if you should be marketing to those based on your area and how you reach them and how you talk in their tone of voice instead of just kind of want RVs to come, or I want boomers to come, or I want long term or short term.

So I think there’s some value in that, and we’ll be starting that probably in an hour or so. But other than that, thank you guys for being here. Really appreciate it. We’ll see you next week on another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Take care. 

Phil Ingrassia: Thank you.