MC Fireside Chats – May 29th, 2024

This is MC Fireside Chats, a weekly show featuring conversations with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and outdoor hospitality experts who share their insights to help your business succeed. Hosted by Brian Searl, the founder and CEO of Insider Perks. Empowered by insights from Modern Campground, the most innovative news source in the industry.

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian [00:01:00] Searl with Insider Perks. Super excited to be here with you for one of our kind of unique episodes that we have throughout the year, this fifth week of the month. So normally, as you many of you who have watched this show know, we have a panel of recurring guests and we have different themes for every week.

And so this kind of fifth one is a little weird. It’s an outlier, but honestly, it gives us more of a chance to talk to our special guests. And learn more about them. Whereas we might have five or six people on other episodes. So super excited to we’re going to let these guys introduce themselves here, but welcome Don Bennett.

And is it Louis or Louie? Louie. Louie. Okay. I was going to say that. And then I always go with the wrong one. It never fails me. Louie Thompson and I’m going to let these guys introduce themselves. We do have Melissa, who’s going to join us from Virginia state park. She’s having some trouble with her audio and video, so hopefully she’ll be able to join us as well.

But let’s start with you, Don. Recently half retired as I joke with you, but not really. All kinds of new things going on. So what’s up in your world? 

Don Bennett Jr.: Yes. Basically other than running our two family campgrounds in the Finger Lakes we at Merchantry Tourism a company that my wife and I own.

[00:02:00] Anderson Brochure Distribution Service is a division of that, and we have already accomplished 20 different consumer facing shows where we have distributed campground brochures, state directories, county and state travel guides, and information at 20 different shows. Out of the 20 shows we’ve done, 19 have been RV shows.

We’ve got four more shows coming up, two in August and two in September. And we’ve got some big ones coming up. The Allentown Fair has about 250, 000 plus attendees each year. The New York State Fair 1. 6 million attendees. So those are in August. And September we’ve got a fall Cleveland show that’s very popular.

And we will also be doing the Hershey Show as well. And I would recommend it. You’re fully retired is what you’re saying. Yes. And I haven’t even gotten [00:03:00] to the Association work that Merchantry Tourism is doing as well. So we’re doing some work for a couple of states and February 1st I was named the Executive Director of the Illinois Campground Association.

So we’re looking forward to helping them build their association and we’ve got a few legislative objectives that that they would like to see accomplished as well. 

Brian Searl: But that’s pretty much what we’ve been up to. Let me let Louie introduce himself and talk about nomadic resorts briefly.

And then I want to talk to you I want to unpack a little bit about how your camping season has gone so far at your campgrounds, because we like we’re seeing, ups and downs and peaks and valleys and different things throughout the industry. So I think your insight in that would be great.

And of course, Merchandise Tourism. I want to talk about Illinois. I remember going there with. Walter, bless his heart, rest in peace, who was the executive director of that association for a while. Like we had it in a little trailer, like with six people, I think, in it and I went to speak. And so it’s going to be interesting to see some of the good things that you have in store for that association too, as well.

[00:04:00] So Louie, and we have Melissa. Welcome, Melissa. We can see you. Can we hear you? Oh, we can’t hear Melissa. 

Melissa Baker: No, here I am. 

Brian Searl: Oh, there you are. Okay. Then we had another problem. Okay. So then we’re going to let 

Louis Thompson: Melissa introduce herself to you. So Louie, please. Okay. My name is Louie Thompson. I’m the CEO of Nomadic Resorts and I’m in Mauritius, so quite a long way from you guys right across the other side of the world, near Madagascar.

And I guess I work in probably the kind of It’s basically a more luxurious side of outdoor lodging. So we design tented camps, safari lodges, floating resorts and slightly outlandish looking bamboo buildings. And we do that a little bit all over the world, but mainly in Asia.

And recently I’ve been working on lots of different things, including, a camp opposite Mount Everest called Kunda Nest which is overlooking Everest, which is quite fun. And then I’ve also been nominated as the president of the Asia Pacific Outdoor Lodging [00:05:00] Association.

So what that’s all about is we’re basically trying to put a little bit of Yeah, let’s say trying to make things a little bit more coherent in terms of how glamping is perceived throughout Asia, which is a bit complicated because there’s lots of different places with very different regulations.

Melissa Baker: Yeah. 

Louis Thompson: So that will be kicking off very soon. And I’ll be, we’ll be launching that kind of pretty officially at the Phuket Sustainable Travel Forum in September. And then also, we have a thing called the EK Resort Network every year. That’s a kind of I don’t know, it’s a conference, but in a very cool and chilled out way.

It’s a sort of a conference where people involved in the design, Tents or people with specialist knowledge of glamping and eco resort design. Some investors and people from different outdoor lodging brands. For example, we had Victor. From collective retreats came this year away from the US and that was in Mauritius this year.

So that’s been a really good [00:06:00] fun week 

Brian Searl: Awesome, I’m excited to dive into Nomadic. Like I keep I was telling you before the show I keep seeing all your amazing innovations and the things you’re working on LinkedIn and I’m really excited like I’ll make sure We figured out some way to screen share here because unless we screen share and show some of your amazing creations, I don’t think people are really going to grasp the magnitude of what you’ve built over there and what you are building for other people.

And then maybe if we have time, if you’re willing, we’d love to dive in, maybe have a conversation about Asia Pacific and how that region views glamping and how maybe it’s a little bit different from the UK or the States or where I am in Canada, because I think those insights kind of sharing those globally, as you did at the glamping show a few years ago is probably invaluable for.

for everybody to hear. All right, Melissa, Virginia State Parks, welcome. 

Melissa Baker: Thank you. So thank you for having me today and for your patience as we worked out the technology side of things. Of course. I am Melissa Baker. I am Director of Virginia State Parks in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

We have [00:07:00] 42 state parks in the public sector of camping and lodging. Our state park systems were our state park system was created in 1936 with six state parks built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. We have both cabins and campgrounds for people’s accommodations, and then some niche things like a few yurts and a few camping cabins.

We tend to provide the a more primitive type of accommodation. Camping accommodation than the private campgrounds do but not entirely primitive. So we do have electric hookups and water hookups and things like that but we don’t have all of the amenities that the private sector offers.

Brian Searl: Which I think is an interesting topic of conversation and maybe we can just talk about that. Start with you briefly for a second. We’ve had a lot of obviously we’re a show that is, I think it’s fair to say, primarily geared toward private campground owners and operators, given just Modern Campground and where that audience started and it’s carrying on through.

[00:08:00] And so I think we’ve had many guests on the show who previously have talked about things like I don’t like my state park and I don’t like my national parks because they’re taking away my business. And that’s not really what’s happening, honestly, in 90 5 percent of cases is that some people are going to like the state park experience one week and then the next week they’re going to want to take their whole family and jump in a huge heated swimming pool.

And so I think there’s a lot of crossover here that actually helps. Both with discovering nature and being outdoors, but being outdoors in different ways. And so I think it just, in my mind, it helps people be outside more. Is that a sentiment that you share? 

Melissa Baker: It is a sentiment that I share. I think that as as a public recreation manager we have to be aware of our role in, let’s say the ecosystem of provisions of camping and lodging.

We tend to. In state parks, we tend to cater to those campers that want a little more than the national parks provide, as well as, as far as amenities. But we certainly do not [00:09:00] provide the level of amenities that the private campgrounds offer. And I think you’re right. I think that we do have some niches in the people that come to us, but we have a lot of overlap because you’re not always wanting the same experience.

Just as in the hotel industry, you may want an economy hotel here or a really luxury hotel here. You may want something that’s connected to a resort or not connected to a resort. 

Brian Searl: Until you see what Louie built and then you’re only going to want that. But that’s another story. 

Melissa Baker: As a public sector, we probably can’t afford that.

I think I’ll be okay. I’ll just come visit what Louie’s building. But I think we do have the ability for folks to enjoy a range of opportunities. And I think they do slip in from the more primitive to the more developed, sometimes even in the same trip, because you might be willing to do a couple of days of really primitive camping, but then you may not want to do all your days of primitive camping and you may want to go into a more developed area with more amenities.

Brian Searl: So I’m curious just to, [00:10:00] for the people who aren’t here, who are mostly, I think, private campground owners, operators, suppliers of those people, real estate professionals, stuff like that can you walk us through the, and don’t give away your secrets but just from a Virginia State Park eco not eco, but a government situation how are the decisions made with how to, obviously funding is a whole nother animal that we don’t have time to unpack here, that we’d love to have, give you more of it, right?

But how do you choose to make the decision of, I see people more pivoting toward glamping, or I see people with longer rigs and need to, how do you decide where to go with Virginia State Parks from a camping perspective? 

Melissa Baker: One thing about the public sector is that we do have a lot of processes and a lot of public processes.

Our foundational public process in Virginia State Parks and in many state park systems and federal systems is our master planning process. In Virginia, we are required to conduct a public process for master planning of a project. [00:11:00] Either when we acquire the park or significant new land, or every 10 years we have to refresh that.

And we ask the public to come in, both the users and stakeholders to come in and to give their perspectives of what the park is about. Could be or should be and how we would develop camping there. And so at a foundation, it’s our master planning process that helps us determine at what level of amenities we’re going to provide overall.

But then there’s the more nimble side of things that I know are. Private sector partners also deal with is the evolution of the camping industry and the equipment that’s there and how we have to handle on a site by site basis. So often when you think of public recreation, you think of these big forested areas with lots of trees.

And often that is the case, not always and length of a camping unit or camping pad and width for the pullouts and things that are in the new materials. That’s something that we [00:12:00] constantly have to adjust for, but our larger term planning processes go on that 10 year cycle for a 30 year plan and we involve the public in that.

Louis Thompson: That was a good question, Melissa. 

Melissa Baker: Yes. 

Louis Thompson: When you say, a typical plot so what, how big is a typical plot in, in, in one of your campsites or in one of the state parks? 

Melissa Baker: Are you asking about the dimension of the campsite? 

Louis Thompson: Yeah, approximately, yeah. 

Melissa Baker: That is a great question, and I can’t tell you that off the top of my head.

I could definitely try to find that information for you on some of our more recent plans. But I couldn’t tell you right off the top of my head what that dimension is. 

Brian Searl: Do you have a sense of the average size of rig or length that typically stays in a state park? www. insiderperks. com 

Melissa Baker: [00:13:00] it is getting larger.

I can’t tell you exactly what the footage is. I have folks that, that are in my planning division that are more focused on the length of the rig and how we design around the length of the rig, to be honest. But I know that we continually just see that being pushed larger and that can be a challenge for us in some of our campgrounds that were designed in the 50s because that’s the reality of what we have is that we have parks that maybe haven’t had significant investment in their campground for decades and that ability to be nimble to accommodate those is challenging.

Brian Searl: Yeah, the world is. Honestly, like the world, what we’ve had, and Don, maybe you can weigh in on some of this as you go to the different RV shows and things, too. I know you’re, Like focus on your campground, you’re focused on Richard D. Tourism, but you certainly, as you go to these RV shows, have a sense or picking up of what the consumer behavior is and what models they’re looking at and things like that.[00:14:00] 

And so I think it’s interesting. I’ve heard a lot of talk recently about this shift toward downsizing. And it’s the way it’s always been, Louis, right? In Europe and Asia, there’s never been that kind of big, huge, class A. 60 foot crazy thing that the Europeans don’t drive this stuff around, right?

For the most part. Is that fair? 

Louis Thompson: Yeah, definitely. It wouldn’t be very practical. I was surprised when I was in the U S a few years ago, just the scale of the country, the size of the roads, all that’s very different. In Europe we have, pokey little medieval cities and they’ve got little tiny roads and you wouldn’t be able to get any, you’d get stuck.

You’d get stuck half of France, half of Italy. You’d get stuck. 

Brian Searl: I’m trying to picture now, I’m picturing the roads I just drove down, yeah. 

Louis Thompson: Yeah, it just wouldn’t work. But it would be interesting. I think, also we don’t have the RV culture in Europe so much. There is to a certain extent, but not definitely not to the same extent as in the US.

And I love that kind of side of the [00:15:00] US outdoor lodging experience. I’d love to design actually an RV at some point, maybe we’ll do one in bamboo one day. But I think, when I think about that, I do think however, In Asia, it could become a thing because, you’ve got massive, if you went on a serious road trip across Asia, particularly thinking of Southeast Asia, you could get Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam.

You could do some pretty amazing trips. So I wouldn’t be surprised if that kind of thing picks up a lot more in the Asian market over the next few years. But in Europe, no we don’t, we have those little the old Volkswagen camper vans from the sixties, that’s more of a kind of scale of 

Brian Searl: RV.

And that’s why I brought it up, right? Because I was talking, Melissa is talking about the size of her sites and how things have for a number of years, as we’ve known in the RV industry, been shifting to bigger, flashier, more luxury. But now I think, and Don, I’d love to have you weigh in on this too.

I think there’s been more of a shift from the guests we’ve had on this show, at least specifically in the RV industry with the dealers [00:16:00] association, who’s a regular guest on our show in the fourth week, I’ve said there’s a trend towards now smaller and. More downsizing and more of those, not maybe all the way, like certainly there is an increase in camper vans, but not me all the way down there, but to the class Bs, class Cs, things like that.

Is that what you’re seeing, Don? And I think that ends up helping state parks. 

Don Bennett Jr.: I think, it does definitely help state parks. We are seeing smaller units and I think this goes into the baby boom retirement generation wanting to see the country. And so they don’t need the space.

The other. The thing that I’d like to point out is when you have an experienced camper that’s going to travel, meaning move it from space to space, park to park, state to state, they’re going to get something a little bit more easy to handle, so to speak, for those people that are either new to the industry or they’re going to basically be Park for longer term, those are the ones that are still looking for two bedrooms, one in the house and home.

Yeah. And [00:17:00] things like that. So with that being said, it definitely, the smaller units definitely help on many occasions for independent campgrounds as well as state parks. In New York, our state park system has 16, 000 campsites in it. That where I was executive director of the private association for so long.

And one of the, probably the biggest things we actually had it come up that I’d love to see some of the state’s addresses. We have a health permit at our campgrounds that our health department, it’s a, state code for campgrounds. But in New York state, The state parks don’t have to adhere to any of that.

Where I had an issue this weekend is, we had a guest that wanted their son with their truck camper to have a second unit on a campsite, and our health department code says one camping unit per campsite. The state park does not say that. I guess to level playing field on certain things like that would be ideal.

But [00:18:00] without those 16, 000 campsites, obviously the private sector wouldn’t be able to absorb. all of that demand either. It’s a thing where we’d like to maybe work together a little bit more, but when you have two sets of rules it’s a little, it’s a little challenging at times.

How come I can’t do this? I do this there. But let’s just do York. Let’s not 

Brian Searl: lump Melissa in. I’m not the beautiful state of Virginia. That’s perfect in everything that they do. 

Melissa Baker: I don’t know about that, but I will say that in Virginia, we are required to meet the same rules through the administrative code set out by the Department of Health as the private campgrounds.

I think that there’s a lot of variation across the states of that requirement. 

Brian Searl: It just increases your creativity though, right Don? Like you just have the prop, cause the guest is always right? So I assume you took a welder out and you just combined both rigs into an L shape so they could stay, right?

Probably not. 

Don Bennett Jr.: No, 

Brian Searl: we try not to 

Don Bennett Jr.: touch the guest’s equipment. But with [00:19:00] that, to jump back to the smaller units, one of the things our original campground, I’m the third generation owner, we’ve just started our 62nd season and, everything is a strain when everything is 50 amp plus, when the, the fifth wheels come in with three air conditioners on them.

It definitely strains the infrastructure of the parks and the smaller units, not only do they fit nicer on the campsites, but they generally don’t require the same level of electricity that some of the big ones do 

Brian Searl: yeah, so reverse chopping them in half then is not a solution in splitting them on two sides.

Don Bennett Jr.: Strangely enough, You’re trying to be outside the box 

Brian Searl: here, 

Don Bennett Jr.: Don. I’ve looked at all of, of Louie’s stuff and it’s amazing, but I also was just at the Florida conference and the Texas conference and they had a park model guy there that they 3D print them. For rental cabins and accommodations.

So we’re really, I think we’re really on the cusp of some great experiential getaways for our consumers. 

Brian Searl: You’ve handed me a transition to [00:20:00] Louis now. I might as well just take this. I’m not sure if Louis actually uses 3D printing yet or has explored it, but certainly it is, I think, dramatically going to change the innovation with which designers can shape 3D.

What is in their head? Is that fair, Louis? 

Louis Thompson: Oh yeah, definitely. So it’s actually a very interesting topic. It’s funny you should mention it today. So basically, 3D printing is still relatively expensive as a building technology in relation to the cost, per square foot of conventional construction.

But it does bring up an interesting conversation. So I was having a chat with a woman called Liz Lambert. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this woman in Texas. She has a campsite called it’s it’s hybrid thing called El Cosmico, it was called, and she’s actually building the first 3D printed hotel, I think in the world almost with a very famous architect called the Barker Yingles Group.

And so I was literally just on a call with her last night and they’re going ahead with that project, [00:21:00] which is a big scale project where they’re 3D printing, pods and homes incredible spa, all sorts of things. So that’s, that was, that’s a pretty significant innovation. I think it’s great.

I think it’s really interesting. We could do really organic shapes. But I do have a few reservations in terms of like people losing their jobs. I think it’s a little bit like the AI thing is that, I would find it very sad, being not only a designer, but also a builder. It’s, it would be quite sad to see, traditional trades disappearing as everyone goes and 3D prints like a kind of Martian pod and whatever.

But it’s an interesting technology, but I tend to prefer the more kind of natural building techniques and yeah, traditional construction methodologies, really. In some ways, 

Brian Searl: it’s a difficult, interesting question. Yeah, they both have their pros and cons. And certainly I think I’m with you that I, like 3D printing is not where it needs to be quite yet.

And I never want to see, this is the things that we deal with our company. Like we’re heavy [00:22:00] into 35 people working for me and it’s the same conversations that we have daily as we automate tasks. Like I don’t want to get rid of people, but I want to figure out how I can upscale you. What I do or don’t do is not going to change where the future is going.

So help me prepare you the best I can for it. Anyway, that’s another discussion we don’t do today, but talk 

Louis Thompson: about something about the small rigs just before we go off that topic. Yeah. In Europe, there’s this thing, I don’t know if it’s, you’ve got it in the US, I suspect that you do which is a kind of van life trend where people, young people, mostly sort of Gen Z and Gen Y people retrofit traditional vans.

Yeah. into camper vans as opposed to buying a camper van already done. Is that something that has some traction in the U. S. people doing that? 

Brian Searl: Yeah, I think maybe Don could speak more to how many people he’s seen doing that, but we’ve certainly had guests on the show who have been those people who have showed us the vans that they’ve customized and even turned them into small businesses where they’re selling these things in a [00:23:00] boutique one to 10 units a year that are handcrafted and really nice.

Is that, Don, have you seen some of that or? 

Don Bennett Jr.: Yes. We’ve absolutely seen quite a bit of that with the customizations of, they, they go all the way from, the new sprinter van type conversions, not to name a brand, but to all the way to some of the, relic schoolies. Some of the conversions of old school buses over to rolling tiny homes as many refer to them and and they’ve been coined as schooly.

But we have seen quite a bit more than that. A lot of that going on and I think it’s going to continue as, the the campsite, I think. Somewhat becomes the commodity for us the location, of course, and what they can do outside of the campsite is really, what I see the future as and the experience that the guests are able to have.

Brian Searl: And that’s the interesting thing, and we’ll touch on it when we look at what, Louie’s doing here, but I think there’s two frames here, right? There’s a, there’s experiential [00:24:00] hospitality, which is maybe a buzzword, maybe not. But the experience of what we’re going to see that some of the things that Louie’s building.

But I think you’re right, Don, like from a campground or campsite perspective, there’s, there’s not a million dollar, two million dollar project budgets or higher, in a lot of cases to do some of the things that, architects can envision and all the stuff that we’re about to look at from Louie’s side.

And there’s certainly a place for that in the United States and there’s amazing projects being worked on, but for the majority of campsite campground owners, I think that’s location, right? It’s, yes, the service. It’s the experience that you provide to even as something as small as we talk to clients, right?

Like we used to go to Doubletree and get the home baked cookies, right? It just changes your whole perception of the guest service and the experience and the little touches of having the local organic soaps in the bathroom or whatever it is, right? And so from campsite perspective, yeah, I think that’s important to.

Maybe not focus on, that’s the wrong word, but realize there’s only so far you can take a campsite. And then [00:25:00] figure out what you can do, even within your park, off the campsite to enhance that experience. Is that kind of what you’re saying, Don? 

Don Bennett Jr.: Yes, absolutely. For instance we’re on one of the Finger Lakes and we’ve been adding more and more water amenities.

We just, Picked up a 18 foot standup paddleboard that you can get eight 18 foot. And it’s just what can the family do together and do, have some great experiences because sadly, whether they park their RV in their driveway or in a camps. If they go in their RV to take a nap on a Saturday afternoon and they wake up, they’re still going to look at the same walls.

It’s what happens outside. And and that’s where, we’ve got to try to have as many amenities as possible. Great things for people to do. And, again, a lot of it’s location for folks traveling, but for, quick weekend getaways for folks, the radius of guests and the distance from home [00:26:00] generally is not as great.

And when people are watching their pennies a little bit more, they tend to travel that circle from home becomes a little bit smaller. So we have to up our game with as many amenities as we’re able to put in. And the. And that’s pretty much been, our philosophy.

Brian Searl: So I don’t want to dwell on this, but I’m trying to picture an 18 foot paddle board. I thought I had a big wide paddle board and It pales in comparison to I’m imagining it’s wide and it’s super stable. So I’m picturing the family and the little bratty teenager, like rocking back and forth to mess up dad on purpose.

But I imagine it’s really probably super stable. 18 foot? It is but that’s what it’s all about, right? Getting, knocking dad off. Yeah, I’m not. Anyway so before I go to you, Louie, I just have one more question for Melissa. Melissa, do you see this trend at some of the state parks? Can you speak to a little bit of the shift toward either van life or smaller rigs, or is that something that Virginia State Parks, and I know you have a lot of people on your team, so if [00:27:00] you can answer.

Melissa Baker: No we do see a lot of these smaller rigs. A lot of the pressures come from the larger ones because if we can accommodate the larger ones, we can accommodate the smaller ones as well. So a lot of what we have to manage around is the larger rigs so that a site can fit everyone that we possibly can.

But we are seeing a lot of the hard sided pop ups and small campers that people are staying in. We do see some conversions of folks going in and making their own campers. I wouldn’t say that’s a large percentage of what we see but definitely we are seeing some of that innovation and creativity that especially some of the new adoptees to the camper life are bringing with them that they aren’t necessarily going to invest that large dollar amount In their rig, but they’ve got a lot of creativity and ability to customize.

And so we are seeing some of them. 

Brian Searl: I think it’s really interesting, as we’ve seen, [00:28:00] and I hate to Ever say anything good came out of COVID because that’s a weird thing to just hear somebody’s, come out of their mouth. But like one of the it’s really interesting, the innovation, I think that we’ve seen, and it started to be clear a little bit before, but I think it got accelerated through there.

The new blood that’s coming to the industry, not just from a guest perspective, but from an entrepreneur perspective, who, these new people are bringing ideas to what And I maybe unfairly am going to call it a stale industry and people will get mad at me, right? But the RVs have looked the same for a long time.

Yes, we’re changing the electronics and maybe the length is bigger, and we’re going to change the way the kitchen is laid out, but it really hasn’t changed a lot. And so I think it’s brought some new blood, especially from the smaller campervan side that has given us some new products, experiences, and things that haven’t, and won’t replace traditional RVs, but give consumers a different type of experience and choice.

Melissa Baker: And we’ve seen that in all aspects of our state park world. During the pandemic, our visitation rose by [00:29:00] 14%. And I think that all of us in the industry were watching to see what was going to happen as we normalized out of the pandemic. And we’ve been able to keep our visitation, our day use visitation, our campgrounds are still very busy, our cabins are full.

We found new visitors. During that time and they found something that they liked and had stuck with it and that has brought people that haven’t been there before, which brings ideas that weren’t there pre pandemic and innovation that wasn’t there pre pandemic. And it’s been an exciting time.

Brian Searl: All right. I want to get to Louie because I keep telling him like every five minutes, I’m going to get to him and then I ask another question. And so Louie, my first question to you, before we look at some of the things that you’ve created is walk us through the founding of Modern Campground. Nomadic Resorts.

What problem were you trying to solve? What was in your head when you said, I want to create this company that’s going to do all these things? 

Louis Thompson: Okay. That’s a good question. Very good question, actually. So [00:30:00] basically my background was that I was working as as the kind of head of sustainability for a hotel company.

Called Six Senses Resorts and Spas which was specialised in super luxury private villa resorts in Maldives and remote locations, very kind of fancy, yeah fancy place to stay, very expensive place to stay. And they put me in charge of the thing called, they called it the Tented Camp Task Force, which makes you sound like a ninja turtle.

I’m a ninja turtle. But what it was basically we were being asked to, to research, what were going to be the trends in the kind of safari lodge tented camp. area. And at that time I was working as project manager on a very, and you might find this a bit funny, actually.

So basically I was working on a private island, but it wasn’t a private island. It was an island off the coast of Thailand and Cambodia called Koh Kood. And the owner of Six Senses at that time called Sonoship Dasani. He [00:31:00] had a kind of even more exclusive brand called Sonova. He still does.

And he wanted to build this super luxury tented camp. And when I say super luxury, I’m really not kidding. So we had a kind of massive site with two beaches primary rainforests overlooking, the Gulf of Siam and Thailand. Very kind of tropical, exotic place. But to give you an idea of what kind of effort goes into those things, At one point, it was a very delicate site.

It was a lot of wildlife. It was very complicated in terms of access. There’s a lot of very sloped and steep inclines to get to different parts of the site. And so we built these first tensile membrane villas which it’s glorified tent. But to give you an idea, we actually sold some of those tented villas as residential units, branded residences.

I think I’m probably one of the few people who have been involved in a project where we managed to sell [00:32:00] a tent for 6 million. So that project was very hectic actually. And it didn’t go really probably getting choked for saying this, it didn’t go quite according to plan. And at one point, we had 1, 200 workers on site.

And on a small island and that takes quite a toll on the environment. Yeah. At the end of this project, which was, it was a private airport, it was all this kind of fancy stuff, two jetties, speed boats, Not really a yacht, but a kind of cruise boat and all this different stuff.

Firstly I thought, this is just way too complicated to do this. I’ve been working on it for four years. And and secondly, it was way too expensive because even when you’re selling villas at that price, it’s a big price to to set up that kind of thing. So at the end of the project, we sat down, the people who’d actually done the, executed the project, and we sat down, we said, okay, what would you do differently?

And, That was when we started designing the first tents and maybe I can show you that now if that’s okay. Okay with you guys? [00:33:00] Yeah, and then you’ll see a little bit. I have I’m 

Brian Searl: on your projects page Is that where you want me or somewhere else? Can I share my screen? I’ll show you something.

Yeah, absolutely. Go for it. Yeah

Louis Thompson: Okay,

can you see my screen now? Yep, we got it Okay, so

I’ll give you, so basically this was the first tent we so it was quite different. So basically when we came out of it, we were like, okay, what should we have done differently in this super uber luxury thing? And we were, what we concluded is everything should have been modular and prefabricated and put together.

like a kind of big Mercator set. And so then you could have built stuff in no factory in Bangkok shipped to the Island on a barge and had a small number of people to erect him. That was [00:34:00] basically the principle. But at the same time we knew that the kind of target market. For that seed, This kind of luxury product, they needed to have all the bells and whistles.

So it was a little bit of a challenge to work out a kind of compromise between those two things. So these are the three main models we’ve got at the moment, but we also do bespoke tent models. So we ended up creating this, which is the looper. And what this was this was a kind of effort to create a luxury hotel room.

That could be disassembled, taken to pieces and moved, which is quite a complicated endeavor. Yeah, 

Melissa Baker: sounds like it. You’ve got 

Louis Thompson: sewage treatment, you’ve got your HVAC, you’ve got en suite bathrooms, and you’ve got all this other kind of stuff. We designed this tent, which has two layers. On the external layer, the flysheet, you’ve got a, architectural membrane PBDF fabric, which lasts like 15 20 years.

Then you have the layer of insulation and then you [00:35:00] have this in interior liner with this kind of quite fancy detail. Which means that basically that, that sandwich is a thick layer of insulation. We also put double glazing on them we put a key card, a lockable door. So that really this thing has all of the amenities, I guess you call them of a luxury hotel room.

But it’s nevertheless. In essence, a tent. So yeah, some of them had swimming pools. One of the first ones we built. It took us a long time to do this. In fact, I sometimes say it took us 10 years to pitch a tent. Which I’m sure that’s how 

Brian Searl: entrepreneurship works, right? You’re an overnight success 10 years in the making.

Louis Thompson: Yeah, I’m sure Don wouldn’t want anybody spending 10 years pitching a tent in his campsites. But it is quite different from other tent modules. First, it’s big. It’s 43 square meters. It’s 4 meters high, 5. 6 meters wide. and nine meters [00:36:00] long. So this is quite a big piece of kit, and that’s why I asked I asked if, what was the typical size of a plot?

Because I guess actually one of some of the bigger RVs are probably not too far up, maybe not quite as big as this, but probably not far off. Then we then designed all the internal furniture, the cubicles, the fixed furniture, wardrobes, and all this. And I suppose there’s a lot of crossover with the RV design in this, is that, there’s a similar process that goes on.

And that’s the, so that’s, those are the first tents we did. And we did those for a safari lodge in Sri Lanka. We did 28 of them there. And then we’ve just completed another 34, right in the middle of a city, which is an amazing, something I absolutely didn’t expect in the middle of Athens.

And we’ve got several other projects where we’re putting these in. And I think this is actually quite interesting for kind of RV or campsite owners who want to get into glamping and want to go into the higher end of the market. Maybe because they’ve got an [00:37:00] exceptional site, or maybe they just want to make, get a significantly higher room rate.

Brian Searl: Do you feel like, do you feel like this is the key here, right? Is it, is the, we talked about location, right? I feel like these certainly will attract that. No doubt, right? There’s no argument. This is going to attract that luxury higher end market, but that luxury higher end market is not going to go to one of these plopped in the middle of an RV park.

Louis Thompson: No, but there could be a part of an RV park with particularly good views over the lake or something, right? Where you might wanna put some more 

Brian Searl: or river frontage or lakefront. Yeah. Or, yeah. 

Louis Thompson: And it also depends where you are, if you are within striking range of a big metropolitan city with, high net worth people.

We are seeing a lot of inquiries and you could you see companies like Collective Retreats autocam all these companies that you guys I’m sure know , who, commanding quite high room rates for their products. And I think there is definitely a market for it.

Okay, so walk us through, continue your story. Sorry, I didn’t mean to drop you off. [00:38:00] And then, anyway, next one we did, the first one was based on the shape of a caterpillar cocoon. Is there a reason 

Brian Searl: for that? Because it fascinates me, right? And I’m a geek, and maybe our audience won’t be as fascinated as I am.

But it fascinates me what you said about how people don’t imagine that all of this work goes into creating a product like this. They just think we bought a tent and it’s fine, right? 

Louis Thompson: Yes it’s, there’s some differences. So these tents are designed to withstand 140kmh wind speeds. And we’ve got a new model that’s hurricane proof for 280kmh wind speeds.

I suppose in America, I’m not quite sure what that equates to. I think 140 is probably enough to be fine. 190, not far off, 100mph winds. We also did thermal models, computational fluid dynamics to work out how the air would flow through. And then another thing is the [00:39:00] fabric that we use, these things are going to last 20, 25 years.

Which is probably also not that far off of how, the lifespan of a very, of a fancy RV. I would have thought, but I don’t know anything about it. But wouldn’t it be great to have one of these wheels? Yeah, a lot of time and effort, a lot of engineering, a lot of money probably went into the design over the years, but yeah, it changed the perception of safari lodge tents at the time that we built these first ones, I think. 

Brian Searl: And so what, like, why do you think no one did this before? The modular? Do you think they just hadn’t thought about it, or taken the time to invest in the brainpower to create it, or?

Listen, I’ll explain this in a kind of simple way. Yeah, go ahead. If I’m interrupting you, just tell me to shut up. No, I don’t want to The show is way better when I show up any or shut up anyway. 

Louis Thompson: No, I don’t want to monopolize the conversation at all either. Because I worked in the hospitality industry, I was seeing how much it cost to build these kind of luxury resorts.

And it’s costing, even in Sri Lanka, they were looking at 350, 000 development cost per key. [00:40:00] That’s quite a lot of money. And that was back in 2018. It’s probably a little bit more than that. Now, and I think in America now, you probably see much higher room development costs.

More I take development costs than they do. The whole of the project divided by the number of rooms, including restaurants, bars, whatever else you’ve got in there. So the thing is that we’re commanding the same or higher room rates as the luxury resorts. We, the family looper goes for 1, 200 a night.

That’s the looper tent and this urchin tent together, they’ve been sold for 1, 200 a night, got fantastic reviews, been going on strong for five, six years. Once what it came down to was I was like when we’re building these resorts, we’re doing a sequential traditional construction methodology, you’re excavating the ground, you’re pouring your footings, you’re, Pouring a slab, et cetera, et cetera, for each one, whereas, which is quite time consuming and okay, you can have different crews going [00:41:00] sequentially, but basically the big difference was this, you could manufacture all the individual elements in parallel and then bring them all to site and kind of put it up in a much faster timeframe, because I’ve worked on resort projects that have taken five years to build, So I think that’s one of the things that’s a major contributor to the success of this.

So we started off with the big one, then we did an 18 square meter one, which is much more affordable and cute. It looks like a pickled onion, but it’s actually based on a sea urchin. And then we moved on from that. And then I had an idea when I came back to Mauritius in 2019. And this is, yeah, you’ve got different deck configurations.

You can go fancy pants or you can go like pretty simple. There are quite a few different options for this. But the other thing that we did, yeah, we’ve also got the same thing of different fixed furniture. So after this, these are the looper and the urchin together we created this.

This might be of interest to you guys because, because this can work in a glamping in [00:42:00] a camping site. So what this was is a project called the Seed Pod which was in a nature reserve. So this also might be interesting in terms of people who, have state parks or campsites in areas of Particular protection.

So it’s really cool. Melissa, when you’re ready to buy. But basically what this, the idea of this was to create a tent that had all of that kind of engineering and thermal performance, but had no concrete footings and no physical impact on the land at all. So this is actually suspended from the trees on stainless steel cables, and then you have one stainless steel cable at the bottom that kind of anchors it back into the ground and it.

We basically tension it so it pulls the top and the bottom apart to create this kind of rigid structure. So this was something that, might work a lot more for glamp sites or for people that’s my wife and my daughter as a kind of, and the idea of this was really to have this immersive nature experience where you could get some of that camping feel without really [00:43:00] going full on having a tent and being uncomfortable.

It was. It’s that kind of space that I’m interested in, the thing where you maintain, those great elements of actually the camp, the traditional camping tented experience, but you combine that with with a, a comfortable mattress, some lighting, a place to plug your phone, because everybody has a bloody phone now so to try and find that sweet spot of saying, okay, yeah.

You can have a kind of glamping resort in one part, you can have something a little bit more treehouse y type thing in another part, and then maybe you can have a floating thing on the lake, because we’re doing a floating resort as well at the moment. All of these things, and that comes to what Don was saying, which, it’s about the experience, right?

People come to these spaces not only for the experience of their accommodation, but also for the experiences they can live, in these different places. And that was one of the questions I had for Melissa actually is in, in, in the parks, do you provide, recreational activities, food and beverage and that kind of [00:44:00] thing at your campsites?

Or is it just the camping?

Melissa Baker: We do provide some recreational activities. So we are strongly oriented toward educational opportunities interpretive programming and things like that. We do provide some rentals of equipment such as canoes and kayaks that people can enjoy. We have some swimming opportunities. Most of them are natural swimming opportunities being located on lakes.

As far as food and beverage we don’t have as much of that. Certainly not at the campsite. We do have some snack bars and things like that in our day use areas primarily. 

Louis Thompson: Okay. And do you have little shops there where people can buy, food and beverages or do like their shopping? 

Melissa Baker: We have some shops that are catered mostly towards souvenirs and essentials that our campers may need once they’re on site or small [00:45:00] consumables that someone might have while they’re camping.

at the park for their activities. Larger things that people might want to buy. We encourage folks to go into their local community and support local businesses. 

Brian Searl: Don, I’m curious from your perspective, giving your breadth of experience, owning two campgrounds, working with merchandery, going to the tourism shows, seeing, and then obviously having a relationship with the New York.

So many of your campgrounds over so many years, as you look at a product like Louie and certainly you’ve seen all the other glamping products that have come to market recently as a campground owner, who would look at, or even with your experience, right? As you look to balance the nature, natural type experience that like I’m very fond of, and certainly I feel like Louie shares that sentiment.

Yeah, definitely. How do we as, not we, because I’m not a campground owner, I’m not brave enough. How do you as a campground owner balance I want to provide that in some cases to my guests. Maybe I have the land, maybe it’s not, maybe I’ve got that extra [00:46:00] 50 or 100 acres that isn’t zoned or I don’t want to necessarily bury sewer in and spend millions of dollars or whatever else, right?

How do I balance that or even, I have an extra plot of land on my campground with the This needs a more private experience. It may It can make me as much money or more than five or 10 RV sites can, but it requires some outside of the box thinking. 

Don Bennett Jr.: So yes, the very intriguing great products.

And a lot of the glamping experiential items. I did a little research before the show, obviously the looper amazing. Unfortunately. We would have to scale that back to 400 square feet or less. That’s a requirement for where my campgrounds are located in New York state. 

Brian Searl: But, is that for glamping accommodations or is that, 

Don Bennett Jr.: yeah, it’s generally a camping unit needs to be 400 square feet or less and it would be defined in the code as a tent.

One of the biggest, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt [00:47:00] you. I’m just trying to, 

Brian Searl: for clarity’s sake, does that have anything to do with the Campground owners typically want stuff on wheels, right? So it classifies as park models or no? 

Don Bennett Jr.: No so many of the on site rentals that we have might be a park model cabins and things like that.

They all have to be under 400 square feet. 

Brian Searl: Even if they’re not on wheels, even if they’re, because yours aren’t on, okay. That’s what I was trying to understand. I’m sorry. It’s maybe an ignorant question, but 

Don Bennett Jr.: No, not at all. It’s different everywhere. Where you are in Canada they don’t have such a rule.

And when we’re up at Montreal and especially the Toronto RV show to see some of the park models and some of the rental accommodations are absolutely amazing. But they range from 600 to a thousand square feet, a lot of them. And, we just wouldn’t be able to put them on site. The other piece would be that we struggle with in, in is the zoning, towns, what’s allowed, what’s not allowed and how we can, move development further.

That’s part of it. And then the second is [00:48:00] capital structure. A good half of our campgrounds are only open really for five to six months out of the year. What would be the ROI on a project such as that that also has to come into play versus. A park with a climate that is open for, the entire year.

So that definitely has to play in it too. And and again it’s based on the capital and, longevity. And I’m amazed to hear, that, that the tents that Nomadic is doing are able to sustain such winds and hurricanes. That’s outstanding. A lot of the other stuff that’s out there definitely would not sustain that.

So I think that’s definitely a great foot, forward into making, these a little bit more, I’m not going to say received, but as a campground owner, we never want to put our guests in harm’s way. So I think that’s a really neat avenue. 

Louis Thompson: Yeah. We said right from the beginning, basically, I didn’t want to be monitoring the weather at every place that we put one of these [00:49:00] things, hoping that it didn’t act out, severe weather conditions and that things get blown away or that anybody you know would be injured in any way so that was always very important to us because for the kind of luxury hotel market we had worked in at the start that was critical for their insurance as well.

And yeah, I wonder, actually, bringing this up, Don, I think it’s an interesting thing that one of the things that I’ve been concerned about over the years is, some of the glamping stuff that I’ve seen, even in the U. S. actually, I do wonder if one day there will be an accident or, seeing the typhoons and what do you call them?

twisters, is it was Typhoons are the hurricanes, I think. Yeah. Tornado, but accidents could potentially happen. I went to a site in India, fantastic location, incredible kind of temple complex. They’d bought they bought some fairly serious safari tents and they had a kind of freak weather condition and six of them got blown away with all of the expensive [00:50:00] furnishings and stuff.

Unfortunately, nobody was hurt, but they did put an alarm bell in my head saying, if something like that were to happen on a large scale in the US, there might be legislation that comes into play, in in, in consequence of an accident that you make. Could be at a festival for example.

I don’t know if you saw Burning Man last year, but, it was super muddy thing. Yeah, we did, saw the news reports about that. Yeah. Those kind of things, I think are important. I think we, I’m very glad that we’d taken that very seriously from the outset. 

Brian Searl: So how do you and I know we typically don’t have people on here.

To give sales pitches. But, and so I’m not asking you to give that, but as you talk to primarily R& S is private campground owners and operators in the U S I think there’s clearly a demand on, would you agree toward more experiential, unique accommodations, certainly we’re not taking anything away from the RV market, but.

There is this demand here that we’re seeing. It continues to grow in the United States, to be fair, I think is years behind where the UK and, some of those countries have been from a glamping perspective, but. As [00:51:00] you look at this, put yourself in the shoes of a campground owner who Don just gave you some of his thoughts on, right?

When does it make sense for me to do something even with the little one that hangs between the trees? Like, how would you, pitch that for lack of a better word, right? But justify that in a campground owner’s perspective of a, I want to go through that hassle because it’s going to be worth it to me.

Is this question to me or to Doug? Yeah, sorry, it’s to you. I apologize. So I’m at you. 

Louis Thompson: I think it’s very clear, the data on this is totally clear and has been for a long time. I think people just haven’t been paying attention. If you look at the search word trends, booking. com, Expedia, It’s been, this has been going on for years.

People have been looking for unique accommodation from, in, in many different things. And that’s been, that, that’s gone from different RVs. And as I say, I think there’s a lot of space for innovation in the RV [00:52:00] market. I would love to do, Some, the traditional, I don’t know, you call it American wagons or pioneer wagons, yeah, 

Brian Searl: Conestoga wagons. Yeah, we have those. There’s a couple. 

Louis Thompson: I would like to do like a kind of pimp my ride version of one of those and do something. 

Brian Searl: What would you do different? Just curious. 

Louis Thompson: I’d definitely change the fabric. I’d change, we can do all sorts of forms. We can do all sorts of different kind of openings.

Brian Searl: Yeah, but what would you do? You’re on the spot and we only have 45 seconds left in the show. Okay. This is what I do. 

Louis Thompson: Yeah. Basically I basically modify the forms of it. I’ve modified the shapes. I keep the same wheelbase, but do go for something that looks really contemporary, like a kind of floating cloud.

Brian Searl: Very nice. Interesting. So where does Nomadic Resorts go from here? 

Louis Thompson: Last question. We’re super busy. We’ve got stuff going on all over the place. We’ve got, private islands in the Middle East. We’ve got the floating resort in Kerala. We’ve got our own brand, Nomadic Escapes, which we’re setting up here, focused on adventure sports.

So we’re, I’m a bit all over [00:53:00] the place. Do 

Brian Searl: you feel like your interest more is in towards building those full fledged resorts or working with smaller, like both, obviously, but where would you lean more? 

Louis Thompson: I don’t really I’m not a particularly luxurious person myself. So all of that stuff doesn’t really wash with me.

I actually prefer to have a kind of More traditional camping experience, so I, probably my personal taste, I can’t really speak on behalf of the company, would be to go for a more, figure out some kind of cool pop up glamping, camping experiences, tree houses, those kind of things.

Those are the areas, and they’re not so expensive, make it more affordable. You said a wider range of people. I want to get the kids off their phones and going out into the nature. I think we all share that. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, I think for sure. Unfortunately, like again, as always, I’d love to continue this discussion even more.

We’ve got an hour of all of your wonderful people’s time. So I appreciate it. Any final thoughts, Don or Melissa? I’ll let Melissa [00:54:00] go first. 

Melissa Baker: I guess just thank you for having us. This has been really interesting to hear the different perspectives. One thing I love about camping and the outdoor experience is that there’s a full spectrum of experiences that people want to have.

And there’s lots of passionate people in the market, in the business trying to provide those experiences. It’s been my pleasure to spend this time with those of you on the panel to hear about your perspective. 

Brian Searl: Thank you, Melissa. I appreciate it. And where can they learn more about Virginia State Parks?

Melissa Baker: You can go to virginiastateparks. gov. 

Don Bennett Jr.: Perfect. Don? Yes. Brian, I want to thank you for providing the forum and Louie, Melissa, also thank you for your learn a lot from both of you as I hope your viewers will as well. We’re excited to keep going with the shows merchantrytourism.

com for the shameless plug and to keep the consumers and the outdoors, keep them camping, keep them interested. And I think as we. Move forward, the shows provide a great mechanism as [00:55:00] a funnel to the campgrounds, the state associations, the tourism directors, the state parks, and that a great funnel to get them to their websites to make reservations.

Basically we’re seeing. Pretty much pre pandemic activity now. I think most people where there’s, we’re seeing a bump in reservations when school lets out initially for the summers, things like that, that we historically have. It still seems a little bit busier, but don’t forget right before the pandemic, probably for about 10 years, we were already on the upswing with the outdoor.

So I think the nice part is we’re pretty much past pandemic and we’ve got you know, a lot new, a lot of new campers and that from it that have stuck with it. We’ve got rid of some that unfortunately weren’t good at it or didn’t like it, but thought it would be a good idea to try, but I think we’ve retained a lot of people and hopefully, we can go on because, being outdoors is so much healthier for everyone that, That [00:56:00] partakes in it.

Brian Searl: Then we’ll have to have you back on the show. And same with Louie. Cause we I remember it now I’m thinking of all the things that I said, I was going to get to and talk to you guys about that we never did. I felt like we had a good discussion, but there’s a lot more interesting things that we can talk about.

We’re going to find out more about whichever you want to promote where you said, merchantytourism. com. 

Don Bennett Jr.: Yes, MerchantryTourism. com is a great resource for that. IllinoisGoCamping. com is part of our new gig, too. If you’re in Illinois please use that as a resource for finding great campgrounds.

And Louis, there’s one of the first glamping into the big hotel chains is right in Chicago at the Gwen Hotel. They actually have a glamping tent, I think it’s on the 13th floor and they’ve had that for quite a while. So it’s being that Marriott is coming in and Hilton is doing some things with AutoCamp now too, I think we’re definitely getting some exposure to the outdoor hospitality industry that we’ve really not had before.

Brian Searl: Yep. Interesting times. Louis, wrap it up for us. 

Louis Thompson: Yeah, [00:57:00] we, www. nomadicresorts. com so we also design things, we also have our full architectural landscape master planning services that we do for people, and it was a real pleasure to hear Melissa and Don talking about a side of the business I don’t often get exposed to.

So for me, it was really educational and super useful to hear from you and to hear your perspective on things. Because I forget, that the vast majority of people go camping or RV as they’re coming to places where you guys are setting up. So well done to you. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you guys.

Appreciate it. I’d love to continue the conversation again when we have more time, but appreciate you. Thank you for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl. As always, we’ll see you next week for another great open discussion show with some of our recurring guests, and hope you guys all have a great summer.

Success in your business, state parks, New York Finger Lake Campgrounds, Louis over in Mauritius, and everywhere else you’re playing with. Super excited. Thank you guys. Take care. Have a good day.[00:58:00] 

This episode of MC Fireside Chats with your host, Brian Searl. Have a suggestion for a show idea? Want your campground or company in a future episode? Email us at hello at modern campground. com. Get your daily dose of news from modern campground. com and be sure to join us next week for more insights into the fascinating world of outdoor hospitality.