MC Fireside Chats – May 6th, 2026

[00:00:45] Scott Bahr: Hello everyone. My name is Scott Bahr. I’m with Cairn Consulting Group, and I am taking Brian’s place for today. I booted him to the curb when we were in Florida last week, and I’m taking over the reins.

 No, I’m just doing it for today to fill in, and hopefully not ruin his brand by saying something way off today. But I’ll let other people do that. To get started, I’d just like to go around and have everybody introduce themselves so that everyone tuning in knows who we are. I guess we’ll start with Eleonore.

[00:01:18] Eleonore Hamm: Oh, thank you. I’m Eleonore Hamm. I’m President of the RV Dealers Association of Canada. We’re located in Vancouver, British Columbia.

 We represent our trade association and a federation of provincial and regional associations for our dealer members across Canada. Some of the key initiatives that we work on are obviously education and training, and advocacy. We had a big advocacy week last week in Ottawa.

 Because of that, obviously the data and trends are very important to all the work that we do so that we can assist our dealers in trying to be successful.

[00:01:48] Scott Bahr: All right. Simon?

[00:01:52] Simon Neal: Hi, I’m Simon, founder and CEO of Campmap. We’re a digital platform that helps campgrounds and outdoor hospitality businesses improve their marketing and guest experience with premium digital site maps that integrate with your website, booking, and app, and pretty much everything else.

[00:02:11] Scott Bahr: All right. Kevin?

[00:02:13] Kevin Long: Hi, I’m Kevin, CEO of The Dyrt. We’re the camping app to help campers get the best campsites. We’re the only app that has pulled together all camping locations in the US, from private land to national parks, to state parks, to RV parks, to free camping, to overnight parking, all in one app.

[00:02:35] Scott Bahr: Excellent. Thanks. And John?

[00:02:38] John Lindley: Perfect. Thanks, Scott. I’m John Lindley. I’m the CEO of the Michigan Association of RVs and Campgrounds. So, like Eleonore and RVDA of Canada, we are the trade association for the industry here in the state of Michigan.

 Our members range from the RV manufacturers, parts suppliers, certainly the dealerships throughout the state are our bread and butter, and campgrounds throughout the great state of Michigan.

[00:03:02] Scott Bahr: Excellent. All right. Today, as was mentioned before we came on, hopefully we can focus a little bit on the year ahead. As I was saying earlier, I was in Florida last week talking to some folks, trying to get a feel for what’s going on.

 I try to talk to campground owners as much as possible and hear what they have to say. Honestly, what I’ve heard has been a mixed bag. I’ve heard some very positive stuff, and I’ve heard some not quite as positive stuff.

 It seems like your location seems to really be determining what kind of year you’re looking at, at least this early on. So I guess I’d just throw it out there to the group to say, has anyone else seen that? And if so, any ideas of what areas are doing well and which ones aren’t?

[00:03:52] Kevin Long: Gas prices are not doing well. So I’m curious what everyone is seeing on that. When we look at Google Search Console and just look at what people are searching for, and what is the search volume of camping compared to last year, it was way down in April compared to the previous year. I’m just curious if anyone is seeing that on their campgrounds and businesses on the ground.

[00:04:17] Eleonore Hamm: We were talking to some of the campground operators yesterday in terms of their bookings, and most of them are up in Canada. But what we’re seeing, and this is always our talking point when gas prices soar, and in Vancouver right now it’s $2.20 a liter. I don’t know how to convert that to whatever that is in the US, but it’s expensive.

 What we’re seeing is that people are still booking, but they’re booking shorter trips and potentially staying closer to home. That’s what we’ve seen as a trend over many years when prices soar. I think people still want to get out there. They still want to see the outdoors. They still want to go RVing and recreate.

 They’re just doing it a little bit differently. Where we’re seeing the impact more is on the dealer side. You have new RVers or new consumers that are potentially thinking about getting into the industry, and this gas price question seems to be way more heavily on their mind than potentially a seasoned RVer. Who knows how to adapt or adjust their style to what they’re doing versus someone who’s new and really is just focused on the price of gas. I don’t know if anybody else is seeing that as well.

[00:05:32] Scott Bahr: Just from what we’ve heard from campground owners as well as the guests, is that RVers, if they own their RV, they still plan on getting out. Most of them are not good with it just sitting there. But again, as you mentioned, staying closer to home.

 We’ve been tracking that, and you’ll see some research come out soon from RVIA and Go RVing that’s going to show how that’s tracking. I don’t think I’m giving away too much by saying that the travel distance continues to shrink. We’ve seen it shrink for every quarter for the last year.

 That is something that appears to be very real. That’s what we’re seeing. But the one thing we don’t know, from my perspective anyway, is what’s the critical cutoff when people really start to shut down? What level does it have to get to? I don’t know. I don’t have the answer to that yet.

[00:06:30] John Lindley: Anecdotally, I’ve been hearing from a couple of campgrounds. I had a call this morning with a member who has largely focused his marketing efforts in recent years on out-of-state audiences, saying, “Come to Michigan, look what we have to offer in his specific location.”

 What he has seen in the last month or month and a half, as we get a little bit closer to the Memorial Day holiday, is he’s seen very consistent cancellations coming from out-of-state bookings. People that are traveling a distance.

 But he’s also seeing an interest in in-state travelers for last-minute bookings. So it might be people who have made the decision, “I’m no longer going to go five hours away, I want to find something two hours away.”

 I think the overall point which somebody has already made, which is people are still going to go out. They’re still going to camp. They still want to do it. They might be taking shorter trips closer to home and less duration too. Maybe it’s just a two or three-day weekend as opposed to a five or six-day trip.

[00:07:29] Scott Bahr: Kevin, do you track proximity with your bookings too? I’m just curious.

[00:07:36] Kevin Long: We track it, but we haven’t put it in this last year’s report. I think it’s going to be in this upcoming one. You were talking about the annual report that we do every year with Toyota Trucks.

 It was more of just seeing in Google Search Console that less Americans are searching for camping and camping-related terms. The overall search volume is down for April compared to what it was for last year in April.

[00:08:06] Scott Bahr: How are things in Europe, Simon? How is fuel impacting your markets?

[00:08:10] Simon Neal: Actually, just reading a report that came out from a French group, they looked at data leading into the May bank holiday weekend. So it’s a few weeks old. They’ve seen a big change. Much shorter trips, more focused on experience.

 This year so far, the average holiday distance decreased by 50 kilometers. That’s about 30 miles. With 38% of bookings around the 150-mile mark. So it’s definitely shrinking down the radius people are going. Shorter stays, more focused on experience and closer to home.

 Also, another group, Campings.com, which lists pretty much every campsite in Europe, showed in France in particular, 71% of people who responded to their questionnaire are going to be staying in-country. That’s like your equivalent of in-state. So that’s a really significant number shrinking down the driving distance.

[00:09:11] Scott Bahr: It seems to be universal, that phenomenon. One of the things I think we’ll have to keep an eye on too is what other adjustments are people making? In some of the work we’ve done in the past, we’ve seen that people don’t necessarily cancel their trips, but they shorten the trip a little bit.

 Fewer days is one way to save money, especially if you’re going to pay the same amount. What are the trade-offs they make? Do you still travel the same distance and then stay one day less? Or do you travel shorter and stay the same amount?

 We also see people just making other types of adjustments. These are the things that I’m very interested in. Exactly what are they going to do the trade-offs in? For example, one of the things we know is that food is a huge part. People who travel with families spend a lot of money on food.

 I’ve done some work in this area just on my own in terms of looking at travel costs, and the food factor can really hit you hard. But camping can also be a very inexpensive way to travel if you do your own food. So I’ve been telling everybody who will listen to me, try to get people to prepare their own food and maybe they’ll stay a little bit longer.

[00:10:34] Eleonore Hamm: We’re seeing that now, and we’ve been using those points as well. That’s the beauty of the RV and camping lifestyle, is that you don’t have to eat out for three meals a day, or ever, if you don’t want to.

 We’re finding that people may be saving more on their food costs by cooking themselves, but then, to what Simon said, they really want the experience of where they’re going. So they may still spend the money on visiting the site or doing the activity that they want to be doing, but then scaling back on potentially eating out and cooking at home.

[00:11:07] Scott Bahr: I think those things, someone was telling me last week about how their family, I forget how many kids they had, maybe two, but just to go to a basic mid-range quick-serve restaurant cost them like $70 for one meal.

 Even if the price of groceries goes up, they’re going to go up less relative to what it takes to eat at a restaurant, whose costs are also going to go up. The bottom line is that, at least in my analysis, it showed that the cheapest way for a family to vacation is in a tent and prepare as much of your own food as possible. You can actually have a nice getaway for pretty short money by doing that, especially if you have your own gear.

 In terms of regionality of volume of interest in guests, are you seeing anything there? Is that anything you track? Because again, when we were in Florida, they mentioned that their market got hit fairly hard this year and they had a fairly decent decline because of a lot of snowbirds and stuff like that. Whereas here in the Northeast, I’m in Maine, we’re not seeing a big drop-off yet.

[00:12:45] Kevin Long: As far as we do our annual report, we partner with Toyota Trucks, camping report where we survey the 17 million campers who come to The Dyrt. Plus, we work with an external company to survey everyone in the US, and then we put that information together.

 We definitely see an overwhelming higher volume of campers on the West Coast compared to the East Coast. That’s definitely the bigger push of it. Camping last year, it stated that 84 million Americans camp.

 I’m really curious when we survey this fall for next year’s report, is that number going to be higher? Is it going to be the same? What is the economy going to do to that report? But as far as the traffic on The Dyrt, a different camper comes to The Dyrt every one second.

 We have a lot of volume going through it, both our website and our app. We definitely see a lot more activity if you look at the Central US to the West Coast. We definitely see a lot more activity. There is just more accessibility outdoors. There’s more free camping, dispersed camping land.

 So it’s easier for RVers to be able to go to national parks, state parks, or they can also go to free dispersed camping, which is a big use of our app for people to find that free camping location as a pro user. So that’s where we see a lot of the volume sitting.

[00:14:08] Scott Bahr: One of the things that the outdoor recreation industry overall has as a challenge, that dovetails with all this that we’re talking about, is the era of the casual participant. If you look at the OIA report on outdoor recreation participation, they’ve been talking about this for a while too.

 The reach of outdoor recreation is still pretty high, but the level of participation has declined. We’ve seen that over the years too. Since we first started tracking years ago, just looking back to 2019, the percentage of campers who only took one trip since 2019 has increased 257%. Whereas the group that takes three or more trips has declined 11%.

 I think that when people talk about occupancy and what’s going on out there, the reach is fairly decent. Like the number of participants is still fairly strong, but they’re just not going as often. That seems to be something that is a bit of a challenge for us right now in the industry.

[00:15:22] John Lindley: I think we’re seeing a huge increase, and I think it’s tied to this. We’re seeing a huge increase in interest in rentals across the board. Our dealerships, our campground members, all the above are getting constant questions about the vendors that they work with for rentals.

 I don’t think that’s unrelated also to the gas price conversation too, right? Because a lot of these vendors provide the service where they’ll take the camper right to the campground, they’ll set it up, all you have to do is show up with the groceries for the weekend and you’re all set to go.

 I think that those are all definitely connected issues where people are reflecting, “I might want to try this. I’m not going to, I want to rent something, or I’m only doing this once a year. I don’t need to have an RV where I’m paying for storage and I’m paying for maintenance and all that. I can just rent somebody else’s once a year that I’m doing it.”

[00:16:14] Scott Bahr: I think everything seems to be aligning. It can work for or against you depending on which side, where you’re at. Right now, I feel like I take the arrows on this sometimes when I say it, but what appears to have happened a bit in our industry overall is that the outdoor experience is fairly sanitized.

 A lot of the outdoors part of it has been minimized. Other people have said this, I’ll just repeat theirs, but that maybe we’ve over-indexed a little bit more to the higher-end accommodations. For example, we know that people whose first camping experience was in a tent has now switched over. It is now much lower than people who start off in some other kind of accommodation or at a glamping park.

 In the past, their motivation to start used to be because they wanted an outdoor experience. Now, and especially as a result of the pandemic, it was for something else, for some other reason. They were hauling along on a trip or something like that, or for some people it used to be that was the only way they could really travel.

 We’ve seen, and I feel like all these things impact that, because one of the things that we’ve done recently, and this is a brand new study that’s mine so I can do with it whatever I wish, is that the more immersed someone is in the outdoors, the more likely they are to have an emotional connection to the experience.

 Which results in the likelihood that they will come back, even to the individual location or to continue camping. The more likely they are to want an even more outdoorsy, immersive experience. It’s like the infinity loop where it just feeds off itself.

 So if all you have to do is have a guest have one experience that’s just a little bit more outdoorsy, they’re much more likely to come back. They’re much more likely to participate. The one-trip guests, they score significantly lower on each of those. It becomes the reverse of the infinity spiral that you want.

 Because they don’t have those immersive experiences, they spend way more time on their phones, much more screen time, much more time indoors, not even being outside. They don’t experience that emotional connection. Thus, they don’t really see the value in continuing to participate or to have something more immersive.

 We’re in that to a degree, which is feeding this whole notion of the less avid participant. Anyway, it feels like this is what’s going on. Especially with the younger generation, we see that as a real barrier. I have ideas on solutions, but I won’t give them today because I’ll just end up talking the entire time, and we’re really here to have you guys participate and talk. I don’t know if anyone else has thoughts on any of that, or if you just want to talk about something else, please feel free.

[00:19:35] Simon Neal: I think that really connected with me because we go camping every year as a family holiday with the kids. That is really all about the shared experience and the outdoors. Particularly the outdoor activity side of it.

 That got me thinking a bit about the demographic of who is camping. Because certainly in Europe, it’s massively family-oriented. That is the peak season. That is, I don’t know the percentage, but it’s definitely the majority of people who go and where the money comes from. Is that similar in the US? That it’s more family-oriented? What’s the demographic like? Has that changed over time?

[00:20:12] Eleonore Hamm: It does tend to be more family-oriented. The families are the most avid group too. Over time, it’s fairly reflective of the overall population now, but we’ve seen the family participation increase quite a bit. It does tend to generally index above the census figures for family composition. So yeah, that’s a long way of saying yes.

[00:20:39] Simon Neal: That could then be like a focus group for your marketing and an action this season. If it’s looking like it’s going to be a tough season, then you really push on that sort of element. Push the family experience and try and put your energy there to get the best return.

[00:20:55] Eleonore Hamm: I think getting the kids involved in stuff is a real, when you talk about the outdoor experience, it’s just getting them to go out and look at bugs and identify animals and plants. Let them really interact with the woods.

 I think one of the things that we saw this year in one of the questions we asked is the idea of what do people want? What kind of experiences do they want? I think it was like 77% said nature is enough.

 I think people are getting to the point where things are maybe a little bit overly curated, and they want to be a little bit more self-directed. But there’s baby steps in there to get people involved, especially the kids. Once the kids get involved in it, then the whole family is there. If the kids are bored and they’re not like doing anything, then they’re probably not going to come back, or it won’t be as often.

[00:21:52] John Lindley: Michigan as an example, and I’m going to sound like a brochure right now and I don’t mean it that way, but we’ve got someplace around between 1,200 and 1,300 licensed campgrounds in the state of Michigan. A couple hundred thousand campsites among those campgrounds.

 More freshwater shoreline, you’re never more than 50 miles away from a Great Lake when you’re in the state of Michigan. Leveraging that asset and calling attention to those assets and making sure that people know about the accessibility to those things is incumbent on all of us, regardless of where we are in the supply chain of the industry. To make sure that we’re calling out.

 We were just talking about this morning because we collaborate as a trade association, we collaborate a lot with our colleagues in different segments of the tourism industry, right? Hospitality, whether it’s the hotel and restaurants, and you name it. There’s a lot of collaboration that takes place when we’re dealing with the state government and that type of stuff.

 But we’re talking about starting to push up on that line a little bit where we don’t want to do our marketing where we’re marketing against our friends, right? But when we start talking about how you can compare, you can have a whole summer of weekends, of two and three-day weekends of camping in Michigan, for one week in a hotel someplace.

 As those affordability issues are so front of mind for everybody, sometimes putting real numbers on things and doing comparisons for people can really be helpful. If you talk about the grocery bill, the gas bill, the campsite bill, all of that type of stuff, you add it up, it’s still going to cost you considerably less than it would be if you’re going to XYZ resort for a week. We won’t go that far, just because it probably wouldn’t be particularly well-serving for us to do so, but you can blur those lines, right?

[00:23:46] Kevin Long: I went camping last summer in Michigan, and man, you get a spot that’s right near the water, and I can’t remember what the cost was for five days, but it was so incredibly…

[00:23:57] Scott Bahr: We lost Kevin.

[00:24:02] Kevin Long: It was so incredibly fantastic and affordable, is what I was about to say.

[00:24:06] Eleonore Hamm: Exactly. Affordable family vacation. That’s the tagline that we keep using, right? And I think it’s true. I was going to ask, if you have any data that shows how we’re always seeing the usage.

 I found that initially people were RVing because they were going camping. And then there was the trend where everybody was using their RV, but it wasn’t just camping. They’re going rock climbing, antiquing, food markets, sporting events, and all that.

 I’m just wondering now, are we shifting back to people now wanting to just have less activity and moving back to just going and camping? I don’t know if there’s any data that shows that type of usage, if there’s been a shift. Because I just feel that everybody is in this world of, I guess since COVID, like pre-COVID or now post-COVID, everybody, there’s just so much going on that are people really taking that time to go and disconnect in their camping and nature experience?

[00:25:02] Scott Bahr: Right. Absolutely. By the way, you don’t have to sell me on Michigan either, John. That’s where I grew up. So I’m a Michigander at heart. Yeah, Grand Ledge. Anyway.

 No, the affordability thing is, and I agree with what you’re saying, Eleonore, because I did this once over an evening. I did a spreadsheet that shows the cost of all these different types of vacations. Camping is by far the least expensive vacation. All include camping. Camping in a tent or camping in an RV that you own are all substantially cheaper for the family.

 And much more affordable. I don’t want to say cheap, just more affordable. It’s striking how much different it is. So yeah, people can save a lot of money and they can have great trips. I think one of the challenges sometimes is to get people into the right accommodations for who they are, if they don’t own gear or own an RV.

[00:26:11] John Lindley: I think that the industry, and we’re not campgrounds obviously, which I know about, but I think the industry overall here has a responsibility, and historically I think has done a pretty good job of meeting consumers where they are depending on what’s going on in the moment.

 I look at, and Eleonore can certainly chime in here, if you look at some of the trends on RV sales and manufacturing and where that is going right now, people are focusing on lighter units that weigh less, that are less complicated, they don’t have slide-outs.

 The primary reason for that is because they want to buy something that they can tow with the vehicle they currently have. Because they’re saying, “Oh, maybe I can afford this new or used travel trailer, but what I can’t afford is also to go buy the three-quarter-ton pickup truck that I need to get to be able to tow that, and the $6 a gallon diesel on top of it. But I’ve got this SUV, can I tow that with my current car?”

 If the answer is yes, then maybe I’ll consider it. I think it’s incumbent on the industry again to meet people where they are with that, to let them know that this camping fits into your current world also. We can make it fit. You don’t have to change your world to become part of the RV and camping lifestyle.

[00:27:29] Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, we’re seeing that as well. Lighter units obviously, they’re being manufactured lighter. We’re seeing smaller units. And to be fair, the price of a new RV has gone up over the last five, six years. People are adjusting. Some of them are buying smaller units, smaller, lighter units, because they know this is the price point where I can fit it into my budget.

 And I don’t need to go out and buy a truck. I can tow it with what I currently have. So we’re definitely seeing quite a bit of that as well. The other option too, the rentals. I know in my spreadsheet, the rentals, if you rent and then stay at a site with full hookups, the price can go up quite a bit because you’re paying a per-night rental fee plus a site fee.

 But if it’s really your only vacation too, in the whole scheme of things, it’s not that bad. The other thing there, by the way, is I did it once, and I wanted to use it for some guests who were visiting, and the people I rented from came and set it up for us too. So we didn’t have to do any towing or anything. It was really cool because they came, they set it up right in the perfect spot, and made sure everything was leveled and hooked up. That was like, that was really cool.

[00:28:46] Simon Neal: Yeah, and you’re seeing that a lot more. That’s like the service, everybody is wanting extra service. Maybe the younger generation are not as handy or just don’t have the time as much. We’re seeing a lot of rental companies or peer-to-peer that are offering that service.

 To be fair, the first time I RVed, that’s how I went. The dealer set it up in the park for me. I didn’t have to tow it. I just got there, everything was set up. I didn’t have to worry about how to do the out, take out the awning. It was a great experience. And when the keys back, and I’ve said if someone’s willing to do that, it’s a great way to entice people to get them to go camping more.

[00:29:20] Scott Bahr: I agree.

[00:29:21] Simon Neal: I just said it’s so seamless it can be. And for a first-time RVer, there’s definitely ways to get assistance.

[00:29:30] Scott Bahr: Yep, absolutely.

[00:29:32] Simon Neal: I just wanted to jump in on the discussion on the size and kind of scaling down to save money. Just a lesson from Europe, which is generally completely focused on economy and efficient and small.

 Good ways and bad, but like we have a massive thriving industry. And if you compare the size of the RVs, the hardware between Europe and US, it’s phenomenally different. They’re way smaller. But there’s still the same amount of kids and parents inside. So there’s definitely scope to go down and still have that great experience. I think it is just the tradition in North America has always been much bigger. So there’s definitely maybe room there in a trend where people can start saving money but keep the experience.

[00:30:19] Scott Bahr: Absolutely. And one of the barriers to entry in RV purchasing is that people can be somewhat intimidated by the idea of setting it up, driving it, and parking it especially. So that rental option provides an easy intro to it. To have someone else do it for them, or maybe have someone teach them.

 I know that some are, and Eleonore, you know more about this than I do, but the idea that some of the dealerships offer classes and training on driving and parking, which is something I feel like they really should push harder. Because we do see that as one of the primary barriers to entry, especially in the youngest groups of consumers.

[00:31:04] Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, we have some provincial associations as well that have RV learning weekends or they have different titles, but basically they host RVers for a weekend and put on courses to just for some of the basics. RVing 101. Come out and obviously there’s the network, the camaraderie, the entertainment.

 But courses as well to teach people, and text there that look over the units just to make sure everything’s working for consumers. It’s a great way to get some education to the consumer themselves if they don’t have that fear of, “How am I going to do this? It seems complicated.” But it’s not, if you get the education.

[00:31:46] Scott Bahr: Sure. Sure. Just wondering, is there any big kind of influencers covering that topic on YouTube and things, putting out videos about how to do RVing? I’m sure there is, but I don’t know if you guys are aware of any directly.

[00:32:07] Eleonore Hamm: There are. And I know both Go RVing in the US and Go RVing in Canada do work with, I think they’re called ambassadors now, that where they’re actual RVers that, not necessarily just an influencer that is going RVing, but RVers that are actual RVers.

 They work closely with them, and they’ll showcase a lot of what it’s, how do you do it? What are they doing? How are they using their RV? I know that’s been very helpful for the marketing agencies because they’re real people actually going RVing. So there’s quite a bit that we’ve done on the marketing side from there.

[00:32:43] Scott Bahr: That’s definitely got to be a way into the younger generation. Scott, that you say are a bit afraid of the outdoors. It’s never really had that hardcore introduction when they were young, and now they don’t really know how to get into it. So that’s quite a nice bridge.

 Absolutely. And RVing provides actually a decent soft landing for that group because their desire to explore is high, but in many cases they’re not sure what they want to do and how to do it. So that’s why I do feel that the RV industry still has this opportunity with that group. It’s just figuring out how to talk to them.

 I don’t have all the answers to that, by the way. I have some, I feel like, but it’s a group that, for example, Toby over at KOA, this is a topic she’s very much invested in, which is the idea that in many cases things like glamping is the new onboarding.

 But we also see a high percentage of those people want to have other kinds of experiences. For example, they want to try a backcountry experience, whether it’s backpacking or overlanding or something like that. I think overlanding is a great opportunity for the RV industry too, to tap into.

 The whole idea is that we have, I’m sorry, I was distracted by the comment. “Before RV peer-to-peer marketing, some outdoors… guest behavior changed permanently after the post-COVID outdoor travel boom.” Oh, interesting. I’ll address that in just a minute after I finish here.

 But is that this idea of exploration, I think, is where the RV industry has a great opportunity to tap into. Because it’s a group that wants to stay in accommodations as well. They’re not fully committed to the whole tent thing. I think they try it, but that idea is very still strong out there. We just have to figure that out.

 So, “What do we think changed permanently after the post-COVID outdoor travel boom? And what trends do you think operators are still misreading?” To me, what I see, and I’ll let everybody weigh in on this because I think this is a really interesting question, is the guest behavior that changed a lot is, in my view, that changed permanently, is the idea that experiences like glamping have peaked and they continue to generate a lot of interest.

 Even the hardcore campers still have an interest in that. And that is the result of bringing in all those leisure travelers who normally didn’t camp during COVID. So to me, this idea, if you look at the kind of explosion of accommodations and glamping since COVID, that it’s making camping more accessible to more people.

 But the other flip side of that is what I talked about earlier, it’s less outdoorsy. And I think that’s one of the byproducts of COVID that we’re seeing right now, is that less outdoorsy, less outdoor immersion experience. There’s my answer to Chris’s question.

[00:36:00] Simon Neal: Yeah, we’ve definitely seen that trend in the explosion of what we call a mobile home, or you guys call a cabin or a posh cabin, which is like direct competition to a hotel room. And a pretty nice hotel room at that. With all the other benefits of kind of the outdoor community. So that’s definitely appeared after COVID and has stayed, just like you said, Scott. And I think the campgrounds here are definitely pushing that still pretty hard. That kind of halfway experience between hotel and outdoor.

[00:36:33] John Lindley: I’m interested to know, because I think that there’s been significant switches in consumer behavior relative to bookings. How far in advance they look to book, how flexible they are with their bookings, and that type of stuff.

 I think that there, people were forced into a particular set of behaviors during a period of time where, I can speak to Michigan where there were long wait lists. Like people couldn’t get a campsite. We were getting phone calls and complaints.

 Now, the reality is that wasn’t exactly the case. People were, if you’re looking for this particular lakefront site at this campground on Fourth of July weekend, yeah, guess what? Maybe somebody else wanted that same site and it might be competitive to do so. Like I said, there’s between 1,200 and 1,300 campgrounds in the state. There’s plenty of room for everybody.

 But that flexibility that people have when they make that booking. I speak for myself and my family. There were times where we were, I was able to make camping plans months in advance. I knew that we were going to go on that weekend, we wanted to go to this place.

 And then as my family evolved and my daughter got more involved in school activities and our ability to go camping sometimes became more of a last-minute decision. “Oh my gosh, it was Thursday afternoon and I’m realizing we could go this weekend for a couple of nights. We’ve got the flexibility. Let me go out online and see what I can find.”

 And inevitably I would find something that was someplace where I hadn’t intended to go, and it would end up being a wonderful trip. And so I think that figuring that out and maybe capturing that ability to be last minute sometimes, if you are in that state of mind, can be a good target for us.

 I brought it up because I think COVID was a driver in some of that behavior where people were planning in advance out of necessity. But maybe they don’t need to do that as much anymore.

[00:38:36] Scott Bahr: I would agree with that, John. And to dovetail the rest of Chris’s question was, what are they still misreading? My take on that is that people need to have structured activities from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed. I think is one that they’re continuing to misread.

 And the other is that all the new people want to stay in accommodations. I think that there’s other opportunities there. I think they’re, I feel like we’ve overcompensated in that direction. It’s my opinion. Take it for what it’s worth. But anyway, go ahead, Eleonore.

[00:39:20] Eleonore Hamm: Well, I was going to say to John’s point, I think the big thing is just the able to pivot quickly and have flexibility, right? So whether, because I think we use the word pivot a lot, right? You got to pivot and do this.

 It’s that, okay, you want to suddenly, it’s Thursday, you want to decide that you can go there and what you can find. I’m there, I’ve already booked, but I realize I can’t go because someone’s sick or there’s something that’s come up. I still want the flexibility to be able to cancel without being necessarily locked into that.

 So there’s both sides, right? And for me, that’s what consumers are saying. Yes, the flexibility to be able to adapt to what their current reality is on that day. And I think that’s, I think some people are there, but not everybody has, when you talk about the misreading, what they’re not doing. And not every, and that’s not just in the camping industry or RV industry either. It’s I think with anything that you’re looking to book, is that consumers are really wanting that. And I think those that do accommodate that will be more successful.

[00:40:17] Simon Neal: Yeah, free cancellation is a massive thing when I booking hotels for travel or anything. And quite often it’s, you pay a little premium for that option as well, which is a nice little win. I know like seven days before, a couple of days before. And generally people are booking because they really want to come, but they just want that ability to bail out if they have to, if they can do. Yeah, I think that’s a major thing that should be endorsed by everybody.

[00:40:43] Scott Bahr: Yeah, I agree. And as long as people know up front too what the policies are and what you’re doing, then any of the research I’ve ever done, people are good with the policies as long as they know.

 One of the things that we still have, again, you have to build on your point, John, and Eleonore too, the idea that the trip stacking thing was real during COVID. And there’s still people out there trying to do that.

 And I think one of the, again, to go back to Chris’s question, maybe one of the things that a lot of campgrounds haven’t done is to really change their cancellation policies to reflect where the market is right now too. Again, just lay it up front.

 Whether or not, I was thinking when you were saying that, Simon, I was thinking about how we’re looking at booking a vacation like six months from now. And we can book it through the Hilton, and we can cancel 24 hours before we get there, but we have the room booked right now. So that is nice. I don’t expect everybody to do that, by the way. But it is nice to be able to do that.

 So, you know, that there’s two sides to it, whether you’re the guest or the operator, what your perspective is on cancellation policies. But again, as long as people know, in my view, it’s they’re okay with it.

 We talked about when you were talking, John, about the site availability and such. That is, that really rings true with some of the chatter you still hear out there about campgrounds being crowded, overcrowded. “I can’t get a site,” and so on. And it really is they can’t get their site, the site they really want.

 In our research, we did this because Toby asked this question. It’s like, everyone has capacity. Why are people still saying it’s overcrowded? So we did some research and that’s what we found out. But the most interesting thing for me in the takeaway, and I think everyone in the industry who has a voice at whatever level has somewhat of a responsibility in this area. That’s another thing that happens too, that Toby talks about shared responsibility a lot throughout the industry.

 But is the idea that when we asked people if they had, if overcrowding was a problem, this is like two years ago I think we did this. And we still had a lot of people who said it was still a problem. But of the people who said it was a problem, 39% had never experienced it.

 They had never actually experienced it. It’s, and a lot of it is because someone said something, they saw it on a board online, the chatter out there. And so that’s a pretty, I think that’s a very high percentage of people that, again, they thought that overcrowding is an issue, but it didn’t happen to me, but I’ve heard it’s a problem.

[00:43:46] John Lindley: Well, there’s, again, I’ll just share with you as an example here in Michigan, and some of the areas that I’m talking about. We are very fortunate that Michigan has a tremendously gorgeous, robust, and extensive state park system that has gorgeous lakefront accessibility, state parks with thousands of campsites. Just some of the most extraordinary places in the United States, for my dime, but certainly in the state of Michigan.

 And the system for making reservations at those state parks, six months in advance, at those different state parks. And you can make a reservation for up to 15 days, which means you can actually make a reservation six months and 15 days in advance of when you’re trying to book. And there’s all sorts of different ways that people will use to game that system and all the above.

 And at our RV shows, we welcome the state of Michigan, the Department of Natural Resources will have a 10×10 booth set up at all of our consumer-facing RV shows. And unquestionably, the topic of interaction between the consumers and the officials that are staffing that booth throughout our RV shows is the reservation system, their frustration with not being able to get the campsite and the campground that they want on the dates that they want, and all of that type of stuff.

 And again, I think that this, I hear the frustration, but I think that this presents an opportunity that the industry has to really make sure that we’re filling that vacuum and letting these consumers know that there are other options. The options are available. They just, let’s be a little bit more flexible with your location, with your date, with your all of that thing. And we, and you can find what it is that you’re looking for. So that experience that they have is positive and it keeps them wanting to come back. Because that’s what we’re all in this for.

[00:45:34] Scott Bahr: Absolutely. No, I like that. And I’ve spoken with people from, whether maybe it was you, John, I talked to about that, and just that very topic talked about in the past. And yeah, it gets to be a real challenge.

[00:45:46] John Lindley: Well, I got to tell you, I’ve got, I got about five minutes and I’m going to duck out. But I, when we were at a, I think it was the annual, for those who know, the annual RV Power Breakfast takes place in Elkhart, Indiana in May of every year. And I think it was a couple of years ago, and there was a panel that had Toby was on it from KOA, and there was a, I think it was Lauren Batis from General RV, and then somebody from either Thor or Winnebago. So manufacturer, dealer, campground, different segments of the industry.

 And somebody made the point that I thought was very insightful. Simple, but insightful. And they said, “Look, everybody just needs to do their job. And do their job really well. If you’re manufacturing an RV right now, build a quality product. If you’re an RV dealership, make the sales experience simple and a positive experience for the consumer. If you’re operating a campground, make it a hospitable experience that the camper wants to come to. It’s a service experience. Get them back out on the road as soon as they, as you can.”

 If everybody does their job well, then customers are going to want to want to keep camping. New customers are going to want to come to the industry, and everybody’s going to be just fine. We just all need to fill that role to the best of our ability.

[00:46:57] Scott Bahr: Absolutely. And if you think about all of us here on this call today, including our missing member, we all have a different part of the industry really. And we all add to that experience. We all contribute to it.

 And if any one of us drops the ball, it affects the rest of us. It really does. And so I agree. It’s again, it’s that idea of shared responsibility. We all have a part in that. We also, we all have a voice in it as well. So it’s one of the things I like about this industry is that in general, people tend to talk to each other. They tend to be fairly, everybody tends to get along fairly well, at least to their faces.

 And it’s true. You go to the conferences and people are competing, having competing products, hanging out together, having drinks, and just enjoying being in the industry. Because in my view, we sell the best product there is. We just have to get more people to do it. The outdoors, it’s a great product.

[00:48:00] John Lindley: Exactly right. 

[00:48:02]  Scott Bahr: So there’s, I know we only have three minutes, John. Does, do you have a question you want to ask any of us? I know this is what Brian, what Brian always does. He lets people ask a question of someone else if you want to. If not, you can go to happy hour because that’s where you’re headed, right?

[00:48:18] John Lindley: Yeah, I wish that was the case. I absolutely wish that was the case. No, I guess I would put, very selfishly from my perspective, and I’m sure Eleonore shares a little bit of my mindset. I think one of the things that I’m always questioning and trying to challenge is making sure that as a voluntary member-driven association, that we are providing the value that our members and that the different segments of the supply chain need us to provide, right?

 And making sure that we’re presenting that value proposition effectively to the industry. And we can only ensure that we’re doing that effectively if we have the proper input from people. It sounds cliché, but I’ll ask those questions of what keeps you up at night? If it’s an RV dealer, what keeps you up at night? If it’s a campground, what are those issues that you’re going to sleep thinking about right now? And is there a role for your trade association to be helping involved in trying to solve those problems?

 Sometimes there isn’t. We can’t be effective at trying to be all things to all people. But what is it that we can do to ensure success of our members where our role lies in there? So I realize that might not be a question that can be answered in a minute here, but that’s the question I’m always asking is trying to figure out what that role is. I can’t pick up the phone and call the Fed and get them to lower interest rates anymore than the President can. I certainly can’t affect gas prices. But setting those things aside, what can we do as an industry association to try to be helpful?

[00:49:49] Eleonore Hamm: Yeah, we ask our members, like, what’s your burning dealer issue? Tell me. And tell me. We send out, and if anybody’s listening out there, let us know what your burning dealer issues are because if we don’t have that information, it’s hard for us to be effective on our advocacy efforts. So please let us know. The more input we get, the better.

[00:50:09] John Lindley: It’s been a pleasure, you all. I have to duck off, but I greatly appreciate it.

[00:50:14] Scott Bahr: All right, John. Great talking to you.

[00:50:15] Eleonore Hamm: Have a great afternoon.

[00:50:19] Simon Neal: Good chat, everybody. I’ve got to run for a call now as well. Good job, Scott.

[00:50:23] Scott Bahr: All right, Simon. Great talking to you again. It was great meeting you last week. Take care.

[00:50:28] Simon Neal: See you. Bye-bye.

[00:50:30] Eleonore Hamm: Bye, Simon. Bye.