MC Fireside Chats – November 19th, 2025

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody. My name’s Brian Searl with Insider Perks and Modern Campground. We are live here at the KOA conference in Raleigh, North Carolina 2025 edition. Super excited to be here hosting the podcast here we’ve got some great guests behind us who are gonna introduce themselves in a minute, but just talk about this conference, all the great and amazing things that are going on here.

You wanna start with Matt? 

Matt Stovold: Yes, I’m Matt Stovold. 

Brian Searl: You need the microphone, Matt. They can’t hear you otherwise. 

Matt Stovold: I am Matt Stovold with Kampgrounds of America. I do franchise development up in Canada specifically, so I’m based in Ontario, myself. I’ve worked with many different types of campgrounds, converting them into KOA and just helping our franchisees in Canada as well.

Gwyn Wathen: Good afternoon. My name is Gwyn Wathen and I’m the Director of Marketing for Recreational Ventures Company. We own and operate 15 KOAs across the country. We’re headquartered in South Dakota. And our reach is we have campgrounds from 60 miles north of New York City to the Oregon coast, and then in between. 

Ryan McPeek: Hi my name’s Ryan McPeek and my wife Camille here.

Camille McPeek: Hi everyone. 

Ryan McPeek: And we’re from Coshocton, Ohio, KOA. We’ve been a KOA for nine years, owned our property for 12 years and we love it. In addition to camping, we also host a sunflower festival and a corn maze with wine tasting and beer tasting in it. And yeah. Excited to be here at KOA convention.

Samantha Chipperfield: I am Samantha Chipperfield and I am the general manager of the Townsend / Great Smokies KOA. I have been on my property for 30 years and I have been a KOA for almost 19.

Mike Harrison: Your last name is amazing. Chipperfield, I love it. My name is Mike Harrison with CRR Hospitality. We own and operate 14 properties across the country. We also do third party management and consulting, and we have been at KOA for six weeks. 

Brian Searl: Alright, so Mike, you’re a veteran of my podcast. I’m gonna have you go first here, but just as your first KOA convention here, talk about some of the things that you’ve seen, heard, learned about the KOA ecosystem to, same question to all you guys going around, but what’s something that’s made an impact on you this week at the KOA conference so far?

Mike Harrison: Sure. Obviously, our company, we’ve taken pride about developing our own branding and our own properties and our own marketing, and we reached out to KOA to help see if we could fuel, inject a particular property. Our background is in the hospitality and hotel industry, so we have a lot of experience with franchise companies, Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton over the years.

And so this is our first foray into the franchise world in the outdoor hospitality industry I’m very excited, to partner with KOA and, from experiencing my first convention it doesn’t disappoint. It offers the franchise support, that you would think you would need from a major franchise company.

Marketing operations, revenue management, all the different things that you can do to help leverage and enhance the property. Especially since that’s why we chose them to see, inordinate growth. So we’re pretty excited joining and partnering with KOA and can’t wait to see, after seven weeks maybe, what the KOA brand does for us.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Same question to you Samantha, please. Just something meaningful you’ve learned, seen, talked to somebody about the convention so far. 

Samantha Chipperfield: We’ve been blessed be several of these and every year we come away with new ideas and always a sense of community and support from our leadership team and just knowing that they’ve got your back is something that has been repeatedly shown even though, even after 19 conventions. So. 

Brian Searl: I have a unique question for you. You used to own your property, right?

Samantha Chipperfield: Yes.

Brian Searl: And then you sold it to KOA, and now you manage it. Is there a difference when you come to convention between when you were an owner versus when you were a manager? What you’re seeking to learn or get out of it or? 

Samantha Chipperfield: There’s way much, way more support. When we owned it prior to being in the system, it was just us four, myself, my husband, Mark, and his parents. So the decisions were ours, the money was ours. But knowing that there’s so many different aspects of the leadership team has been just phenomenal in what we’ve been able to learn and accomplish.

Brian Searl: Awesome. 

Camille McPeek: So yeah, I’m very excited to be here and really appreciative and excited for the work that the home office folks are doing for our koa.com and our direction for a better content management system, CMS, which I think will be a game changer for all franchisees. And also, I’m just, I just feel really, what’s the word?

I’m, I have a loss for words here. With the awards, we just finished the session for the 40 50 year award, and it’s just very inspiring to meet fellow campground owners who have been in the system, been loyal in the system for decades, and that speaks a lot with, what we get from being part of this KOA family. Yeah. 

Ryan McPeek: So I have enjoyed connecting with the other owners and we’re among the smaller of the campgrounds who are here and speaking with people who own multiple parks and seeing how they’re going about their operations. We’re all doing a similar thing and going about it in different ways and figuring out, how can.

How can we benefit, how can they benefit from us and learn what we’re doing as operators of one park. And you know how for us we’re trying to build up our team and get people get our team members, our loyal team members growing and taking on some challenges and speaking with other park owners who are doing this on a bigger scale and finding out how they’re doing it and successes and challenges. I’ve really enjoyed that. 

Gwyn Wathen: I think for me it’s more, it’s a chance to disconnect from our office, our day-to-day lives, and then reconnect with fellow owners, fellow multipart owners like yourself, pitch ideas. The networking portion of the KOA convention is probably what I get most at out of convention. The sessions are great. I agree with Camille. I’m super excited about the way that koa.com is heading and I really enjoyed that they’re actually taking their time and they’re gonna, it’s gonna be a year process and it’s not gonna happen overnight.

And just getting to hear that. And again the networking side is probably the biggest advantage of KOA convention. I get to see these guys, I see ’em once a year, and I’m always great to see you. I definitely, I get to see this guy a bunch and meet new people as well. So it’s it’s a great week and for us with 15 properties, we’re constantly learning.

We’ve been in the system since 1972. So it’s it’s always evolving. And it’s great to see that change. And it’s great to see a, the younger generation coming up, we’re family owned. Our third generation now is starting to get into the company. So it’s, and we have them here with us, so it’s excited to see them learn as well. 

Brian Searl: As You have one follow up question. You and I were talking about this before the show started, your approach and you mentioned how networking is really important to you. There’s all kinds of people here. Like I’ve been coming to KOA since 2012 and seen it grow into more multi park owners still. Plenty of individual mom and pop owners too.

Is there a difference you’ve seen as you acquire more parks of the approach you take to convention? Does the educational sessions become more or less important? Does the networking become more or less important? 

Gwyn Wathen: I would I would say the educational sessions, not to downplay the sessions, but.

Brian Searl: No, not at all.

Gwyn Wathen: Less important for us and more the networking side is more important for us. I’ll be honest with you, that’s how we’ve gained some of our acquisitions is here at KOA convention. You have people that have approached us that have been thinking about selling and getting out and we, this is a week that we can start that initial conversation of moving forward and then when we get back, we follow up and, and then take it from there.

Yeah, it’s it’s more the networking side of things for me and our group that we value for KOA convention. 

Brian Searl: Okay. Thank you. 

Matt Stovold: Yeah I think, same as most people, the, for me it’s the sharing of ideas. It’s the knowledge that everyone has in the room is super important. So I’ve been fortunate enough to see it from both sides.

I, I used to come to these things as a franchisee and now I come being part of home office. But it really is a family. You come, you talk about business, but we talk about our families, our kids we share ideas. So it really is, like Gwyn said it’s once a year that we get to see each other.

Sure there’s phone calls, there’s text messages, there’s other things. But to actually have that one-on-one time, whether it’s, walking around the convention hall, whether it’s in the bar or wherever it is, you get to catch up with people and spend some meaningful time. Talk about business, talk about family, like I said.

And it’s just, it’s that sharing of everyone’s knowledge. Everyone has a piece of the pie and everyone’s good at something different. And it’s the open, openness for everyone to share ideas and you. Get better altogether. So yeah it’s a good time. 

Brian Searl: For you, Matt, there’s a disproportionately large presence of KOA in America and has been for decades, right? They have been in Canada for, I don’t, how many years have they been in Canada? 

Matt Stovold: Yeah. So early 70’s I think was the first KOA in Canada. 

Brian Searl: Arguably like they’re really trying to push into Canada now, right?

Matt Stovold: Yep. Yep.

Brian Searl: So what would you say for the people in the United States who own franchisees or who are just watching this and, maybe wanna convert or just have an independent property what should they know about the Canadian camping scene or KOA specifically?

Matt Stovold: Yeah so first off, Canada’s a beautiful place. There’s lots of different areas of the country. There’s so many different, there’s mountains, there’s lakes, there’s coastal so many different places to see, Calgary’s a beautiful city, right? For example, we’ve seen really good growth in Canada in the last three to four years.

Alberta’s a perfect example. We went from one campground there, two years ago. We have five there now, right? So that brand is growing. People see the value in KOA. The Canadian camper itself is a very loyal camper. So we, we had, a very heavy Canada traffic this year, obviously.

But we still had the American traffic. We still had the international traffic. So campground business in Canada is very strong. We have a strong, camping association with Cara. I know you’re heavily involved in the Canadian side of things, I would say there’s a ton of opportunity in Canada.

It’s just finding the right property and, happy to have those discussions with people as they need them. 

Brian Searl: Alright. If I make you choose the most interesting conversation you’ve had with one person during the convention so far, what would it be? And same question to everybody. We’re gonna go, right?

Matt Stovold: Yeah. It’s not.

Brian Searl: But you guys can’t pick each other. 

Matt Stovold: Yeah. And are we keeping it PG or Oh. I’m kidding it. I think it honestly goes back to the pride. Like people have a lot of pride in their campgrounds. They’re happy to come tell their stories, tell how their years was.

Like I said, selfishly, we had a very strong year in Canada. Some parks are up double digits. So a lot of pride in them to talk about that.

Brian Searl: Gimme one. You gotta pick one conversation with one.

Matt Stovold: I would say the, say, success of business in Canada this year has probably been the best. 

Brian Searl: No, like the conversation you had with another person who was an attendee. What did you talk about? What really made an impact on you? 

Matt Stovold: Yeah. I like, like I said, I think it’s just the business and the willingness to invest back in their campgrounds is probably the most exciting thing. So people aren’t. People are looking at other properties, but a lot of people look at investing back into their own property.

And I think that’s been a common theme for people I’ve talked to is not being afraid to add new amenities, improve their campsites to KOA patio sites or poppen sites. So for me, it’s exciting to see the industry still throwing a bunch of money back into their parks and getting better altogether.

Brian Searl: Gwyn so networking one-on-one with somebody.

Gwyn Wathen: I think the best conversation I’ve had so far this week is we were talking about the new technology that KOA is really pushing. And specifically the text messaging that we now have for our guests. It allows us not only to, to get alert weather alerts out, or if we have a water break somewhere. What we were talking about more it helps on the sales side of things as well.

And this technology, it’s evolving. A lot of us use the zing technology that Medallia was putting out. Unfortunately. It has started to go away, but KOA stepped up to the plate and our conversation was how big they stepped up to the plate and made their own text messaging, technology.

That was impressive and it’s very impressive. It’s. It’s slow, slowly coming. It’s not gonna be what we had with Single, but.

Brian Searl: All things take time too.

Gwyn Wathen: All things take time. Yeah. So just that kind of one-on-one conversation of hearing their stories on how they used it and hearing our stories on how we used it.

We consider that technology almost like a utility now. It’s a must have for us. And it drove, not only did it help get the word out to our property. With our guests on the property, but it also helped drive sales for us. And, we, we were talking back and forth about how they use that to drive sales. Great conversation. 

Ryan McPeek: So one of the most interesting conversations I had was with a couple owners. They had I believe 16 parks right now. And we are one park and we’re staying that way, but we’re not Camille and I don’t just work the front desk on our own. We’re trying to build up our team and have the systems in place.

If the opportunity would come along and we could have another one or get into a different line of business we we’re gonna be ready with our team built up, our processes built up and while our scale is a lot different, our challenges are still the same. And so I think one of our, this conversation got me thinking about just our priorities this winter and building up our team and how valuable that is to us to have the life we want to have and be successful in our business. So 

Brian Searl: I have one more follow up and either of you can take it just about your campground specifically. We’ve seen a lot of focus on guest experience, and I noticed when you mentioned your campground that you would focus on like wine tasting and some other things.

Ryan McPeek: Right. Yes.

Brian Searl: Talk about how you reach that this is for my audience, this is what they’re gonna enjoy. This is gonna make them choose me over another campground. How do you arrive at the, I want to do the wine tasting. I want to go the extra mile to do these extra things, is what I’m asking. 

Ryan McPeek: Well. And may tell me if I’m not answering your question correctly, but we when we first started our campground, we were basically starting from zero business and we, it was an existing campground.

We had so many campsites and we needed to come up with some experiences that people were going to want to come to our park. We also didn’t have a whole lot of money, so we couldn’t just go out and put a waterpark in. And so we were trying to come up with things that fit our area. Our area had local wineries and we found partnerships there and collaborated on these events that would give something for people who are staying with us, something to do, a reason to come and a very unique experience and collaborating with our local community.

That was very important to us as well. Our campground is in my hometown, so I’ve got a lot of connections there and we like being part of that.

Brian Searl: Perfect answer. 

Ryan McPeek: Yeah. Okay. 

Camille McPeek: And also to add on to what Ryan said, Coshocton Ohio is a beautiful countryside of Ohio and agriculture is a big thing there.

With the Sunflower Festival and the corn maze, it’s just offering what we have in our area. And, it’s outside. It’s taking people outdoors and that’s what we’re all about, this business of outdoor hospitality. So that’s pretty cool to be able to do that. Then going back to the question.

Brian Searl: Interesting conversation.

Camille McPeek: Oh yeah, interesting conversation. The f, I think there are a couple conversations that came to mind. But it’s really meeting these families and people who have been in the system for 40 and 50 years and the Castro family in New Mexico. And in just being connected because I’m from the Philippines and she is from the Philippines and they’ve operated that park for 40 years and that just.

It’s just very inspiring for me and maybe we’ll get there, be in the system doing this fun job for 40 years, but it’s just very inspiring to chat with the people and she keeps saying, it’s hard work. You have to fix things quickly and taking care of people. So yeah, those were the conversations that really stood out for me.

Brian Searl: Thank you.

Samantha Chipperfield: I think one of the interesting conversations that I had was with a franchisee about technology to piggyback your point, but as an Oak property, we get the opportunity to greenhouse some of the projects that KOA rolls out to everyone else and we got to be a part of the housekeeping module.

So it was just an interesting conversation of explaining the aches and pains of how KOA chooses the projects and how they roll ’em out. There’s a whole lot of behind the scenes. Items that go along with those projects, but it was pretty interesting and fun, to be a part of that whole rollout. But technology is changing and we’ve gotta change with it. So.

Mike Harrison: Thanks. First off are those KOA shoes? Wow. Clearly. Are they only available in Canada? No. 

Brian Searl: No, they released them, what, a couple years ago convention, right? Yeah. 

Mike Harrison: Oh I’m definitely swag yearning. I need more KOA swag. I do have KOA shirt on. Yeah, I bet she does.

For us, interesting conversation, I’ll say I’m gonna stay with my general managers here with us. I know that sounds a little boring, but it’s, we’re. New to the system. We’re not new to outdoor hospitality. And so the property it’s got a 4.8 on Google. It sits on the Colorado River.

It’s beautiful. It’s a fantastic, it won property of the year for the state, so it’s not like it’s, decrepit. Starving property. We do very good job. But it’s been interesting to talk with him because we’re sitting there huddling while we’re looking at the award winners go up on stage and Hey, have we thought about this? Or, so we’re coming up with a lot of these new ideas. We’re always as you mentioned, Gwyn, learning. Even though we think, we do a pretty good job, we still always open to say, what else can we do? How much more can we provide, better experience.

And I was having a conversation earlier with him today about, Christmas that’s coming up and, how do we really leverage? And you asked the question already what I asked him this morning, which is, what is the guest that’s coming to our area, what’s unique to them? Why do they want to come?

Do we do a Christmas float parade on the river? Because we historically have done golf cart christmas parades. But something completely unique why people would want to come specifically to us would be something completely interesting. And of course the initial answer was like, ah, how do we do that?

Oh my gosh, that’s crazy. It’s an idea was hatched. And then, transition that to the conversation we were just having, his campground they have a walk-in cooler so that when there’s a deer hunt, and I dunno if this is legal, can I say it out loud? Okay.

Okay. Alright. Okay. Alright. Alright. I don’t wanna, I don’t like, I don’t wanna expose anything. There’s obviously a lot of deer hunting in this area so when they come back they can throw the deer in the cooler. He is got a table that they can butcher. So talk about providing something that your guest wants that truly provides experiential hospitality.

Our properties, we pride ourselves on having unique vibe and DNA and that just resonates and validates the conversation I was having with my own general manager about exactly that. So I get, passionate, excited, jazzed up about that kind of stuff.

And so that, really resonated with me. Just learning, from everybody else who, without, I don’t mean to sound haughty when I say this. We’re a large company with, big resorts, et cetera, et cetera, but we can learn from the small guy, just as much and, lady as well.

And I think that’s what’s so special about this industry is just the connection that we can have. So that was my most interesting conversations. 

Brian Searl: Alright, so we’ll do two more things here. I did this last week at OHI on the podcast. I had each person ask a different person the question.

So in other words, Mike can ask anybody here a question he wants, but nobody else. If he ask Samantha a question, nobody else can ask Samantha a question. We’ll do process by elimination something you wanna know from somebody else in this group. Pick whoever you want. 

Mike Harrison: So I wanna ask Gwyn, tell me more about this alleged call center, I hear, how did you guys come up with the idea? What is it? I’m curious to, to hear more about it.

Gwyn Wathen: Just a little bit of background. We also along with our 15 KOAs we started a call center. It’s the, it’s called the Camper Reservation Center. And we originally started it for our 10 properties. We had 10 properties at the time. And basically what that what it’s built for is when a guest calls the 800 number.

And after the third ring, if the third, if it’s not picked up at the property, it queues into the call center. And we have technology now, we’ve grown to almost we went outside of our properties and we have maybe 99 to 110 properties on the call center now. All KOAs and we, we’re there to answer the phone when they’re not there. For instance, when we were just talking, they’re closed during the winter, but the, they allow the us at the call center, the camper reservation center to pick up the phone. And it’s not just reservations. People are calling for information.

We have every, we have the technology to, when the phone call comes in, the phone will ring of what property it is. And then our computer system, we developed a system to it’ll default to that property. And each property has given us all the information we need from rates, from local attractions to how, cleaning procedures, you name it.

We’re ready to answer pretty much any question. The only reservations that we don’t, or information that we don’t give is long term information. So we have them call the campgrounds directly. But yeah, it’s a great service. It, it evolved with just years ago of our properties not answering the phone.

And with the amount of calls that we were missing, we thought we can start this. And it’s, like I said, it’s evolved now. The 800 number is going away in, in 2026. So you. Right now it’s based on the 800 numbers. And if the campground has a voiceover IP phone system, we can use your local number to continue to answer calls.

It’s a minimum charge of per call, per reservation. I think we’re around five to $10 per reservation.

Mike Harrison: Per call or per reservation?

Gwyn Wathen: Per call. Excuse me, per call now. Yeah. There is a big difference. Yep. Yeah, we used to be just per reservation. Now it’s, I think it’s around, I think it’s about $5 per reservation.

I could be wrong, but per call. Excuse me. But it’s a great service. It allows, if you’re closed during the winter and if you winter in Florida you can, you don’t have to worry about making reservations while you’re wintering. We’ll handle all that for you. So hopefully that answered your question.

Mike Harrison: No, it does. Yeah. Selfishly, just curious about my own 

Gwyn Wathen: Sure. 

Mike Harrison: My own needs. 

Gwyn Wathen: Sure. We can chat. Yeah. Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Alright, Gwyn, so you can ask anybody else a question that you’d like to hear from anybody? 

Gwyn Wathen: I think one question I have and I’ll go to these guys ’cause it sounds like they’re very activity driven on your property and with 15 properties we have, I mean we have 2 KOA resorts.

We have several KOA holidays. And then we have some KOA journeys. What are you finding, and we’re starting to see our business kind of change to where the millennials are tr now traveling. They’re now camping. They’re even bringing, if they’ve had children young, they’re bringing their children as well.

So we’re, we’re trying to figure out, on the activity side of things, what’s the new best thing? Do we do something every weekend? We have campgrounds that do theme weekends every weekend. Is it more, and do you do theme weekends? And is it every weekend or is it just once a month? We’re trying to figure that dynamic out of, we have one property that does nine Halloween weekends.

And it’s just kind, it’s, it’s the same thing every weekend. So how do we spice that up? So I’d be interesting to learn, just to see what, how you guys handle activities. Do you have an activity, we do have activity staff, but is it just activities or are you guys going out and handling it?

Or is your front desk staff chipping in? I just wanted to hear how you guys handle your activities.

Ryan McPeek: Yeah. You wanna take that?

Camille McPeek: Sure. 

Ryan McPeek: To start. Camille? 

Camille McPeek: Yes. So with our activities, it has really evolved. Like it was a different landscape for us when we started versus where we at now. So I guess it would just make more sense if I go back to how we started.

And when we were starting, we did the themed weekends ’cause that’s what we were seeing other campgrounds were doing around us and we’re also learning what our capacities are, what our bandwidths are. We started with having themed weekends every week. Week. Yeah. Every week. And that was fun, as a a newbie in the industry.

It does take work, but campers are having a good time and they, it’s something that families can do together and that’s very important for that. But eventually at this point, we evolved into doing the same fun, interesting things every weekend, but not putting a name on it, it’s, there’s not a theme, we’ll have tie dyeing or ceramic painting.

And I think the key is, for us, for our market is that it has to be like family oriented where people can just spend time with their kids, grandkids, and have a good time. That’s what I’m seeing is the main thing that works, for activities. I also think passive activities like, a nature trail map. Maybe a little free library perhaps in the park would be enticing for the millennials.

I am a millennial I don’t know that. Wait. Also, yeah, something new that we did this season is we invited the bug mobile to come to our campground. So this bug mobile, which is actually an idea from Greg Emmert. Shout out to Greg our naturalist buddy. 

Do you know Greg?

Yes. Yes, absolutely. So he mentioned this bug mobile that the Ohio State University has, and this is an Airstream with insects, bugs in the Airstream, and they tour different locations in Ohio and talk about, I don’t know tarantula, scorpions. And that was pretty cool. And we opened that up to the community as well.

’cause it’s just meaningful for us we’re to open it up to our community. And that was fun. So if you have, I don’t know, universities in your area of your park that would have an interesting program like that might, that may be something that you can outsource and still be fun. Yeah.

Brian Searl: That’s you ask a question to anybody you want.

Camille McPeek: Oh yes.

Brian Searl: You can’t ask one to Gwyn ’cause he is already gone. 

Camille McPeek: Okay. I can’t ask him a question.

Brian Searl: Is that a rule? Okay. Alright. Mike made it up. He’s the first timer. We gotta honor his. 

Camille McPeek: Oh, sorry. Wait, so I can’t ask you a question. Okay. Okay. Goodness. 

Brian Searl: No. Nobody asked you a question. Yeah. Yeah, 

Camille McPeek: I can ask you a question. Yeah. How about a question for Canadian friends? What is a, I don’t know, a trademark since we’re talking about activities, is there any like trademark campground activities in the region that’s comes up to your mind that’s fun?

Matt Stovold: He said Snow shoveling, if you didn’t hear that. But yeah, there’s a lot of unique things in Canada that like I said earlier, we, we still do see a lot of us traffic, a lot of international traffic. So I think playing on what is special to Canada. Whether that be maple syrup or poutine or those things to, to engage with that type of crowd.

Gwyn mentioned the Halloween weekends in the fall is typically a colder time of year for us. I know many campgrounds up there went from, we would hit our Labor Day and then it would be okay, we’re quiet until rewards weekend, appreciation weekend. But that Halloween weekend, every single weekend is full now at the campground.

And it’s a simple thing. And so specific activity I don’t know really one per se, but, we all do a really cool thing for people, Bryce Kenny said it yesterday. He goes he doesn’t drive the monster truck because it’s cool. He drives it for the 7-year-old kid that’s screaming in the crowd.

And maybe this is his only trip of the year, right? Or the dad that’s sitting there with his family and you know that is what they do, they go out and do that. So you guys provide that every single day. So I think anything that provides a memory. For our campers is a really cool thing. We all do it for a reason.

Obviously there’s a business side to it, but I know you guys well and that, there’s a personal side to it too, right? And so any experience if it’s activity or, something simple like you said earlier, I think it’s important to just make those memories for families and, it’s a affordable option for a lot of families.

So it’s cool that we can, are able to provide that.

Brian Searl: It’s all you, whoever you wanna ask.

Matt Stovold: Beautiful.

Brian Searl: You got three people left anyway. 

Matt Stovold: Yeah. Maybe I’ll go to Mike. We have our Camp Green program, which is, very important. It’s all about sustainability and how do we be better people in our community with water conservation or whatever it is.

With your other properties, have you done anything on your own that has worked well that maybe KOA could learn from in that kind of green world, if you will?

Brian Searl: Did you guys notice, Mike looks cooler now, by the way, since the last time we, it’s like last than me here. 

Mike Harrison: It’s an interesting question. Coming back from the glamping show maybe a month ago or so, sustainability is a considerable topic for them. Greg Emmert is passionate about all the glass front cabins ’cause it kills however many birds a year, so be considerate when you’re building glass front cabins and so we look at it in two ways, I think, we look at it from an owner perspective and a public service perspective, and what’s the balance of the two? How far do you go? And so we wanna be good stewards of the environment.

We’re in outdoor hospitality, so we absolutely follow the no leave no trace, for anybody who’s familiar with the outdoor world, right? Leave no trace is imperative. And we’ve developed our campgrounds, of course you’re, cutting out of the forest. But we try and maintain as much of the natural utilitarian as we can in our property in Austin that we’re developing. It’s cut right out of, hill country. And there are some trees they have to absolutely take out, but they went through and they tagged 2,500 trees to save. And so they’re all, don’t touch these, right?

And so the campground will be cut around, you know the trees intentionally. And are we always able to do that? Not always, but certainly that’s an intention, to leave no trace behind. Water conservation is certainly something we look at. We try and dig wells, wherever we can.

Your access to water sometimes dictates what you’re able to do. We certainly have limits on our showers. Not ’cause we’re trying to, save money, but we really wanna save the water. It doesn’t always go so well. Of course with your campus you’re like, I just got a two minute shower and we’ll push it again.

Hey, I have a four minute shower. We also, the property in Camp Verde, for example, it was an agricultural farm before us. And there, when we were pitching the deal to the town, we use five times less water than the previous use case, that we did for that previous property.

So I think it’s hard to say, especially as a multi-property owner and going on, if you don’t feel the same way, it’s hard to say, here’s the green initiatives we’re doing for every single property. We certainly have some aspect of that and SOPs, but it’s almost every property is unique because they all have their own individual circumstances.

I see you nodding your head, aggressively, because they all have their own. Yeah they all have their own thing. I think the most important part is, are we being conscious of the decisions we make, is how we try and approach the business. And again, what is reasonable to us as a business?

And the balance of being good stewards of the environment at the same time is where we always land. I don’t know if that answers the question. Okay. That’s a good segue, Miss Chipperfield, sorry, Camille is to my. 

Brian Searl: Wait, didn’t you already ask a question of Gwyn?

Mike Harrison: Oh sorry. I thought you. 

Brian Searl: I think it’s just, I think it’s Samantha and. 

Mike Harrison: Oh, I won’t ask another question then. But somebody else has gotta ask a question to them. Otherwise they have to ask a question to each other. 

Brian Searl: No. Yeah. They have to ask the question to each other.

Mike Harrison: Okay, oh. 

Brian Searl: No, we’re doing process of elimination. Yeah. 

Mike Harrison: Yeah. I’ll give it to you so you can ask your question. You can ask her the question. I was gonna ask her. 

Ryan McPeek: I think. Okay. My question was more about construction. Is that a good question for you? Yeah, but not like construction methods. More on what are, okay, I’ll just ask you. And then you can make it up.

What I’m thinking about we’re and I’m thinking about it because we’re in the process of expanding. Like I said, we’re a very small park and we want some more sites and we’re, we’ve got a lot of different variables right now.

A little bit of, since COVID decreased demand for campsites I think we can, I think we’ll still get ’em filled, but also increased expense to put campsites in. We’ve got higher interest rates. Not only campsites, but our cabins. We do well with our cabins, but they are certainly the cost to install a cabin now has gone up a lot.

It’s gonna be a lot longer return on investment. I’m just curious if if you’ve got any thoughts on which way is a good way to go on development right now?

Brian Searl: Give him a hard time. 

Samantha Chipperfield: We too are a small park. We have 14 acres, two of which is retail frontage. We have a marathon gas station, so we don’t really develop that space. Every square inch is taken up. We’ve not been afraid to take sites out. In order to improve existing sites and make the ROI better on those particular sites.

We went in 2012, we took an entire section in the center of the campground. We had 21 sites and took nine of them out in order to make deluxe patio sites and get the angling of them properly so we could grab more of that. A larger camper. So I just think that being mindful of what you do have and how you can resit, we’ve resituated the whole campground from totally different than when we bought the campground, but just being mindful of where the trees are and how you can, we had one motor home site that you could only pull straight in because of the tree there. So we ended up completely reconfiguring it without having to take the trees out. But just. We can’t go up really, but those deluxe cabins have really been a good investment for us.

We take a site that brings in like a tent site that brings in 12 or $13,000 in one year and you turn it into a $60,000 a year site. So it’s a little bit of pain up front. But the ROI on those is definitely worth the investment. 

Mike Harrison: Can I add to that? Sure. No, from a, I know. 

Brian Searl: We’re just trying to be, we’re just trying to be fair. 

Mike Harrison: I can’t help myself.

Brian Searl: But we have a little bit extra time, so go ahead.

Mike Harrison: Yeah, so I, I think it’s a math question, right? And if you think about algebra, what’s your x and I think the answer is, what’s your cost to expand?

So you know, you have to build underground. So you talked about the ROI in the cabins, a long, longer term investment. Is it? Because once you start running your underground utilities and doing your paving costs and your grading, et cetera, et cetera, what does that end up being cost per site versus what are you gonna collect in revenue on the backend?

Whenever we build a proforma, whenever we’re consulting, we always advise first, have you added more cabins? Because it’s an easy, you already have the existing utilities and you’re just plopping you, a not so cheap structure on there. But to her point, a cabin installed, depending on what level you get, right?

If you wanna get a fully, furnished park model cabin, with a restroom, you can get it for probably installed $70,000 or a nicer version, ours are around 110, but that’s like luxury. But so you can get one for 70, 80, 90, a hundred grand installed and if you’re making 50, 60, 70 grand, your ROI could be a year and a half.

As opposed to, your cost of development of site, depending on what that is for how much where you’re getting utilities from, can you get your utilities? You have to go through extra permitting. It can be quite a headache. I think some of the answer to that question is, have you done the math? Number one.

Number two is, do you know from a feasibility standpoint, to your point, you answered your own question, demand has been down. Do I wanna put the risk in expanding and building more as opposed to maximizing, leveraging what I have right now and seeing what happens to the industry? We’ve paused all of our, we’re on the sidelines right now for many more development.

I’m sure you guys are feeling similarly. Construction costs and interest rates are just too high versus what they were versus expanding, maximizing, leveraging. So I hope that. That helps a little bit.

Brian Searl: Right. Samantha, you have a question for Ryan? 

Samantha Chipperfield: What were you doing in your prior life? And what drove you to buy a campground? 

Ryan McPeek: That is a very, yeah. We were talking about this before the show started. Camille was interested in all campground owners prior lives, and I was actually a geologist in my prior life.

And so was Camille. We both were, which is how we met. He’s a geologist? Your son’s a geologist. Oh my gosh. 

So I I worked in coal exploration in Australia for a couple of years. I worked in a little bit of coal in New Zealand and then actually I worked for, there was a big golden copper exploration project in the Philippines that a company asked me if I wanted to go to, and I did. And that’s where I met Camille. She was a geologist on the job. 

Camille McPeek: And he did find gold guys.

Ryan McPeek: I struck gold. Yeah. And I, while I’m, I am interested in rocks, I also was in like the logistics of how are we going? We were drilling holes in the ground. How are we going to get the data that we need out of the ground? What kind of equipment do we need to do it? How are we gonna run the test? How are we gonna management of collection of the data?

The project that Camille and I were working on had probably 16 geologists, and so we had to make sure that everybody was collecting the right data, the right frequency.

 It was, yeah, this was a due diligence study to delineate a deposit. But, and so I’ll, I go, I’ll go a little bit further.

It’s how does that relate to campground? I was problem solving, collecting data, figuring out how to get the right information. There was no customer there. Now, you still had to be nice. You could be successful at your job if you’re good with people. So in that sense, there was customer service.

But then I’d been traveling and I was, I was just ready to be done traveling. It was, our schedules were such, we were work three weeks and have a week off. And so I didn’t really have a foundation core group of friends, people to rely on because, except the people at work. We had a great community at work, but then you were like living elsewhere.

So I was ready to put some roots down, and so I moved back to my original hometown and I fell into the campground industry. My neighbor owned the campground property, wasn’t really operating it, and I wasn’t, I was looking for what to do next, and it was like, yeah, you know what, I’ll, I’m gonna give this a go.

And yeah the story went on. We had really didn’t have any customers. We had to figure out how to get customers, so we did things like our corn maze. That was our very first thing we did to get people in. And then we became KOA, which was a huge thing. We built a swimming pool. That’s our backstory and we’ve just evolved into it and it’s grown around us and we’ve grown with it.

Mike Harrison: And now your campground rocks.

Ryan McPeek: Yes. There’s always plenty of rock jokes, but. Oh, you have some input. 

Camille McPeek: Can I update my answer to the most interesting conversation I had here? It’s that one, like finding out that there are geologists out there in the Yeah. And your son. That’s cool. 

Samantha Chipperfield: You’ll have to ask. Yeah, we’ll have to, you’ll have to ask Mark about his. Collection because we were just, my son has a raw collection.

We were just talking the other day, how are we gonna offload this mineral collection? We don’t do it anymore. Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Alright. Last question to everybody and then we’ll wrap up the show. We’re start with Matt. So what’s one thing that when you come back to the 2027 KOA convention that you don’t wanna accomplish in your career or your work, or with KOA or whatever that you can say, I did this in 2026.

Matt Stovold: Me personally I think, we’ve been talking about tech and data a lot. Things change so quickly. Toby talked today about being proactive and rather than reactive, and KOA does a really good job of leading, seeing what’s coming down the pipeline and capturing that before it’s too late.

For me personally, and I know you’re a professional in, this is just the world of AI. Understanding that better. How can our franchisees use it to simplify their lives, make things easier on them but also KOA has talked about how it directs ’em to certain websites and Google operates differently now than it did a year ago.

And I, I’ve been in your presentations before too, and it, you talk about how quickly AI moves. It, you went from the internet to this and 20 years, and then the changes in the last three years have just been, incredible. So if I come back in 2027 and I have an understanding of a.

Brian Searl: Oh wait, if you come back?

Matt Stovold: No. Yeah. When I come back in 2027. Good catch. I think it’s just to have a better understanding of AI and how it affects business. When I think of AI now, which. I type something in a Chat GPT and it does something for me. That’s what I know of AI right now. So I think if I can come back with the understanding, and I might have to lean on you to understand how it can help businesses is probably my one takeaway.

Brian Searl: Gwyn? 

Gwyn Wathen: We’ve this past year in 2025, we’ve, we dove into revenue management. And we’ve really hit the ground running with that. I’m excited to see how we can hit the ground running now that we’ve, what we’ve learned in 2025, we can use that in 2026. And by the time I come back in 2027, hopefully we can have a conversation like this and maybe our company can help lead that conversation on what we did for rates.

We’re not gonna give you all of our secrets, but you know how we used, how we use the new technology that KOA is putting out with K2, within K2 and just how it moved the needle for us from A to B. So I’m pretty excited about the direction we’re heading with revenue management and commercial strategy.

So it’s it. It’s gonna be a game changer for us. We saw it change for us in 2025, and I’m excited to keep the foot on the pedal and move it forward for 2026. So by 2027, I hope to have some more answers and go from there.

Brian Searl: Ryan? 

Ryan McPeek: So we will definitely be back in 2027. Camille and I have missed a couple of conventions and every time we’ve missed one, we’ve said we’ll never miss another one again.

Just because of the value, but I hope that when we get back next year, we will have we’ve got our goals now for development of our team building them up and taking some leadership positions to take that work off our plates so we can grow the business more potentially, so I’ve got the time to do the math on, on building sites, camp sites, cabins, whatever we do.

But also have our team feeling really good about and confident with the work that they are doing. Like them to learn to decision making and be confident in what they’re doing, that it’s gonna, it’s gonna come out all right. So strong team. That’s my what I want to come back. 2027, stronger team. We are strong. 

Camille McPeek: In addition to, a stronger team. I’d have to also say just a better understanding with AI and as a tool. And just knowing more about its impact to the environment and just being more aware of that. ’cause right now it’s just really, it’s no limits. Like we have all these answers in our fingertips and we don’t even use all of those answers that this generative AI brings to us. So I just want to be more know more about it and how it impacts our environment and our mental health. So. 

Samantha Chipperfield: That seems to be the hot topic, AI. My dad was a computer programmer in the Air Force for 31 years, so I’ve never, I’ve always been good with computers and technology and AI kind of scares me.

There’s just almost no limit to what we will be able to do, like you said, right at your fingertips. I just, I hope that I can learn to utilize that in a way that will help me continue to grow relationships on the property and let the work take care of itself. Just being, more available and open to entertaining our guests and making sure that they are getting the experiences that they come for. 

Mike Harrison: May I plug your company for a second and then I’ll answer your question. All right. 

AI, I’ve never heard of it. Sarcasm. This is Modern Campground Fireside Chats, but Brian is also the principle of Insider Perks. They do all of our marketing, and if anybody knows anything about us, along with Brian, innovated the first ever AI chatbot in the campground industry. And it’s not like the Horizon chatbot where you get frustrated, you’re like, speak with an agent.

It, it’s fully evolved and he’s hard to break. Rigsby, Campy for those that, that don’t have a trademarked. Then evolved to roll out the first ever reservation AI agent, so there’s never a busy signal.

You never miss a call. You can take a reservation at two o’clock that isn’t necessarily integrated with. KOA of course, but just examples of AI. And then going forward, Brian with Insider Perks is rolling out Camp Vantage, which go see him downstairs at the Expo. But it’s all about.

Brian Searl: I didn’t pay him for this, I swear.

Mike Harrison: I know. We can talk about it. That’s why I asked if I could plug the company. But that’s where you can really figure out. And we’re leveraging that next year and put money in the budget around AI initiatives. We have as a company, we have an AI mandate for 2026, and it’s really about how do we leverage the technology we’re using it probably more effectively than, definitely, more effectively than most already, but how do we continue to evolve both our prop, our property, but our experience for the guests, experience for our associates? Our vision statement has evolved the industry to the modern world, and so this is a huge part of that.

So speak to him differently outside of this, and he and that’s, this is what he does. Sorry. And so there’s your free plug.

Brian Searl: What do you wanna do In 2026? 

Mike Harrison: Yes. Okay. Sorry. I have a business and a personal goal. The business goal is, I wanna leverage, learn, and embrace. The new brand that, that we’ve joined so that we can absorb all the information, network and partner with, a great group of folks so that we can come back and our property can win Rising Star, right?

That’s what I would love for the business to do is this is a, wonderful decision and, successful business choice that we’ve made.

Personally, I want to continue to engage and contribute back to the KOA community which is what I’ve really seen being introduced to it as a newbie.

It’s, like everyone is so nice. It’s is everybody from Canada and KOA or is it just some people? But I’m very involved outside of KOA and both the American Glamping Association, OHI, the state associations, I speak, I, advocacy and contribution is very important to me.

And, rising tide raises all ships. So my personal goal for the end of, next year is, how can I have contributed and given back, to KOA while we’re taking, I guess we’re paying for what we’re taking, but but to help build up the industry that we’re now, part of the family of KOA. So that’s my personal. 

Brian Searl: Alright, let’s wrap it up from KOA convention 2025. Thank you to Matt, Gwyn, Ryan, Camille, Samantha, Samantha and Mike for being on the show. Really appreciate you guys. We’ll see you next week for another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

Thanks for joining us. Take care, guys.

We’ll see you. Thanks for being here,