MC Fireside Chats – November 1st, 2023

[00:00:00] 

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC [00:01:00] Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks. Super excited to be here for a week. Number one, our regular recurring guests, leaders in the outdoor hospitality space and industry. Did we have, I feel like we maybe didn’t have one of these last month because it fell across, like we did, but not with the same people because it was at the Glamping Show.

We did it inside that really cool dome, but super excited to have all of our recurring guests here back. Some of them anyway, right? So I think Mark Kapp’s going to join us in a few minutes. He had a previous call that he had to be on but super excited to welcome him to the show. And then obviously Christine Taylor and…

Mike Harrison from Sierra Hospitality super excited to have them here. And our new recurring guests here, we’ve got Scott Bayer from Karen Consulting Group. So I would just want to go around the room and maybe, oh, we have Sandy too, but I forget Sandy’s there because she doesn’t have a camera on.

So I don’t know if we should, Sandy, do you want should we put Sandy in the corner for not having her camera on or should we just let her, Oh, there she is. Oh, it’s so cold, wherever she is. We can’t hear you, Sandy. We’ll assume that you’re saying you [00:02:00] are in, I don’t know, let’s go with Alaska. Okay.

Sandy: Montana. 

Brian Searl: Where? Montana? 

Sandy: I’m guessing. 

Brian Searl: Montana’s south from me, so that means it is pretty cold here. Anyway, okay. Anyway, okay. Let’s oh, I’m echoing now on Sandy’s microphone thing. Sandy, you got to just mute that thing, I think, for now. But hopefully we’ll be able to talk to Sandy throughout the show, but super excited here.

Let’s just go around the room and like Mike Christine, and obviously Scott, introduce yourself a little bit. And then I want to deep dive with a little bit into Scott. We’ll talk about some shows that are upcoming, things like that. So go ahead, Mike, you want to kick us off? 

Mike Harrison: Sure. First thanks for Halloween theming Our name plates.

Brian Searl: I forgot to, yes, I forgot to mention that. It’s Halloween. It’s always Halloween. It should, Halloween should get at least as long as Christmas does. Oh, it’s fantastic. Spooktacular even. It’s just. Amazing. Thank you for that. And now I’m gonna take my hat off because it’s uncomfortable with my chair.

Mike Harrison: So Mike Harrison, CRR Hospitality. Thanks for having me again. Look [00:03:00] forward to seeing everybody at OHCE in Kansas City. And things are going well. I think, we saw the reports from Camp Spot about some of the business, tailing off at the end of the year. We had already seen it in the first quarter of the year because our seasonality is a bit different.

Just, time of year or so our back half of the year has actually been better than the front half in terms of pickup but those are the national trends I’d be curious I had asked if they could do it regionally and they couldn’t but that would be interesting to see, what the four quadrants of the U. S. would look like on that chart, statistically just to see what the trends are. I imagine, the West and South would be different. Thank but neither here nor there, gas prices have stabilized somewhat unless you’re in California and Arizona, but other than that, things are going well.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Glad to hear it. And definitely we’re going to dive into reports and analytics here with Scott. And so maybe Casey will show up and he can go over that Campspot stuff, but if he doesn’t this month, then maybe we can have you talk about some of the insights that you gleaned from there and see if we can, maybe we can figure out a [00:04:00] way to break down, not the same data, but similar data.

Regionally, because I think that’s important. Scott and I have had those kinds of conversations. Christine. 

Christine Taylor: Hi! I’m Christine Taylor. I’m at the Town Law Firm. I sit in New York. I was at the Glamping Show, but busy during when you did your thing. Next up, I have some state conferences. I know at CE where Mike’s going to be.

I think I’m speaking twice there. And, yeah, we’re in the thick of conference season. Busy and trying to… Everything else. Unfortunately, as I’m always a doom and gloom heavy litigation year for outdoor hospitality, but we’re working through it. And everything has been fun.

And as I said, I guess two months ago now my family’s back in the biz. So I get to see my, Stuff in action, which, I haven’t changed any of it, but I have seen some of the uphill battles, so that’s been entertaining and, definitely, and as I [00:05:00] think I’ve said to a lot of people, things have changed over the last three to five years, and I think we’re still swinging in a mode of change from an operation perspective.

How do we, I just want to know how the rest of us on this call can get important enough to speak at OHC twice? Oh, one year I had three times. To be fair, I have… One year, I accidentally ran my mouth too much, as I’m prone to do, and I let them know that I used to be an opera singer, so I ended up singing them the national anthem as well.

If you’re up early enough, you can hear that too come in with a weird talent and they might keep you around more. 

Brian Searl: That’s what it is. First, like weird talent, like I have to have talent, period, first, and then I’ll work on the weird talent aspect of it. Go ahead, Scott. Introduce yourself and Caring Consulting Group, please.

Scott Bahr: As Brian just said, I’m Scott Bahr. I’m president of Caring Consulting Group. We specialize in research in outdoor hospitality, outdoor recreation. That’s [00:06:00] not all we do, but that’s what we’re going to talk about today, anyway. And, I’ve been working with… KOA, for what will soon be our 10th consecutive year in doing the North American Camping Outdoor Hospitality Report.

I’ve actually been working in outdoor hospitality with KOA for 20 years. And the last couple of years we’ve been doing also a monthly research report. I don’t know if everyone gets a chance to see that, but we do keep track of a lot of the incidents and such that you’re… You’ve been talking about, and we could probably have an offline conversation about some of that information at a regional level, if anyone’s interested, because that is something that we do track.

 So yeah I’m looking forward to the conversation. I’m always interested to hear what other people are doing. And we’re, as we talked about before the call, even those gaps, what do people need what are the gaps in information and what do people need? What does this industry need? So looking forward to talking more about it.

Brian Searl: Yeah, that’s where I really want to, I think, first take [00:07:00] the show, if all the other guests are willing here too, and hopefully Sandy can weigh in as well, and then Mark will be here, but I really want to, like, when you hear, when I step back, and I’ve heard, I’ve been in this industry for 15, Plus years, I feel like it keeps growing every year, and somehow I get older, but however long it’s been a little bit, and I feel like I hear from everybody, I wish we had more data, I wish, I was coming from the hotel space, and I wanted this, or didn’t have this, or where do I get this, where can I get comp sets, where can I look at my competitors, where can I, you know, an endless list.

Questions that we don’t have a lot of good answers for and certainly KOA and your work that you’ve done there, both through the North American Camping Report Camping and Outdoor Hospitality Report, I think it’s called now the Glamping Report that you did recently with the association and then your monthly research reports with KOA and all the other work you’ve done with some other players in the industry.

I think that certainly is. A very good start to filling in some of those gaps, but I think what I would, what we’re hoping to accomplish here with the MC hospitality highlights. [00:08:00] Is reporting on data and uncovering data, from a marketing standpoint, because that’s where we have a lot of it sitting there.

But also just some reports and data that we have been asked for that we haven’t really been able to report on. And when I say we, the outdoor hospitality industry as a whole. And so I think I would love to maybe just start with Mike, if you’re willing, Mike, and I know I’m putting you on the spot.

We didn’t prepare this at all. Just talk about some of the coming, especially coming from the hotel industry. Talk about, and obviously it’s. It’s not going to be something where we can recreate a star report, right? But what are some of the things that you feel you would like to have at your fingertips when you’re making business driven decisions, not just about, metrics like concepts and competitors, but where do I open a resort?

How do I forecast demand? How do I look at reviews? How do I analyze social? How do I insert blank, right? From an investment, hedge fund, anywhere we want to take it. And so I just love to have a kind of a back and forth and then prompt some. Inspiration and ideas for Scott, even [00:09:00] though he’s got a list of them.

That’s really long. 

Scott Bahr: And you opened a can of worms asking me that question. I could spend four hours on this, but I think there’s a few things. One is With the infusion of institutional capital that continues to come into the industry, there will be a demand for continued evolution of reporting.

In the recent Woodall’s article, I don’t know if you saw my interview with Campspot. Woodall’s? Who’s Woodall’s? I’m sorry. I’m kidding. Woodall’s is a great publication. I’m kidding. Yeah, the other media company. I did an interview with Campspot on their Campspot analytics and they have the new signals program, which is.

The closest we’ve come to a star report yet. It’s not perfect. But I literally this morning was looking at, you can pull them weekly or monthly. It’s like a weekly star report or a monthly star report. So it’s not perfect yet because it doesn’t, you don’t subscribe to it. They pull the, anonymous data of the other Campspot users in your comp set.

So you don’t necessarily, it’s not going to be your true comp set of your six competitors that are right down the street from you. It’s only users, campgrounds that [00:10:00] have camp spot. However, it does give you a good flavor of regionalized how your occupancy is, what your rank is, how your ADR is, how your ADR rank is, what your revenue per available site is, what your ancillary revenue per available site is compared to your comp set.

So you know, it really gives you a good indication of how you’re performing. You’re underperforming, overperforming, what’s the market doing? And that’s new. So that’s the most excited I’ve been for a report I think since, I joined the outdoor hospitality industry. And they’re going to continue to evolve that.

That’s very helpful. And, we’ll see where they go with it. Do they eventually offer subscription to non Camp Spot, properties, and do they evolve it like the Star Report evolved? I don’t know, but, right now it gives me enough data to be able to make good revenue decisions, see if I’m underpriced, share with ownership.

On properties that we operate. As far as the other data, so that’s the number one need, right? And I would say, 25 percent of the people, the inquiries that CRR talks about is looking for data as well, [00:11:00] right? And a lot of the investors that are coming in are from either the lodging sector, hospitality, or multifamily, right?

That’s probably 85 percent of the people that I talk to with new developments and… Looking to get into the business and park management, and they’re used to data, right? And their number one complaint is, I can’t find any data. I could write up a form all day long for a hotel or for, a multifamily, but I can’t, for the outdoor hospitality.

 I inevitably usually send them to Connor at Sage Outdoor Advisory, for if they want a feasibility study. But right now, he’s a little bit of the keeper of the keys, so to speak. In terms of having national data, and of course they protect that, proprietary information.

So I’d like to see a more nationalized report of demand demographic market driven data, that someone can pull, and the industry is gonna continue to yammer for it. The investors are gonna continue to demand it. There needs to be something more unified and focused.

In that regard, so that [00:12:00] investors can make good business decisions on the markets. Are they healthy? Is it a transient market or is it a long term market? Is it both, is it a primary or secondary or tertiary market? What are the factors that you need to look at? Right now, unless you do a lot of your own research or if you use somebody like Sage it takes a lot of legwork.

We do all of our own research, but it takes a lot of legwork to get to that point. That’s report number two. Report number three is also industry operating metrics, if you want. So again, a lot of these investors, as they’re coming into the space, I always like to say, I think I talk more people out of business than into doing business with me.

As I go through their performance, I’m like, hey, you’re putting 50 cabins. Do you have anything budgeted for… Linen expense or, housekeeping to turn the cabins, and they’re like and there’s not a lot of good data out there about, what’s your cost per occupied site, for a glamping unit for, the cabin, what’s your minutes per room, so to speak, or minutes per cabin to turn a [00:13:00] cabin, how much labor do you need?

wHat’s a good metric to use for utility consumption? Which is such a broad question depending on obviously where you are and what your arrangement is with sewer and water, et cetera. What’s a good number for ancillary revenue? And so those are not readily available either.

So those would be the three main things as investors and owners that we look for right now. That we’ve patched together and hobbled together, but, we continuously get asked for it. And so I think from our perspective I want to break this into two buckets before I turn it to Scott and let him respond to that for a second, right?

Brian Searl: If you want to, Scott. One is the pulling of instantaneous data, which I think is not, I know is not our goal with Scott, right? And that’s more I think there’s ways that we can pull that. I think we’ve got a lot of that data, right? From our marketing tools, from our Google Trends, from our search demand, from, and then third party companies like AirDNA or Price Labs, specifically with accommodations, right?

But I think that’s, so I want to set that aside just [00:14:00] briefly because I want to focus more on the last, I think maybe the idea three primarily, is how do we get data that is, that can be taken from a sample size of park owners, either nationally or regionally, I think primarily nationally, and then we work to scale that up, down, slice it left right?

But how do we take that and make it a data set that can be disseminated into a concise research report to be valuable to as many campground RV park glamour resort owners as possible? ScOtt, I want to just let you respond to Mike first. Yeah, that’s that’s quite a list. And no it’s great to hear.

Scott Bahr: I actually, I love hearing that stuff. I’ve worked in hospitality, other parts of hospitality in the past as well. So I hear everything that you’re saying there. It’s from our perspective, I feel like this industry still is a ways away from getting. to that level of granularity and just in how things are reported in general.

I know that [00:15:00] working in the tourism industry, for example, we used to get, just this wonderful Data from on occupancy and rates and everything from everybody and everyone Participate, but we knew where to find and we knew where to get them in the outdoor hospitality world. It’s a lot more difficult It’s you know herding snakes To, to get a lot of the information and how it’s reported in and so on.

I do, when you, like when you mentioned feasibility studies and so on, it was one of the, it was the most common thing we heard at the glamping show was people wanting feasibility studies. We estimate that we had north of. 35 people approach us on feasibility studies, um, and it’s one of those things where it, and all it tells you is that there is this need and this gap for that type of information.

Right now, I feel like we’re at a certain level that we can provide certain things. When I say we, the collective we but I also feel that[00:16:00] in, in order, it would, I think it would be a great conversation to have to dig into what the resources are, what are the sources, and to get that information at that level and then be able to compile it.

I get calls and emails from investors weekly asking for all the information you talked about it’s very common, to hear that and to understand what the gaps are right now. We can.

I’m sure there’s other people that together.

Brian Searl: aNd let’s look at, so let’s take one example, right? Because I think I want to flesh this out a little bit, maybe in my head, even if you guys already understand it. So some of this might come from a place of ignorance, right? But let’s take your housekeeping example, right?

What is the turnover cost for… Cab, X number of cabins that you rent out on a weekly or nightly basis, the housekeeping and cleaning and utilities and all those kinds of things, right? [00:17:00] How do we, what’s the path to figuring that out? Is that just a bank of people cold calling campgrounds for survey data like they do for politics or.

Mike Harrison: If you look at, you’ve heard me talk about our vision statement at CRR, it’s evolve the industry to the modern world. And that comes from our background in lodging. And when I started in the lodging industry 30 something years ago the technology had just started and this is what we were doing back then.

And so the data aggregators were exactly that, right? It was… Send, somebody would call you and they’d ask for your occupancy and AVR, and then it turned into fax in your stats. And then one day you actually got to push a button to do that for those that remember fax machines anyway.

And so then they evolved. So the first part was the market data and then that’s how Smith Travelhouse Star started. What was that? The hotels used to do what’s called the call around report, when you call your local competitors, they used to share [00:18:00] their data, and then, it evolved to the Star report.

And then, there was a, the main company was called Benchmarker, and there was a Benchmarker report which did those operating statistics, and you could look at, aggregate costs for, room profitability and LOI and labour stats so you had an idea. It was the same kind of thing, which was, a lot of, groundwork to gather the statistics. But it became easier, obviously, with technology to submit that data. And it, it’s a little bit crowdsourcing and of the like but yes, there’s no other way to get it than to, unless it’s a publicly traded company like an ELS or Sun where you can see their data and it’s so broad, okay, great. ELS had another 97% occupancy month. Wonderful. It, it doesn’t drill down enough, regionally and small property, et cetera. So I think it’s going to have to start that way. Grassroots, aggregate the data until someone, is able to publish a version where people are happy enough that there’s enough demand to say, okay, let’s make it bigger.

There’ll be more resources put towards it, I think. [00:19:00] Yeah, it takes that upfront effort. We did it in the hotel lodging industry where each year, it was easier from year to year, but it’s that first time out of the gate. To get to that level, that was the most difficult. Once you do, though, it’s like it, you can’t, again, people started to like the data, the reports, and they were much more motivated, but it’s making that first, taking that first step.

Brian Searl: aNd that’s what I, I hope to do, right? Obviously, this is brand new. MC Hospitality Highlights is not proven. We haven’t done anything right. Obviously, KOA has a lot more of a background behind this and, again we’re looking to supplement KOA’s data, not. do what KOA is doing, right?

But I think that, from my perspective I’ll put the resources behind you, Scott, and certainly you have a lot, but I don’t if it makes sense from an industry needs standpoint, and from a mathematical standpoint, I’ll put five people in a room and have them call whoever you want, right? So I’m certainly willing to…

To put the [00:20:00] finances behind this, if it’s helping the industry, it’s just the question of how do we do it in the most efficient way possible, combining both those bodies with the technology and automations and AI and things like that to, not just spin our wheels. And in other words, kickstart that first process as fast as we can, maybe take two steps at a time instead of one.

And so that’s what I guess I’m asking with the, with all the data suggestions that you guys have. 

Mike Harrison: Yeah, I think, I’ve been thinking about this ad nauseum, Michael and Camps, they know I’m annoying with, I just yearn for data. And and I’d be willing to help, is there a way, I almost feel like we should start with the state tourism associations, right?

Because if we could get like a grant funded, so for example, I, Mark, I don’t know if he, Mark joined us, right? And so like the Arizona tourism. Association, sponsored a grant that you can get [00:21:00] a considerable portion of Campground Views funded for your property and the outdoor hospitality to make sure that Mark’s product is featured in your park.

And so I’m wondering, they aggregate data for the tourism industry already, helping them evolve and some of them are aware enough that this is the next thing. Thank you. That could there be some money from a state level allocated for some of the data sourcing maybe a grant of some kind so I think, and Mark, obviously you have the contact, the tourism so do we, maybe we approach it together, and, if there’s a unified effort, maybe there’s a way to, to start this discussion with the State Tourism Association. 

Brian Searl: And I want to have Mark answer that in a second, but just for clarity speaking, like I don’t personally and obviously the more grants and the more funding and the more participation we can have, the better because it helps the industry, it helps us move faster.

But from my perspective, like the funding isn’t the issue. I think it’s [00:22:00] understanding the process. What can we automate? What can we scrape from certain places? What can we gather from tools and software? What do we have to do manually via email or phone? And then figure out what that process looks like.

And maybe we end up needing funding, but maybe we don’t. And so I think that the science behind how do we actually go begin to process and gather that data and where do we get it from, to me is more of an important starting point than the funding aspect is. But I want to let Mark answer that too. And the funding, I’m sorry Mark, the funding was secondary.

Mike Harrison: To me that’s not the important part. It’s more than the resources and The contacts and the effort, backing behind it more than anything, which is huge. Like I can’t tell you how many, I’m sure I’ve maybe told you, but you already knew, but I can’t tell you how many clients I get on the phone with and say, are you a member of, I told one yesterday, are you a member of your local tourism board?

Brian Searl: Why not? They’ve got all this data and all this information on who’s coming to the area. And it was, yeah, it was a park. I can’t remember where it was, maybe in Florida, but are you a member of the local chamber of [00:23:00] commerce? And your occupancy is a little bit down in November and December. We need to figure out why, but start with the Tourism Association.

They know why people are coming to your city or area in November and December already, what events are happening, who’s coming here for hotels, and that’s a big giant leap forward. And so for sure, yeah, that data is. 

Scott Bahr: Yep. 

Mark Koep: Yeah. Mike commented on here and I was actually going to chime in with that.

The biggest challenge with this type of data collection, and I know I’ve spoke to Scott about this is when you leave a system like KOA, the advantage KOA has is access to the data because they run the reservation system and they have that direct access. But the second you go outside of that system or ELS or whatever, and you go and try to collect that data from a mom and pop location, You’re not going to get it.

They’re not going to share you that data. Either they’re not going to share it to you or they don’t even have it themselves. So how could they share it to you if they did have it? A data collection effort like this would be. Interesting on the surface. And as a, as you’re talking, there’s some ideas that come to mind that may help.

And you may have already looked at these. You’ve got [00:24:00] on the recreation. gov side, you’re talking about 2000 campgrounds, Forest Service, National Park style campgrounds. That data is actually available on their website. You could download their occupancy data. Their prices, you can actually do a report based upon that.

Same thing with some of the states, not all of them, but some of the states, so you can get state park data. The reason I highlight that is half of our industry are public agency parks, right? So that also skews any data you collect because number one, they’re not pricing based upon demand. They’re pricing based upon what they can, whatever their laws or rules are in their area to be able to price those sites.

And then they’re changing rules accordingly. For example, that law that just passed in California for the state parks about who can book, how they can book, and how long they can stay and all that type of stuff. I love the concept of having that data, and I can completely understand it from an investor’s perspective.

And Mike, I actually want to pose a little question on that to you. And maybe you, cause you’ve been in this industry a long time too. We’re in a transition point right now. Interest rates have gone through the roof. And so all that free money is washed up. And so [00:25:00] there’s been a lot of smaller investors who’ve jumped in, maybe bought four or five properties.

They bought them. Over the last four or five years and everything was fine until recently. And now they’re going, what the heck? Things have changed a little bit. That’s where things get dangerous from a data standpoint is because if you have your data based upon good times and you don’t have that background on the bad times, they could be making their projections based upon, oh, we’re a hundred percent occupied.

And then that switches. And their entire cash flow statement is based upon, 95 percent occupancy. Now they’re dropped down to 70%. I don’t know. I’m just bringing up kind of areas where that data gets hard to get. Obviously, number one, mom and pops, they either don’t have it or aren’t going to share it.

Number two, we’re missing half the industry with public parks. And then number three, we wouldn’t have enough history of that data yet to make really solid decisions upon it, but it’s definitely something that needs to go forward. 

Sandy: Hey, so while we’re waiting… While we’re waiting on Mike to respond ditto on everything you said, Mark.

And I also agree with what Mike is saying. In fact, I’ve been working on this [00:26:00] project for almost three years already. And the biggest problem we have with our smaller mom and pop parks is the distrust of some of the technology that’s been out there. And I think we have to begin with education, and we have to help them understand what’s in it for them.

What’s in it for the camper and what’s in it for the industry? The one thing that we can all agree on, no matter where you come from, is we want to keep people camping. And this is important to keeping people camping. And I do believe that there has to be an independent person, it can’t be any specific property management software or anything like that, that aggregates this data because the fear is always that, even though that data is agnostic, it can be used.

in some way by somebody who might have interest in one of those property management softwares. And but once we get the property management software data, then we do have the history mark because most of those have years of data from the old to the new. If [00:27:00] we can educate these private parks, the smaller parks, on why this is important, then it’s going to be easier to make this move, and I don’t think we can be successful doing it without their engagement and without doing it this way because it has to be automated.

It’s not going to, the telephone call thing is not going to work because, again, half these parks don’t even understand what we’re asking them for, but their data does know and can tell us. 

Brian Searl: But I think that’s primarily, and you’re right I agree with you, but I think that’s primarily working towards a STAR report, that for sure needs to happen, which I don’t have a goal of doing that with Scott.

Maybe one day, right? 

Sandy: I’m well beyond a STAR report. There is too much data that we can use that’s so important. And the one thing we know from prior research is that campers are willing to give an amazing amount of data to the campground. We did one small test, and we added the VIN number of an RV into the reservation [00:28:00] field.

In order to make a reservation, you had to put your VIN number. We had 70 percent who did it. They had to go look it up. Most of them didn’t have that right there. It wasn’t even a tag. It was a VIN number. And so what we know is that campers trust campgrounds. And that’s why that data is so important to us, but we can take this so much farther than just a star report.

Brian Searl: For sure. I agree. And that’s part of this conversation here is where can we take that? How can we do it? How can we slice and dice it in a specific way that makes sense for, like, us to move forward, right? Piece by piece. Because our goal isn’t to create another… North American Camping Outdoor Hospitality Report, we already have one of those.

Our goal is to, I think, correct me if I’m wrong, Scott, but our goal is to go month by month, even, and then disseminate that even week by week into bite sized chunks into data that is not being, and I don’t want to give away what the first one is that we’re working on yet, right? But just things that have never been seen before in outdoor hospitality.

Scott Bahr: Yeah, I, and to me, it’s [00:29:00] in, in having this kind of conversation it’s, for… In terms of focus, like where we focus our energies, it would be, I’d to just prioritize what are the need to knows versus what are the want to knows that are not needed? It’s I feel like there’s a whole tier system with the information.

And the best thing that we could do as a launch and up point is, what do we need to know? What does the industry need to know now that we… that we don’t.

Sandy: And I think I totally agree. 

Mike Harrison: Yeah, and I think it’s so hard, because the industry was built, by the mom and pop RV parks, but the evolution of the industry is going to be built on the It’s going to transition just like the hotel and lodging industry did, and so there’s going to be a little bit of that pain, as some of that happens, and, and pain maybe isn’t the right word because some of it’s happiness, right?

We [00:30:00] saw in this last cycle a tremendous amount of these private parks selling for record numbers because they had very healthy results, and maybe they’re happy and not pain but it will happen, right? We’ve seen it time and time again, whatever industry it was, right? When the… Home Improvement Stores, the local neighborhood shops, Home Depot and Lowe’s came and, took over the industry.

And I think some of these institutional, capital infusions is going to happen too. And so these property, these reports, I’m sorry, will evolve naturally because they have to. And Scott, you mentioned what’s need to have. I had this exact discussion with our leadership team last week.

What’s need to have, what’s want to have, what’s nice to have. And you really got to focus on the need to have first and the nice and want, yeah, maybe, you get to that when you can. But I think the need to haves are going to be focused on the investors, where’s all the money coming in from, that’s going to continue to, because they’ll pay, and, Mark, I’m sure, you probably can speak to it, but you probably have a harder time selling. A [00:31:00] small, less than, 50 site park, they’ve owned it for 40 years on your campground views, as opposed to the larger parks that have, more capital and resources behind them.

And and I don’t want to speak for you, but I imagine that’s probably the case. And it’s going to evolve as the…

Sandy: And I don’t know, Mike, if it was you or Mark that said that you were talking about the different kinds of parks, but I think that’s absolutely key too. We have to be able to identify clearly the different types of parks so that everybody’s speaking the same language as well as the different geographics, because we do have Some areas that are going to be very successful on seasonal parks, which are only open six months out of the year, or we have some that are going to be very successful on monthlies, which I mostly see those as parks that are catering to workers that come in, not the RV park that’s turned into a mobile home park.

That’s now a neighborhood. But [00:32:00] that data has to be sustainable. able to be segmented to make sense. Otherwise it just dilutes. 

Mark Koep: Yeah. And then to add onto that, so to Mike, to your question specifically, we actually find it’s easier to sell our services specifically to operators who know the campers, so who know and understand their guests.

And that actually, I think that’s one of the challenges we have as an industry is there’s a lot of money that flowed into it ROI.

Not as I want to serve a camper. I don’t, I want to serve a guest. And so there is that disconnect. And we see that across the board from small parks, all the way up to some of the larger parks that may have been bought by, investment groups or, and I’m talking, not talking the names, I’m talking the names you don’t know who put some money together and bought a park.

And those are the ones that actually struggle, the ones that don’t know their guests. And maybe that’s, and I think that the North American Camping Report picks up a lot of that data, who the guests are and who, what the trends are in that realm. And I just wonder if some people just don’t read that, like they don’t actually, review that report and understand the [00:33:00] guests a little bit because, what we know, and I think the most important data point that came out, at least from my perspective, from the last North American Camping Report was that what was it?

70 percent of all new campers are under the age of 40. Is that the data point, Scott? Does that sound about right? It’s pretty, that’s pretty close. The new ones are, yeah, that new group. Absolutely, yeah. That’s who’s flowing in and we, it’s one of those things we thought maybe it was a, a blip, out there, but it wasn’t.

And we see it consistently. It’s very consistent. Yeah, there’s that’s what hospitality is all about, is knowing that guest. Yeah. And talking about the data points that you’re collecting, that, that becomes important, right? It’s just understanding what the core problem is and how people are consuming data.

And that’s the other challenge with reports like this is that even operators and investors, they consume data differently now than they did even a year ago, right? You need to create an infographic, but if that infographic has too much info, They’re not going to see it, right? So how are you presenting that data back to the folks that are going to be making the decision upon it?

 That’s just something else to consider is if you [00:34:00] go too deep, nobody’s going to read it cause they’re not going to go that deep, but how do you chunk it up to where people can really understand the core issues that they’re facing? And where I always go again, I’m a marketer, so as a marketer, I always go back to who’s our core.

Who’s our core guest? Who are we actually serving? And in the end, it’s the camper. All of us serve the camper in the end. Whether we’re providing services to a campground, in the end, it’s to serve a camper. And so really understanding that, and I spent a lot of time in that field, and I can tell you there’s a lot of change going on.

Within our guests right now. And it’s happened over the last few years, but really right now, there are some significant material changes going on. We’re losing the COVID campers. We’re getting the people who want to get outdoor and adventure. It’s, we’re definitely going to see a lot of change as we have already, but going into these next few years, and I think that’s really where the data becomes important and the way you present it to people so they understand that data is critical.

Brian Searl: And that’s a whole other thing. Go ahead, Scott, please. 

Scott Bahr: I was going to say Brian and I had this conversation too, Um, how much do [00:35:00] you push out there versus, holding back, filtering some of that. That’s one of our challenges, but it’s also one of the things that’s part of our strategy moving forward is to come out with what we feel is a very digestible report of some very digestible information and then find other information to slowly feed out there because if you use the firehose, it’s not, it just won’t work.

We’ve seen that quite a bit and believe me, I have so much information that it’s insane how the filters that we have to use sometimes. And so that’s one of the reasons we keep asking these questions because they come full circle here is to find out what do people need? What do they need to make decisions?

What will help the industry move forward? Because that’s what it’s all about. Other than that, we’re either poking around in the dark, or we’re just, we’re pushing out too much. I literally just spoke to someone yesterday about how they were given 500 pages of a report and expected to, present that to their staff and make it…

Understandable. And they’re like, I don’t even know where [00:36:00] to start with this, and so it’s it’s important and it’s incumbent upon us to do that and to take that leadership role. And that’s what I feel like we’re trying to do here and have these conversations. And I think there’s, you’re like, that’s exactly what I was going to say.

Brian Searl: And then I would supplement that by just saying that I think everyone is different in how they consume data. Some people will sit there and read the 500 page report, right? Most people won’t, but some people will, and then there are people who need the, the monthly research report condensed and available and clear, concise, whatever, right?

Or the non busy infographic, but then there are also people who will consume it and slice and dice it in dozens of other ways that the industry hasn’t even thought about, right? And so from my perspective, I don’t want to try to figure out the right research. How people best disseminate it and pick one, I want to do it all.

And I think that’s what some of the automation and AI will allow us to do, is to say here, if we want to produce this kind of information dump report, it’s available for you to download and look at, but the one we’re going to [00:37:00] publicly release and push is more concise. And it’s focused on, what Scott just said, but then also we can disseminate it in different ways via YouTube and via podcasts and via blog posts and social media and slight, and then however you like to consume it as a person, it’s available for you to do that way.

And I don’t know if that answers maybe some of your… No, it’s great. It’s very similar to what Google Analytics did with their whole user interfaces. As Brian, I’m sure is really aware they’ve changed it recently. And the big thing is a bunch of the reports went away and they’ve put a search bar there.

Mark Koep: And they’re using, I don’t know if they’re using AI or what, Brian. But you can go in there and ask almost logical questions like, Hey, where are my guests coming from? And it’ll start spitting out reports that are relevant to that. Within the Google Analytics backend. So I like that. I like that.

That’s where you’re going with this, Brian. That’s very smart of you.

Brian Searl: I’m trying, right? Like it’s, again, it’s a work in progress and we definitely need feedback from everybody on this call who, including Christine, who’s been really quiet, I’m so sorry, Christine, we’re talking about data, but like pop in from [00:38:00] this is a legal perspective too, like we need data on what people need protection from waivers and liability and ADA and.

What legislation is being passed and isn’t passed and how people can like all that kind of stuff, right? So I feel like.

Christine Taylor: Actually you’re not wrong there Lobbying groups I actually get contacted by for some of the local associations that I do work with their lobbyists and I communicate because they are asking for data about what I’ve seen what I can give in my realm is not as forthcoming as I could be in some other realms, but they want to know is this really an issue we should be spending time on?

How many, campgrounds out of, whatever, a hundred in this association are being affected by this issue? Is this something that We’re really concerned about how has this amped up or, declined. I know we’ve talked ad nauseum about this, but one of the ones, and just because it’s in the forefront of my mind from the lobbying perspective, is when we talk about all those ADA website lawsuits, we had a whole conversation about how many [00:39:00] campgrounds that actually affected.

Did we see that generally the trend of those lawsuits were going away overall? How did it impact the hospitality market? What was the average? Financial impact on an individual campground such that was something to direct lobbying efforts to. From that perspective, that’s where data is important, I think, to that realm.

It’s because I have a lot easier time arguing on behalf of somebody in a lawsuit if I have a law that supports my position. And the strength in having associations and stuff like that is the fact that they’re lobbying for these new laws. And… They’re lobbyists and the people trying to explain why this is important to our lawmaking bodies if they were armed with data about how this impacts, the actual operation and frankly bottom line of these campgrounds, that would be important to them.

Brian Searl: Yeah, and that’s what I think our big opportunity is here is yes, it’s going to be a slow, small ramp up to get to where. Like it [00:40:00] becomes something that, just like KOA, that people are used to, I’m going to open this because it’s going to provide me something valuable, either in social media or in a monthly report or however we end up disseminating it through podcasts or blogs or whatever else, right?

But once that comes, then again, it stacks, it grows, we evolve it. Once we begin covering certain things, we figure out what people like and what they don’t like and how they want to see that sliced and diced. And can we go down to the state and provincial places in Canada and the United States and things like that, but…

I think that’s ultimately it’s a big, it’s a big task, right? Like we’ve been sitting here talking and it feels like this is the fastest 45 minutes that’s ever passed on this show for me, right? Because, and part of it’s because I’m a geek too, right? But there’s just so many different directions we can take this and we need to have kind of an understanding of if we put it all on the table, we’re all going to be overwhelmed and it’s going to be much harder to get started.

But if we have a concise list of. Here’s five things that would be great to start with. Let’s do those five. Then here’s five more and five more. [00:41:00] Then all of a sudden, before you know it, we’ve got a comprehensive library of all kinds of things. And I think that’s probably the easier.

Would you agree, Scott? Absolutely. I think that prioritization would be a great place to start. It would help us focus because. Believe me, when sometimes you start looking at stuff and it’s squirrel. It’s like you, you see something else and you end up going in a different direction. Absolutely.

Scott Bahr: I would love to go through that exercise. I think it’s a great place to start and to get, some buy in from other folks about that. And that’ll push us forward and it’ll help. us see the bigger picture and also the longterm, what we need to get done. I think that, and certainly I want to hear everybody else’s thoughts here, but maybe the best way to do this is obviously we can, we know what people are already asking us in conversations from Scott to Mark, to, to Mike, to me, to Christine, to right from an investment standpoint, that data I think is 

Brian Searl: it’s almost can be pulled in some ways from ChatGPT, [00:42:00] right? You can say I’m a group, I’m an investor group coming in here. What are the top 10 data points that I would love to have and what kind of, right? And so that gives us a starting point. But I think there needs to be some kind of round table, like almost a, maybe even a Slack channel we put together, Scott, that has X number of people from different areas and aspects of the industry, who, if we need to, can give us ideas, but two, where you can just pop in a random thought and say, what do you guys think about this?

Is this a good direction to go? And I think maybe that collaboration is going to be as big of a driver to the success of This Is Anything. Absolutely, because really the first rule of research is don’t duplicate what someone else has already done. I talk about this a lot. It’s, if someone else has already done, and that’s where sometimes people get bogged down.

Scott Bahr: It’s like they go in a direction that someone’s already gone. Let’s go in the new direction. Let’s figure out the things that we don’t have first. Which is a lot. We’re, in some ways, lucky? In that regard, that [00:43:00] we can take it in all kinds of directions that don’t exist so far, but also unlucky in that we…

Brian Searl: I have to start almost, not from nothing, but from the great work that KOA has done and build on that. So any thoughts on any of that other stuff, guys? Mike put you, or I didn’t mean to really like put you in focus there, but… Yeah. One of the things that I just keep thinking about as I’m listening is the importance of education across all of this.

Sandy: And I feel like that’s one of the things I’m most excited about AI. is The ability for us to create qualified and credible content using AI. I don’t think AI is 100 percent there, but I think there’s ways of when we’re doing AI, selecting credible sources. Because so much of this depends on, we could build the best reports ever.

And if the person reading the report does not understand what they’re reading, We [00:44:00] failed. And it’s not just educating the campgrounds on why we need this data, but then educating them on what the data actually means, and how do they use it, and how does that, work at their specific park. It was funny, at both the Hershey Show and at the Glamping Show this year, I heard the term glamping.

At the Hershey Show, I probably saw And talk to 50 consumers. A couple of them were people that I call micro content creators and over again, they kept saying, I’m a glamper. I’m a glamper because they were looking at these high end rigs that they were going to buy and they were calling themselves glamper.

That’s the first way I remember us using that term. I’m agler. If I’m camping in an RV now, there’s a whole nother meaning to it. So and I even asked one of the content creators, I said, okay, when you say you’re Agler, are you saying that you’re camping in a rig or are you saying that you’re actually glamping?

And when you go all over the place, you’re staying in a [00:45:00] unit that’s now considered a glamping unit. And she was like. She didn’t even understand what the question I was asking. So as these two ways of camping tend to merge, more campgrounds put in glamping units, I think we’ve got to be very intentional on the language we use and educate people.

So do you, and I agree with you, do you think it’s fair to say Scott That primarily KOA’s research is focused on the camper instead of the campground. Yes, it’s a bottom up approach. It’s absolutely bottom up. I know you asked Scott that question, but, for years, as I’ve been sharing that data with our investors, and clearly we’re not campers, or parks, right?

Mike Harrison: I always preface… This, caveat, disclaimer this data isn’t necessarily our customer, right? Because, now granted as KOA has also shifted to more glamping and some RV, that data will obviously get cleaner but 100%,[00:46:00] that is much more of a camper type, and so you have to be careful.

You have to be careful making your decisions on just one report, right? So we use those three or four reports that come out in aggregate. For example, we were just, not to get sidetracked here but we were just talking about, cable TV. And We, I gotta be careful how much I say here.

Do you need to continue to offer cable TV to your campers in your parks? And we’ve been doing a lot of digging into this and we’ve been looking at research and, depending on which report you look at, the answer is absolutely not. You don’t need to and you can look at another report and is absolutely you better.

And how do you make your decision? And that’s where I think. To everybody’s point in this call, what has value to everybody and, Mike Papp had posted up another comment about, Campspot’s analytics is great, but it’s only in Campspot’s PMS, right?

New book reports are going to be great, but they’re only to the new book user. [00:47:00] And all of these, we just have to be careful. What’s the source of the data? And if Scott’s a researcher I’m sure that’s, always on your mind is, what data are you using to make that decision?

So how do we make sure that, the reports that we’re developing are unified, provide trustworthy information. And I don’t know that we’re even at that point yet, because it’s always going to be jaded and not full and not have all the context because there’s so many segments.

And. It’s segmented right now, but… 

Brian Searl: And Scott and I had that was one of the first things we talked about, right? Scott was transparency, what is the data set, where does it come from? And I know Scott prioritizes that. 

Scott Bahr: Yeah, it’s something that we talk about a lot. And I would invite anyone to, Mike I really hearing you say that because it’s so important for people to read the information through that lens.

It’s very important. And I’m not criticizing anyone in their work. I’m just saying, look at that, look at it through that lens. Who is it that’s being profiled? And sometimes your cable TV answer, I would say [00:48:00] let’s look at, let’s start cutting it by different segments. Who is your guest?

Let’s do some profiling here and to see, is it truly, is that truly the case? Could your dataset be, a lot of state park campers, for example, are probably not going to say they want, cable TV, depends on who you’re, who’s part of your dataset, who that cut is with. So yeah, it’s absolutely important.

And I would just tell everybody to do that, to read and ask a lot of questions, ask. I invite people all the time to ask me questions, and I say the same thing, and I put it out there. It’s please, ask questions. Call them up. Send them emails. Ask them. Have a dialogue with people. You’d be surprised what you might be able to get out of, some of these other data sets that are available, too.

Sandy: aNd I just finished a review of 19 of the property management softwares that are out there. Some of them have been there forever. Some are your main core. Some are the rising stars that I believe are out there that are new, just in the market for the last year in preparation for a couple of the conferences we’re [00:49:00] going to.

And one of the questions I asked them was, If there was a way to agnostically share your reservation data, no customers, just the information about the check in date, the check out date, potentially how far they’ve traveled, some of those kinds, that kind of information, and 15 of the 19 immediately said yes without any kind of further explanation, just a basic question.

So to speak to Mike Papp’s question, yes, I think that the I don’t think they will work together, but I think they will work with an independent company to provide that information. But who is that? So that’s the, maybe that’s the last gap we talked about for the first, for the last couple of minutes, right?

Brian Searl: And obviously some final thoughts, but what is that company? Is that Karen Consulting? Is that Modern Campground? Is that someone else? What does that look like? How do you, there’s, there are four people right now already working on something in the space. I will tell you two of them are people I would not [00:50:00] recommend because I believe there’s conflicts of interest.

Sandy: And two could be interesting, but I think there’s space for some other people. It’s like you said there’s a lot of ways to look and slice and dice the data. I prefer launching the initial part of it with one reputable person. Scott is one that I would absolutely hands down work with.

Brian, I would, I think that there’s, you would be another agnostic portal that we could use. But there are already in process for people, for companies looking to do this. And so that’s, yeah, that’s like ultimately if whatever we can do to help the industry we want to do, but I don’t think that’s our main.

Brian Searl: Yeah, anyway, we could go down, we could keep talking about it. Yeah, and just as an example, I don’t believe that any company that has a property management software, even if they start another company on the side to do it, should be in this space, because I believe there’s a conflict of interest there. I think it should be [00:51:00] somebody who is completely stepped away from the reservation software.

Sandy: I would probably have some problems with some management companies. If they decided they wanted to do that just because you’re getting access to data. that you could then back into assumptions that I believe create a conflict of interest. And what I’m, what I want to do, because I believe this is so important, is remove all those barriers, remove all of that suspicion, so that we have somebody that everyone is willing to work with because they do not see a conflict of interest.

There’s no demon hiding behind the bush kind of thing. 

Brian Searl: See, I almost think that has to be Scott. Like even, you could even say that I have conflicts of interest from the people we do marketing for at Insider Perks, right? So I think that’s really hard to get to that singular person who doesn’t have anything or is completely like I would say I’m trustworthy and I’m not going to use that data, but there’s also always that in the back of your mind, right?

With everybody. Except maybe Scott. 

Sandy: Scott is not one of the four on my [00:52:00] list, but if I had to pick somebody out right now, if you told me I had to give you an answer of somebody I would trust to do this, he would absolutely be at the top of the list. And I don’t think there’s any conflict with what he’s doing for KOA because I also believe that the CEO of KOA Toby O’Rourke at her, at the, her core value is to help our industry as a whole.

Brian Searl: For sure. Yep. 

Sandy: Shares this data with anybody. She’s not keeping it hidden and only available to KOAs. And so you can see, and she’s not charging for it, which she could. She could say, hey, if you’re not a part of KOA, I spend a lot of money on this. You can buy it for 1, 000. She is making it readily available, and I think she would welcome participation by other parks.

There’s no him having KOA as a client, what I’m saying is, I don’t believe that, is a conflict of interest? Yeah, I don’t, and again it’s, you’re never going to get [00:53:00] somebody who you can say doesn’t have any conflict of interest in someone’s mind somewhere. But if you’d still trust that person, they can segment, silo, keep it apart.

Brian Searl: Then I think that’s the ultimate goal. But uh, I feel like Mike and, Mark have been very quiet during this episode, talked a little bit, but not as normally. Yeah, especially Mark, maybe, but. 

Mike Harrison: Wow, I thought I was talking too much. So I started letting everybody else have a conversation. I can talk as long as you want.

Brian Searl: That’s ultimately what we needed this. Go ahead, Sandy. 

Sandy: I was just going to say, and before Christine leaves, but I think she already left. I would love to have a component in there where things could be entered specifically relating to laws. I don’t know. There’s a place we can aggregate that yet, but certainly there are enough Places, or we could have an expert that’s putting the most key things in there so we could add that content in there.

From an educational standpoint and a analytic standpoint 

Mike Harrison: anD a terms and conditions, I [00:54:00] will tell you as a multi-state operator, one of the most frustrating things you do is revise your terms and conditions per state. And clearly every state’s, mobile, home park or residential or tenant laws are all different.

And so that’s definitely another need is what’s the. The national resource that, people can find on that. Not that, that’s a whole nother topic, but anyway. I agree. All right. Final thoughts, guys? Mike, Mark? All I’ll say is Brian, you take on the easy tasks with everything you do. So kudos to you.

Yeah. Stop disappointing us. I’m sorry. With your excellence. It’s not my excellence. I just bring in people like Scott who are excellent and then it just makes me look good. That’s all. Are we doing a, we’re gonna meet for a drink or coffee at OHC? 

Brian Searl: Yeah, I think I, oh, I meant to message Erin the other day I feel like Erin should plan this one.

She should be the party planner. Can she do that? I Was the glamping show [00:55:00] guy and brought everybody together. They’re like four different places. I think it’s on air in this time. Can we put that on air? She’s not, that’s not one of her we all have core strengths, Brian. But you should build a new skill, right?

Every time, like I just posted this on LinkedIn from Alex Formosy, I was sharing it. Like skills are the one thing that will always be valuable, no matter what the situation is, anyway yeah, we’ll find something. We’ll find the time to get together. I’m sure at RVIC. And I definitely want to, I think this is the core, right?

And then we’re going to go a few minutes over, so that’s okay. If anybody needs to drop off, but I think that’s. The core thing here is we need to get a Slack channel going. We need to curate like a, and I hate curating in some capacities because it almost makes it feel like we’re excluding people by including people.

But I think there’s an opportunity here for Scott and I to put our heads together and say here’s a list of 10 or 20 people that we feel like are from different aspects of the industry. And maybe somebody from KOA and somebody from Jellystone and somebody from a couple management groups and somebody from, Mark from [00:56:00] Campground Views or whatever Sandy from the RV industry side of things and just…

Here’s a very robust resource that we can go to, that even if that group of people doesn’t know something, they have the ability to reach out to somebody who does, and then can say, this is a good direction or bad direction, here’s why we think we can get this data here and not here, and I think that collaboration would certainly be way more interesting than just me and Scott on the call.

Scott? 

Scott Bahr: It would, even though our calls are very interesting, it would still be 

Sandy: aNd what I found with the innovator team, which is you have to be invited to be on the innovator team, is that it challenges people to, to innovate because they want to be on the team here. What’s the innovator team?

Brian Searl: How am I not on the innovator team? Oh your name has absolutely been mentioned, but primarily right now, it is, it’s a 12 member team right now, and 10 of those are people from other sectors other than campgrounds, and only two are from [00:57:00] our campground industry, because it is a holistic approach.

It’s fine. Like I said, I’m not an innovator. I just pull people together who innovate. 

Sandy: Oh, no, I think you’re, I think you’re on the cutting edge of everything, Brian. You’re always the first one to step off the cliff and test everything out for us. You’re not cutting edge, you’re bleeding edge. Okay. But I do feel like sometimes not inviting everybody.

Causes everybody else to rise up. And and you rotate it every year and you give different people, different opportunities. 

Brian Searl: That’s actually a really good idea is rotating it. I actually like that. That’s actually. Okay. All right. Does anybody have any final thoughts before we go? We’re a couple minutes over.

Scott Bahr: Think we have a lot to digest. 

Sandy: I think we can’t wait to see.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Yeah. We to talk. I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve marginalized Christine a little bit and didn’t include her in the conversation as much as I could. Even though she probably won’t hear this, I apologize to her but we gotta figure a way, 

Mike Harrison: you never know. It was a good discussion. Thank you. 

Brian Searl: Thank [00:58:00] you guys. I appreciate you for joining us on another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Looking forward to all the work we’re going to do with Scott. Looking forward to seeing all you guys at OHC, I think, next week and then I’ll be at KOA and then another show in Ontario.

It’s going to be a fun month for me. But thank you guys. Appreciate you. And we will see you next week. We’re going to do the show live from RVIC, actually from RVIC’s booth. And we should announce this. I don’t even know if you know this, Mike, cause you’re going to be a special guest, right? Mark’s not going?

Mark Koep: I won’t be there. 

Brian Searl: I think we’re going to, we’re going to do the show at a special time next week at 6. 30 central time at night during the trade show from RVIC’s booth is what we’re working on. So it’ll be an interesting kind of discussion and we’re going to move it from the typical afternoon show slot.

And we’re going to see how it.

Mike Harrison: The last email said. Fun week. Yeah, I know, that’s not what the last email said. This literally was happening this morning, an email. 

Sandy: I think it would definitely be fun to include some of the people that are actually attending like we did at the Glamping Show because that added a [00:59:00] huge aspect to that particular episode I loved it. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, for sure. I would do all of them live if I could, alright, let’s get out of here. See you guys later. Bye. 

[01:00:00]