MC Fireside Chats – September 10th, 2025

Zach Stoltenberg: Hello everybody. My name is Zach Stoltenberg and welcome to this week of MC Fireside Chats. If you’re here, you’re regular listener, you’re probably looking for Brian. Brian is out. He had a conflict this week, so he asked me if I would take the reins and guest host the podcast. This this is our monthly glamping podcast where we have a chance to visit with some guests, some unique properties and owners, and really featured Spotlight, what they do in the part of the world where they are.

We’ve got a couple of really awesome guests lined up for this week’s show. I’m glad Brian picked you guys for me to be able to guest host, ’cause I’ve had a chance to review what you’re doing and I love what I see. So I can’t wait to get into it. So to start off the podcast, we’re gonna do a quick round of introductions.

We’ll start with Kelly. Tell us who you are and what you do. 

Kelly Jones: Hi, I am Kelly Jones and I’m the Vice President of Operations for Great Escapes RV Resorts. We have 17 properties that we own and operate, and three that we do managing for. And I am coming to you from the Portland, Maine Airport. I will be muted unless there’s a specific question coming towards me.

But happy to be here and excited to talk with Dawn and Chang, and Jayne. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Jayne, you wanna go next? 

Jayne Cohen: Sure. I’m Jayne Cohen and I am from Campground Consulting Group and our sister company is Glamping Consulting Group and I am on these podcasts a few times and enjoy being here with everyone and looking forward to today’s discussion.

Zach Stoltenberg: And then Dawn. 

Dawn Farnworth: Hi Chrisa, welcome to Wales. My name’s Dawn and I run by the wife with my partner Steve. Yeah, small glampsite in Hay-on-Wye, Wales in the UK. 

Chang Liang: Hello everyone. My name is Chang. I am the managing partner here at Collective Acre. We have two glamping resorts in Texas and we are also in the land entitlement and development space in Texas.

Zach Stoltenberg: Awesome. To start off we always do just the general, what’s new in your world? What are some things that you’ve seen in the last couple weeks, last month? Something that’s a buzz in the world of glamping, in outdoor hospitality. Anybody have anything that they wanna share?

Dawn Farnworth: Over here in Wales, there’s a bit of a push now for people to escape the tech world. So it’s going down experiences and switching off your wifi and trying to get away from it all. That seems to be getting quite a lot of momentum. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, and I think we’ve seen some of that even in the state side as well.

Particular brands specifically have made that a big part of their guest experience or even just giving guests the option, that you it’s here, it’s available if you want it, but if you want the blackout, you want the total disconnect, we’ll offer that. And a couple of very well known brands have built their brand specifically around that concept. So yeah, definitely a buzz.

The other thing that’s big in the US right now, of course we’re gearing up and I think in the UK, Dawn, for you guys, it’s about the same time as we’re heading into the Glamping Show in this next month. I think this is our last glamping podcast before we’ll do the live podcast at the Glamping show.

I and I think the UK glamping show is like the week before or the week after the US show. I think they’re around the same time. 

Dawn Farnworth: I think ours is the 18th maybe. Yeah. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Chang are you coming to the US Glamping show out in Arapaho? 

Chang Liang: I don’t think I’ll be able to make it this year. I made it in the past. It was great. Met some incredible people but this year might not be able to make it. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Jayne, I assume I’ll see you. 

Jayne Cohen: Actually, I’m not gonna be there, but two of my associates are gonna be there. Yeah. So yeah I actually am gonna be Camping myself or glamping in my Airstream, Atlas van. Just depends what you call it. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Sure. 

Jayne Cohen: I am actually doing a Harvest host on this trip. I’m trying Harvest host, so 

Chang Liang: Oh, awesome. 

Jayne Cohen: Something different. Yes. 

Zach Stoltenberg: And Kelly, are you gonna make it to any of the shows this year? 

Kelly Jones: So I won’t be at the Glamping Show, but I will be at the Jellystone Park Symposium. I will be at OHI, I will be at the KOA conference and I will be at COE. Plenty of.

Zach Stoltenberg: Oh, I’ll see you 

Kelly Jones: places. 

Zach Stoltenberg: I’ll see you at KOA and COE. 

Kelly Jones: Yes. And then mix in the the Gatlinburg Smokey Mountain Gift Show and the Las Vegas Souvenir and Gift Show. My, my plate is pretty full from here on till Christmas, it feels. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, I think, we’re gearing up. I’ve got I, I’ve got my first show next week. That’s the, an outdoor conference for summer camp directors. And from there until, I think mid-November it’s some trip trade shows, something almost every single week. So we’re gonna be real busy over these next two months.

Alright. I want to start the main discussions or get to a couple of the resorts. Dawn, I really wanna, wanna start with you? If you want to take just a few moments and tell us about By the Wye. 

Dawn Farnworth: Okay. So we set up during lockdown, oddly enough, it was a bit of a COVID project over here.

Our planning permission came through the end of 2019. So we started the bills. We weren’t gonna build them all. That wasn’t the initial plan, but as it turned out, that’s what we had to do. ’cause everything was in lockdown. Yeah, we just cracked on and got them all up. Didn’t know if anybody would come or not.

And the laws over here were really weird between Wales and England, so we could be open and then they closed us and then we could be open anyway. The diggers moved out on the Thursday and our first guest came in on the Friday. And for the first season we were just completely full. We put five tents up.

It’s in a woodland, 10 acres of woodland, fully sustainable, even down to the footprint. We’ve used ground screws and they’re all the tents are lifted up off the ground, so we’re about 14 to 15 feet in the air. So it puts people in the tree canopy, which is a different, completely different aspect.

And it’s just a nature based getaway from it sort of thing. We are right on the banks of a river, so we get an awful lot of wildlife and awful lot of goods and we’ve put a lot of stuff into encourage all of that as well. There’s lots of stuff for insects and we do bug making courses and all sorts of stuff.

And because of the river, we get a whole host of things going up and down the river, so we get otters and kingfishes and yeah, just lots of native breeds. It’s a family run business my partner Steve built it. From the ground up. Literally used to be a builder. So the tents, we have clear sky safari tents.

So we basically bought the tent in kit form and my partner built the platforms and we put the tents up and we chose not to use conventional interiors. So we’ve built the beds and all the furniture. We use the wood from our woods in order to do that. We’re very fortunate. We’ve got a saw, a chat with a wood-mizer saw.

I dunno if that makes sense. But when our trees come down, if we have ash die back over here. Instead of just using them and burning them as the logs, we turned a lot of it into furniture. And for the beds, we use the center of the oak trees. So it’s called heart oak. So it’s really strong.

And it’s dead. Yeah. So as the branches fall off, we collect it and then clean up and turn it into things. So all the interiors, although it is similar, they’re all a little bit different. Yeah. And we’ve fully sustainable what we’ve done doesn’t affect the local housing stock, which is a bit of an issue for holiday homes and self-catering accommodation in the UK.

And yeah fully eco-friendly. Yeah. We have no electricity, no wifi, it’s run off solar. Yeah. That sense really. No, 

Zach Stoltenberg: I’m sharing the photos from your website. It absolutely looks stunning. One, one question I had was, with this sort of this elevated deck platform, the approach you took, it’s a tent. It’s a tree house. It’s doing the best things of both worlds. How much of that is part of kind of the experience that you were trying to create and how much of that ties back into the guests that you’re trying to attract? 

Dawn Farnworth: So the difference I feel with being in the tents, ’cause we actually live in one of these now as well. You just feel like you are in the woods so you can hear the rain and it’s intense or intensified by the roof and the structure itself. 

Zach Stoltenberg: It’s in-tents. Literally. 

Dawn Farnworth: Yes, it literally, but 

Zach Stoltenberg: I’ve made my dad joke of the day. 

Dawn Farnworth: You get to hear, the foxes howl in the owls hooting, you literally get to hear everything. So it’s unlike a conventional building where a lot of that sound is muffled. And we do tell the guests, please don’t be afraid of anything you hear because there is nothing down here that’ll harm you, but that you are living in their space. So you are going to hear all of the rustling and all of the noises that they make.

And we try to explain what’s going on. So they a lot of our guests come from city from staff. We get a few international visitors now, but most people that come here tend to live in a concrete jungle. And this is a completely alien environment. Yeah, when it gets dark, it gets really dark.

Zach Stoltenberg: But I think you’re also, you’re really doing a good job of balancing the rustic Camping connected to nature with still maintaining some really high-end kind of boutique amenities and features. These units all have full-on suite bathrooms, right?

Dawn Farnworth: Yeah.

Zach Stoltenberg: You’ve got kitchens, you’ve got, beautiful outdoor space.

Dawn Farnworth: Yeah. That’s important because I don’t know what it’s like over there in the US but usually glamping over here, when people said glamping in Wales, it was a muddy tent in the wet in a field. And that’s not what glamping can be. It can be high-end, it can be luxury. And that’s what we set out to prove.

So the bathrooms are absolutely fabulous. They’re, you and we are connected to Maine’s water, so there’s unlimited hot water, proper flushing toilets. And we found a lot of the guests, although they like the idea of it, sometimes the practicalities can put them off. So if you give them a hotel experience, but in a tent, then they keep coming back because mom’s happy.

She’s got everything she needs. The downside is we don’t have standard electricity, so there’s nowhere for the cooling tongs or the hair dryer. And that can be a bit of a throwback.

Zach Stoltenberg: No I think that this is striking a really nice balance of providing some of this creature comforts to make sure that you do have a, an enjoyable stay, right? 

But balancing that with still, this is not a hotel, we are Camping, we are in nature. We’re still staying in a tent.

The other thing that I noticed on your website that I want you to share a little bit more about is what you call hampers. Can you explain what a hamper is? 

Dawn Farnworth: The hampers a hampers, they’re just a basket of. It can be food, it can be alcohol, chocolates, it can be anything like that.

So first off, the first hamper that they will get is in their tent. On arrival you get a handful of local produce, so there’s local coffee in there. There’s tea, there’s handmade local chocolates. There’s Welsh cakes, which is a cultural thing for Wales. For people that have never been here before.

They get to taste all of that and socks because we don’t have carpet in the tent, so we give people socks. It’s better than a bottle of wine because every time they put the socks on, they remember where they got them, and people will come back and collect them because we change them all the time. And then that is given to them free.

It’s included in their stay, and that’s very important. People like to have something that they weren’t expecting. And that helps to build that relationship with your guest. And then on top of that, before they arrive, they can purchase like the add-ons or the hampers. So there’s a barbecue hamper, which has local meat from the, we’ve got two butchers in town, local vegetables from the veg shop.

Everything is sourced locally for the hampers because it’s important to share the love. And the more we share with the town that we live in, the more they share with us. And they will recommend us and they will help with the advertising and the marketing. ’cause we always get involved in all of that.

And we can do celebration hampers. So there’s a box of handmade chocolates and a bottle of champagne and we decorate the tents and that all comes in a hamper. Yeah. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, I think it’s a great approach. And I’m curious, I want to hear from Kelly and Jayne. What are your thoughts on how Dawn’s approach?

’cause FnB is huge for outdoor hospitality. I think most operators that we work with shoot to, to pull, somewhere between 10 and 20% of their total revenues from some of those add-ons. Those ancillary, whether it’s an experience or partnership or FnB on-site. And I think for a lot of established glamping operators, this sometimes can be a struggle, right?

What, how do I approach this where it’s not taking a bunch of staffing, it’s not requiring a bunch of additional, licenses or commercial kitchen. I’m anxious to hear from you guys. What are some of your thoughts on the approach that Dawn has taken at Hay-on-the-Wye 

Kelly Jones: Yeah. So one of the, I think, relatively unique, add-ons that we offer that you don’t need any special kitchens for anything like that. We actually do what we call barkuterie boards, and it is essentially a charcuterie board for dogs. So it’s, watermelon and dog treats and a peanut butter and all of those things on a cute little thing.

We have guests that have two dogs and they each get their own  barkuterie board. So add-ons can be more than just, keep in mind that a lot of people are traveling with pets and if you allow ’em at your facility, it’s a quick, easy way not to need any additional FnB licenses. And a fun, fun little add-on.

We also do fun in the sun packages. So all of our facilities have pools. It includes a, a beach towel in sunglasses and a sustainable water bottle. So that mom and dad don’t have to pack beach towels and all of those types of things. It doesn’t just have to be in that food and bev area, although we offer that as well. Just the sky’s really the limit as to what you can add on to any of these units. 

Dawn Farnworth: I really like the idea of the fun in the sun. I might have to steal that. 

Zach Stoltenberg: because Dawn you guys have your riverfront, right? 

Dawn Farnworth: We have the river. We are right on the river Wye, but that is just a, that is a very, that would be a cool hamper for the kids. For the little ones. Yeah. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Don, you mentioned kids. Who is your main kind of guest? Who do you guys cater to the most? Is it couples? Is it families and kids? And what brings them to By the Wye. 

Dawn Farnworth: So we have one couple’s tent, the romantic tent, we call it the baby maker. And if people come back with their baby, they get a 10% discount.

So it’s got a private sauna and it is literally just for couples. They have their own private access to the beach and it’s set quite away from the other four tents. So they’re completely on their own, can’t be disturbed. And then the four down the bottom are family tents. So during school holidays weekends it’s full of families mostly.

And then outside of the holiday period, then we quite often get couples. We get quite a lot of fishermen because we’re right on the river. So it can be difficult to manage if you are having families and couples at the same time. So we tend to organize who’s coming into what tent accordingly. We’ve got two tents that are connected.

So if we have two families, then we, they go in there. So that, that makes their holiday better for them, because the last thing you wanna do is people to go away feeling like they’ve missed out on something or something was spoiled by something. So we try and engineer it beforehand to make it work for everybody.

Zach Stoltenberg: And are your four family tents, are they all kind of identical units? 

Dawn Farnworth: They’re similar, but they’re not the same. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Similar.

Dawn Farnworth: Yeah.

Zach Stoltenberg: So, when someone books with you, do they book a particular unit or do they book just a type of unit and then you can put them, if you need to swap or move someone, like they don’t know until they show up which unit is theirs?

Dawn Farnworth: No, they book a particular tent. But say for example, we have two families in and they don’t book the connected ones. Then I just, and those connected ones are free, then I will just give them a ring and say, look, I appreciate you’ve booked Holly and Meadow, but ideally Ivy and Meadow would work better because they’re connected. Are you happy for me to swap you because your experience will be better.

And nine and a half times outta 10 people are very grateful for that. And you start to build that relationship, yeah, we guide them, but on our website it says the one on its own or the one for groups or, and it gives people a clear indication of what the tents are and who they would better suit.

Zach Stoltenberg: Awesome. I want to transition a little bit. ’cause Chang you’re over there, you’re quiet. I wanna hear some of your thoughts on some of these issues as well. So I know you have two sites and you have a really diverse range of units and unit types. But do you see similar things like with, with groups or extended family? Do you guys, have you taken a similar approach? 

Chang Liang: Yeah I think at, we, we have two resorts, glamping resorts. One is Moon River Ranch, and the second is Camp QYB. And I think looking at where our business segment is, a lot of it is around the family type of stays.

But I think what we found the most is we actually wanted to target more events, so corporate parties as well as the wedding types. And so as such they really just, our experience has been, especially at the corporate space, is how many beds do we have for, and how much privacy do we have for this entire group.

So we’ve been really building our resorts based on the customer’s demands. In terms of the individual lodgings, we get a mix of families, more so families than the couples. But we do have a few lodging stays for just the couples, but really everything around us is a big push for the corporate events.

Zach Stoltenberg: And you guys do weddings as well?

Chang Liang: We do weddings as well. Weddings come to us quite frequently to the point where we actually just invested into a second a secondary venue space because we’re constantly booked out for weddings. And what we found out is the wedding venue spaces aren’t necessarily the best match for corporate spaces.

Corporates tend to want a little bit more breakout rooms, smaller group settings with one or two sessions as whole group. Whereas the weddings, they really want everything all in one kind of area, one setting. So that’s why we have to make some investments here. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about Moon River Ranch. We’ll start with Moon River. 

Chang Liang: Yeah, let’s do it. So Moon River Ranch is a 550 acre, this safari animal theme glamping resort. And really one of our partners he loves his animals. He’s an immigrant from Jordan. And so instead of taking his family back to, to Jordan to see the safari.

Built this entire experience in Waco, Texas to really just house his animals. And then I think over time we wanted to share this experience with more people, more guests, and that’s why we made it more public into allowing individual. Bookings with activities and really bring this whole experience together.

So the theme really surrounds the animal safari theme. We have 550 acres. About 400 acres is what we call the land reserve, and that’s where our 600, 650 wild animals is roam free. Where also, if you look at the maps we’re surrounded by the Brazos River, so we, it also creates like a natural enclosure for the animals to stay all in one place.

We have automated feeders and we have our team filling up the feeders so the animals just know where to get food and all of that good stuff. We have an experience where we take the hum the humvee ATVs where we take our guests along safari to interact and see the animals feed, feed them and all of that.

Biggest revenue drivers or, our corporate events, weddings, individual lodgings, our experiences, and I mentioned recently that we are investing in neo venue space. And as such we’re actually building a commercial kitchen in the back to partner with a local catering company to take the catering in-house for our events as well.

Zach Stoltenberg: Awesome.

Chang Liang: Yeah. So that’s the ranch. Do you want me to talk a little bit about Camp QYB as well? 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, sure. I’ve got that one pulled up here too. 

Chang Liang: So Camp QYB is our second resort near DFW. This is a lakefront about 40 acres or so. And this is really our testing ground to test a whole bunch of different unique lodging types.

We have our family cabins. These are site-built homes four queen-sized beds. They’re like two bedrooms with a loft. We have four queen-sized beds. It fits about eight people comfortably. And we could push up to 10. And we have the wagons, wagons have most of ’em iss, like one bunk and a and a full, so sleeps about three to four with a full-sized bath.

And then we just launched the area of 51 vessels right along the lakefront. We launched 10 of them. And these are great for either couples or small families. Most of them are like the studio kind of setting. And then some of them will have a little bit more accommodations, like a bunk bed and a full underneath and then a pullout couch.

And then we also, this. This one particularly. We also have about 50 RV sites, and we plan to expand the RV sites a little bit more. The idea really is to have folks bring their trailer to, to glamp and also have accommodations with those who don’t have a trailer. We also have our full events functions here as well as a food and beverage business as well.

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, this looks like a massive side. I know you, you had, you said 500 acres at the animal safari. How big is Camp QYB? 

Chang Liang: This one is about 40 acres, and we have roughly close to a mile of lake frontage here.

Zach Stoltenberg: And this is in Waco? Correct?

Chang Liang: This one is north of DFW. It’s about one hour north at a lake called Lake Bridgeport.

Zach Stoltenberg: Okay. And then is. It must be Moon Rivers at Waco?

Chang Liang: Correct.

Zach Stoltenberg: Okay. Awesome. A couple of questions I guess for you. What are the things, obviously having wild animals and having this safari is something that’s a huge differentiator something that makes you very unique.

What are some of those guest experiences that you’ve built around that sort of uniqueness? 

Chang Liang: Yeah, I would say beyond the animals, like just being in the setting in this area, it’s just really serene and relaxing and you really feel like you’re not in Texas anymore. The experience that we’re really trying to build is, you. Waco is a very strategic location for us because it’s really the midpoint between three major Metroplexes and DFW Houston and also Austin.

So we do notice a lot of family gatherings, a lot of weddings, and a lot of corporate parties from, all three major cities coming into Waco itself. And a lot of what we, what our guest tells us that they love is they, especially corporate, they’re, they’re over the Hiltons, the Marriotts, the, the four boxes in like a nice hotel.

Catering is almost similar food. And there’s really not that much activities for them to explore and do. And we have this package at the ranch. It’s called a full ranch takeover, where the entire company comes over and take over the entire 550 acre ranch. They are there by themselves.

They have, all the lodgings, they have all of our ATVs. They have access to all of our activities from skeet shooting bow and arrows axe throwing. We also have a kayak experience along the Brazos River. So just having all these amenities and things to do and just capture attention in this one space.

What is really attractive to our corporate and our wedding parties. And in addition to that, we also have enough accommodations to house most people. So for the ranch, we could sleep up to 150 people. And because we have a lot of land, what we notice is folks who are, who groups who need like 200 beds, they just start to bring their RVs, they will going outdoors and start renting RVs to bring it to us and really create this really fun and close-knit atmosphere for the entire team. So that’s a draw.

Secondly, like the individual lodgings and all of that families love to bring their kids to explore and see the animals and interact with the animals. They love staying in their tiny homes. They are very they’re small, efficient but they fit like a family of four or five.

And again, just having the activities there just helps so much, right? Like when you have skeet shooting, when you have an animal safari tour in the morning and you have skeet shooting in the evening, you have axe throwing, bike rides. And we also have this like luxury glamping picnic experience where we drive one of those Humvees in an elevator space inside the animal enclosures, we set up one of those super luxury picnics and we have a couple, or like a family of four, just, having high tea and desserts and middle of Waco with the serene surroundings with the animals around them. I, I think Waco it sells itself once people start to see the entire experience.

And, honestly, one of our struggle is really telling the full story of what we offer, what we have in just like a website or social media. It’s one of those things where when you get there and you see it you get it a lot more than what on the websites. 

Zach Stoltenberg: So how key do you think that has been?

‘Cause I, one of the things you mentioned is, we we take care of everything, right? It’s your food, it’s your accommodations, it’s your meeting room, it’s your space. And Dawn you’re taking the same approach by the why, where once that guest arrives, you’re taking care of everything that they need while they’re there.

So I’m, I’d be interested to hear from both of you on, on, is that it, do you see that’s becoming more important in glamping versus, we talked about it earlier, right? Like more of a paired down approach where some people are just saying, look, hands off like primitive, no wifi, no televisions, no, none of this stuff I think both can be successful in the world of outdoor hospitality, but I’m interested to hear how that, whole beginning to end package deal approach is working.

Dawn Farnworth: Yeah, I think certainly over here in the UK it’s what more and more people are looking for and they’re moving away from hotels and Airbnbs because of the impersonality of it. Whereas if they come here to By the Wye then they can share our passion, and we are on, we live on site. Obviously it’s easier to manage because we’re such a small site.

But if there’s anything they need, then we can get it for them. We meet them when they arrive. They have to put all their luggage into a wheelbarrow and take it on down ’cause there’s no cars or anything on site. So the experience starts when they leave the car. And then if we give them a brief rundown of the town and where they can walk and where they can canoe and where they can bike ride and all of that.

So by the time they get to the tent, they’ve calmed down and get in over their excitement and on arrival. And I’m beginning to listen and to understand what you’re telling them. And then you run through the tent and how the fires work and how the fire pits work and how the sauna works and all of that.

And then at the end of it, it’s is there anything at all that you need? Is there anything you wanna ask me? And we are here, ring me if you need anything at all. We will come. And I think that’s important that they know that you are there. On check-in days we go down in the evening, we make sure they’ve got the, this time of year now we, they need to have their wood burners going.

So make sure they’ve got their fires lit, they haven’t, then we’ll light it for them. Run through, make sure they’ve settled in. Okay. And then the follow up tomorrow morning we’ll go down, make sure they made it through the night and everything’s okay. And I think more and more over here, they, people want that personal touch.

They want to build a relationship with you, they wanna understand your story and they wanna be a part of that as well, which is really, yeah, it’s nice, it’s good and it’s nice to see them happy and enjoying it. And if they take back a little bit of the eco or some of the ideas that they’ve seen or that we’ve done for them, then it’s a win-win, isn’t it?

Zach Stoltenberg: Chang, I’m curious because for Dawn, you have what, six tenths? 

Dawn Farnworth: Yeah. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah. Six tenths on property. Very small boutique, very personable, owner on site. But in what I read and researching, some of your properties. People look at Camp QYB as their home away from home. So you guys are doing something right to, to port that same personal touch up to a much larger site, much higher unit count, and a much more kind of corporate model.

Can you talk about what you guys are doing with that to maintain that? 

Chang Liang: Yeah, so we’re definitely leaning a little bit more on the glamping side of the industry and the business. How we keep things personable is one, we also have staff that live on site. So at the camp, our GM lives on site.

Our our main housekeeping lives maybe like a few minutes away. So there’s always that personal touch. When folks are coming in, checking in our GM rides around in her golf cart all the time to just check their guests and speak to them and talk to them. The other things that we do is we even have a personalized kind of, we lean on technology a lot to personalize the experience for them, right? Our Guesty app that we use to manage our lodging gets connected to our TV app where when someone books a lodging and they check in, our TV will automatically, welcome them, like a general hotel welcome Chang to Moon River Ranch, share some activities, here are things to do, et cetera, et cetera.

And we always try to build an experience for our guests even before they come. What we notice is in our business our resorts aren’t like, right next to the city, they’re like an hour away, maybe hour and a half away. So it’s like, how can you take care of their experience so that they could just come and relax and not have to think through a lot of that, right?

It’s like we package even our activities at Moon River Ranch. We package our activities so that it’s like we’re one, we’re giving you a deal when you’re booking a few experiences and a few excursions all at once, rather than picking one or the other. We have a silver, a gold and like a platinum package that you could kind of book and curate.

We also offer like during special holidays like Valentine’s Day. We know that Valentine’s Day we probably will get more couples coming in more so than families. And we offer like a rose petal on bed, rose on the side type of, experience for them to pre-book ahead of time, ahead of schedule.

And once we, once our guests are at our locations, we have to capture attention, and most of them are so relaxed in the setting that they really don’t even want to move away from this, general vicinity. So having all of their equipment, food, and beverage all in one place for them just helps them tremendously.

And for guests that stays with us, we give them, discounts along the way as well to give them a better bargain for their for their buck.

Zach Stoltenberg: Can I ask Kelly and Jayne, I wanna hear your perspectives too, but go ahead, Dawn. 

Dawn Farnworth: Oh, I was just gonna ask Chang, do you feel over there that the experience side of it is just as important?

Do you find that your guests are looking for more than just somewhere to stay for a couple of days? They want to feel a part

Chang Liang: Absolutely.

Dawn Farnworth: Of what you are trying to do. 

Chang Liang: Absolutely. Like they wanna hear the story, they want to know our story. And they’re always looking for that human interaction almost. It helps us a lot. 

Dawn Farnworth: Yeah.

Zach Stoltenberg: Kelly or Jayne, do you wanna weigh in?

Jayne Cohen: This is Jayne. I think experience is so important and I believe that it’s becoming more important in the outdoor hospitality industry in the sense that, and I think that it’s all about the authentic experience and, in fact yesterday Kelly and I were in a meeting yesterday where we were talking about this.

I actually was speaking on, on guest services and the experience hospitality era that we’re in right now. And folks want something that is real unique. I love Dawn and listen, listening to you just now, I just love how you go above and beyond in, it’s not about exceeding. It’s not about meeting, it’s about exceeding their expectations when they get there.

And I love that because those are all moments of truth with your guests and moments of wow. And that’s what makes them repeat and refer and building up a repeat and referral base is how hospitality businesses become successful.

And and in the same way that Chang has a very unique experience especially at your park in Waco, I believe it is that you have the safari and I have actually, as you folks have been talking, I’ve been going to your websites and looking at them and like Chang in your, you are so unique.

And to find that in Texas, I don’t think I know. I didn’t know that was there and I don’t think I know of a another one. So somehow we gotta really get that word out on that. But that experience, 

Zach Stoltenberg: I know of one other one in Texas.

Jayne Cohen: Of one other, but I know one other knowing that that you can go there and have a Texan safari and to just stay so unique. It’s so unique. And to say, and to just try to put that uniqueness on steroids, right? Everything about it, about that experience. Make it about that. I think that folks will go crazy for that. 

Dawn Farnworth: I think it’s fabulous. And the thing is, you’re making memories and that’s the important thing, isn’t it?

Jayne Cohen: Yes.

Dawn Farnworth: People don’t forget that. And it’s oh, remember when we saw the zebras and just that would draw them back time and time again. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Yes. Dawn, you’re getting zebras, right? 

Dawn Farnworth: Yeah. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Zebras by the Wye. 

Dawn Farnworth: We don’t have those. No, we have otters and kingfishers. Yeah. I wish we did have zebra. 

Zach Stoltenberg: So I wanna go back to something Chang that you mentioned earlier.

Yeah. Because I think it plays into this idea right. Of, of that personalized focus on guest and guest experience. You mentioned a tool that you guys use. Was it Guesty? 

Chang Liang: Yeah. We use Guesty and we use NewBook for our operations. And it’s probably not the most methodical approach, but I think our technology stack approach has been finding the best of that specific use case and finding a way for us to connect that experience for people.

So I think what I notice from time to time is sometimes operators will just use like NewBook and they’ll use NewBook for guests for their lodging, for their activities, for their add-ons, for their events. And I think that approach has, might work for some folks.

But for our company we like to use the best of that particular segment. So like our events, we use perfect venue, our lodging, we use NewBook and we use Guesty for automation of emails. We use Breville and we just have a bunch of technology stack that kind of are glued in together and that talks to one another in the systems to create that seamless experience for our guests.

And then, and we sprinkle in the human factors as well. So it’s not just all technology kind of controlling our backend. 

Zach Stoltenberg: No. And I, I think that’s the important thing. And I’d love to hear more about what you’re using for each of those different softwares or different tech platforms.

What are you using it for? Like how does that, because ultimately that personalized guest experience, like you said, it, it takes a person and a large reason that a lot of folks are staying with Dawn, By the Wye, is Dawn. It’s building that relationship that she has with her guests. They know her.

They’re, she’s part of the reason that they’re coming back. And I think you’ve proven that. You’ve successfully done the same thing on a much larger scale. And where that human element sometimes can be really difficult to make it feel real, to make it feel authentic or to invest in that, to have, a staff of 40 or 50 people running around.

Which also is not always sustainable. So tell us a little bit about how you’re using some of those specific tools to replace that and the parts that you’re looking at saying that there’s no replacement for that, like that still needs to be a person. 

Chang Liang: Yeah. I would say when we look into the customer journey cycle, right?

For us mainly there’s the event side and then there is the lodging side, and then there’s really the activity side. For lodging in the past, what we noticed is there are a lot of people who call in to just book a place. And I think when we have scale it, that takes a lot of bandwidth from our folks our staff.

So what we did was, it wasn’t like, Hey, we’re not gonna pick up the calls and help them book is like, Hey, if it’s a task that is just booking related, we now have a team in in, in abroad to help us with that. There are a lot of virtual assistant services that helps go through these things, right?

So like instead of having two front front office staff that’s always just on the phone at all times. Now we could have five of these abroad and at the hours of even from 8:00 AM all the way to midnight. So having a team of well-trained virtual assistants that could help along that process has been pretty helpful for us.

Second is just having that technology stack and understanding the customer journey, right? Like we have and how do we leverage our customer data so that we could get them to come back, not for just a lodging state, but maybe for an event. Maybe they stayed at one of our RVs Airstreams this time, but they really should try out our cabins or our vessel homes.

So it’s creating this cycle of Hey, you came to us before and you stayed at the cabins, and here are the activities that you booked and here’s the food that you’ve purchased. Now how do we use our technology to let us know what is the best experience for you when you come back? So we could build that for you so we could automate that and promote and push that case, like personalized package to you and your family so that you could come back.

And then to answer that question of the human interaction with the technology part is it’s, it is really a test and trial for us still, right? We’ve we’re trying new things. We react back to our customer’s experiences and their feedback. When they talk to us, we we give an audit our virtual assistants team to evaluate their metrics on customer service, customer satisfaction.

And then when they’re in person, it’s like, how do you take the experience of virtual into, in-person and truly we’re still trying to figure that out right now, right? There are some times where there isn’t a, like a smooth transition and our GM will have to step in and smooth things out.

So I personally still don’t think we have the best solutions as yet. But we’re learning and we’re progressing and we’re trying to match the both worlds together. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Dawn, I’m curious, what is the most technological thing that you guys have for your operation? 

Dawn Farnworth: Oh we have a digital guidebook.

Zach Stoltenberg: Okay.

Dawn Farnworth: So when, so we used tech before people arrive, and we used tech after they leave to get all the feedback and all the rest of that. And then we had, due to COVID, we had to pivot a bit and it was we had to involve some tech, so we went with a digital guidebook. And so it gives them the interiors of their tents and they get it about a week before they arrive.

And in there is everything about the area, everything that they can book to do while they’re here, all those links that they need. Everything about town, how to make the Woodburn ev, all the information that we think they need is in that digital guidebook. And that’s probably the most techie thing.

Yeah. And then the minute they arrive, that’s it, the tech stops and the teenagers get really upset ’cause there’s no wifi password and they have to kick a football around or they have to go fishing or they have to play, God forbid. 

Zach Stoltenberg: So I’m curious too. ‘Cause I think, chang mentioned something earlier. And Jayne, I’d be interested in hearing your, you your thoughts and perspective on this.

The idea of using tech for guest retention and return. So Chang obviously, they’re looking at that whole stay. What did they do? What did they book, what did they buy to all, optimize the data that they have about that guest to then craft a custom come back and see us, we already know all the things you liked based on what you did last time and crafting that tailored experience to get someone to come back out and stay.

And Dawn, I think you’re probably doing something similar. ’cause I know you’ve got repeat guests. You’re doing something right that those people are coming back to. I love the idea of socks, by the way. That’s Oh, so I think that’s, no I think that’s gonna be like a new secret sauce that I share with some of the clients and customers I work with. I think Brilliant idea. Chang you need socks. 

Dawn Farnworth: Socks, yeah. It’s a freebie and they remember it and Yeah. Then you keep changing it. So they have to keep coming back to get different ones. And we do blogs and things and sometimes it is, it’s oh, we’ve changed the socks or, so we don’t have the tech, or Yeah.

Haven’t got the tech to narrow, to nail our customers down to know what they did and what we need to do. But we do blogs and things and we tell ’em what’s happening in the area, or you might be interested in this festival or that.

Zach Stoltenberg: Jayne?

Jayne Cohen: Sorry about that. I keep my my mute on because my two assistants are two small chihuahuas and sometimes they get a little noisy. I believe in tech. I really do, and I’m a, I’m a data person, so I love data. I think the data doesn’t lie. And if you can cut use tech to help your further responses with a guest, that’s wonderful because to them you are really just being thoughtful.

As to what their likes or dislikes are or so forth. Like even just when people leave, sending a goodbye email, right? I think that’s so important. Just as when people are coming, sending a welcome email. It’s that personal touch and it’s hard as owner operators, it’s hard to even have enough time to do all those personal things.

So if we can automate anything, or if we can use tech to make things happen quicker and better, I’m all for it. When I am not all for it is when it’s just the tech that looks like it’s the lead and that they’re the, it’s the tech dealing with the guests. Like I think when we take the human factor out of it, then that’s not hospitality, right? I haven’t gotten to the point where I want my hospitality person or server to be a robot. I haven’t gotten there yet. And I think we walk a fine line. I think we walk a fine line on that. 

Zach Stoltenberg: I like the idea, and I think Chang nailed it when he said using tech to, to automate some of the stuff that right now is busy work.

The things that take a manager, a host you know, away, like if they’re running around turning thermostats on the 10 units that people are checking into tonight that takes them away from that guest facing piece, that really is where they’re the most effective, right?

So if we can take some of these sort of busy tasks and things and automate them, tie them into our booking reservation platform where when that guest checks in all of these things happen automatically. That frees up your staff, your people, to then take care of people because they’re not so preoccupied with some of these other busy tasks.

Jayne Cohen: Yeah. And that, that myself, I’m a hundred percent behind and, there’s some very simple stuff nowadays. Like even unlocking doors, and not having not having to deal with keys. That’s a, that’s, getting keys, people losing keys, people not having keys. That’s a big deal.

Zach Stoltenberg: For sure. So we’re getting to the end of our hour. I wanna take. I know. Oh, it goes fast, doesn’t it? 

Dawn Farnworth: It went really quick. 

Zach Stoltenberg: But before we jump off, I want to give you all a chance to let our listeners know where they can find you where they can find your resort. Chang, you want to tell us where people can go, where they can find you, how they can connect?

Chang Liang: Yeah. No. Happy to host anyone coming. So Moon River Ranch, find us at moonriverranch.com or email us at [email protected]. Camp QYB, same thing ww.campqyb.com. Or you could email us at [email protected]. I manage a lot of these inboxes too, so I’ll see them myself. 

Zach Stoltenberg: So it’s going to Chang. Awesome. And Dawn, where can folks connect with you? 

Dawn Farnworth: If ever you fancy a trip to Wales, you’ll find us at www.bythewye.uk. And the email is just [email protected] and we’d be thrilled to see anybody come on over. 

Zach Stoltenberg: And I’ve got a closing question for you, Dawn. Where do you order your socks? Who do you work with that you do your customs through? 

Dawn Farnworth: It’s actually a very small company in Built Wells, which is about 30 miles away. Yeah. 

Zach Stoltenberg: So it is keeping it local. Every, everything that you guys have is local. I love it. 

Dawn Farnworth: Yeah. Spreading the love, keeping the money in the area. 

Zach Stoltenberg: And then Jayne how can people connect with you and Glamping Consulting Group and everything that you’re doing?

Jayne Cohen: campgroundconsultinggroup.com and you’ll get right on our website and be able to contact us or even talk to our, to us through chat. 

Zach Stoltenberg: Awesome. And I’m Zach architect with LJA Engineers. We’re based in Kansas City. You’ll find me on LinkedIn. Most of the socials can go to lja.com and connect with us.

If you are planning on designing, building, permitting, and titling any sort of outdoor hospitality project, we’re here to help you navigate that process, bring your vision to life. And I want to thank Brian for allowing me to come in and guest host this week. As always, we’ll we’ll be back I think next month we’ll be live at the Glamping Show.

I think that’s gonna be the next glamping podcast that will be there. So I wanna thank you all for tuning in, listening to us this week, and we will hopefully reconnect with you all live at the Glamping Show in in a couple weeks. So thank you all and we will see you next month. 

Dawn Farnworth: Thank you.

Chang Liang: Thank you.