MC Fireside Chats – September 24th, 2025

Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name’s Brian Searl with Insider Perks and Modern Campground. I’m excited to welcome you back for another episode of our podcast. Today is week four. I’m back after two weeks off. I don’t haven’t had a chance to watch the episodes that happen while I’m was gone.

I assume that our guest host Zach Stoltenberg for the first week and Rafael from Blue Water for last week, obviously did a much better job than me. The bar’s like super, I don’t even know how far I can lean down right to be better than me. But so I’m assuming all those things went really well while I was gone.

Different topics every week, but excited to be back from Ireland. I got my new gear on, like my new hat that I bought in Ireland. It’s the first time I’ve ever gone on a trip that I can remember. And I was asking my girlfriend where I actually came home with like new clothing.

I like these hats. So I’ve always been looking for this style of hat. And I finally found like a super old 1824 company that hand knits them in Donegal Island. And so I bought one of those. But, so this is my new kind of I’m rebranding myself. What do you think, Cara? You’ve known me for a while. Does it look good? 

Cara Csizmadia: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: It, it can’t look worse than what it was without it. So I again, low bar. So. 

intro: A small improvement. Yeah. 

Brian Searl: So anyway super excited to be back. Today is our episode. We’re gonna talk about marketing, AI, all those kinds of things. So we have a couple recurring guests on here. We have Mychele Bisson. Is it Bisson? I like, I wanna pronounce it that way. It’s Bisson, right? 

Mychele Bisson: It’s Bisson. If you’re gonna be French, it’s Bisson, but it’s Bisson. 

Brian Searl: I was closer to France like last week. Does that count? No, probably not. It’s just a 

Mychele Bisson: it’s actually from Montreal, I think. So my husband’s from Montreal. 

Brian Searl: Okay, so French Canadian. All right, gotcha. 

Mychele Bisson: Yeah. Still French, yeah. 

Brian Searl: So I really have no excuse. All right. Mychele is here. Welcome back. Excited to have you as a recurring guest. Kurtis Wilkins is here too. We’re gonna go around the room and introduce ourselves in a second. Csizmadia for the president of CCRVA and Greg Emmert founder and principal at Vireo. Good Campground consultant and all that kind of stuff.

And then we have two of our special guests here Wesley and Ari Smith from FatRat.AI, but also from a glamping business too, right? So we’re gonna talk about all kinds of things, some interesting crossovers today. So do we wanna just go around the room and briefly, guys, you can introduce yourself.

Who would like to start? I can call in names if I need to, but I figured you guys would just 

Wesley van der Plight: I can start, no problem. So I only put my name Wesley because, I can put it fully, but that’s Wesley van der Plight, which is quite Dutch. I’m in the Netherlands right now, I’m also from the Netherlands.

Yeah, I’m working in the hospitality technology industry for seven years and the past five years at EasySecure and I’m an expert in access control, guest journey experts in holiday parks in Europe. And we came up with the ID, the ultimate guest journey. So that’s I’m hoping to tell you a bit more about and have some discussions about that.

Brian Searl: You for sure will. Absolutely. We’ll definitely gonna get into that. Who’s next? 

Ari Smith: I’ll go. I’m Ari Smith. I actually live right south of Montreal. You’re just talking about. I live in the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont. I my, my background is in I studied math and computer science at MIT and started a company outta their entrepreneurship division, sold it to subsidiary Microsoft, where I went to go work for two and a half years in the telco group. But I also gotta work on AI for the first time in my life. And just decided that’s where I wanted to live my life. Built an AI strategic consulting firm.

And then once I, met my wife I basically became obsessed with hospitality. She’s an expert in hospitality and builds like luxury, like off-grid eco resorts. And we merged our passions. I love like AI and smart tech. And she loves things that are beautiful and that make people feel happy. And she infected me with her passion for that. And so that’s actually what we’re doing here in Vermont. We bought about 543 acres and we’re just building her vision with all my nerdiness. 

Brian Searl: Nice. That sounds really awesome. Congratulations. I’m excited to explore a little bit more of that with you.

Who wants to go first from our recurring guest now that we’ve established our guests of the alpha in the room? 

Mychele Bisson: I’ll go, my name’s Mychele Bisson. I’m the CEO of Bison Peak Ventures. We actually own campgrounds from Alaska down to Florida. We jumped from luxury resort builds into campgrounds a few years ago and actually fell in love with the space and the people that visit them.

We’re always looking for new ways to get new guests in and find new ways to run them more efficiently and streamlined.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Welcome. Thanks for being here. As always, Kurtis. 

Mychele Bisson: Yeah. 

Kurtis Wilkins : My name’s Kurtis Wilkins. I’m with RJourney, and like Mychele, we own campgrounds from Washington to Florida, California to Maine.

We’ve avoided Alaska, but I’m interested to hear from Mychele about Alaska. And we’re a management company and I lead our data science teams at acquisitions. 

Brian Searl: Don’t tell him Mychele he’s probably gonna then get into Alaska and try to take it over and it’ll be a war and it’ll be just, yeah.

Don’t give away your secrets, Cara. 

Cara Csizmadia: Thanks. Yeah, Cara Csizmadia president of the Canadian Camping in RV Association. A former campground owner. I spent 15 years prior to working on the association side. I owned a 200 site campground just near Calgary, Alberta. I’m based near there still, but the association’s head office in Toronto area.

So I get to kinda travel all over Canada and often down south into the states as well. Nowadays supporting roughly 2000 privately owned campgrounds across the country who are members of the association. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you for being here as always. And last but not least, Greg, listening to the Rain last and least.

Greg, should we explain listening to the rain or just let people leave hanging since that was before the show started. Probably just leave him hanging. 

Greg Emmert: I think you can leave ’em hanging. What else do you need to say? Listening to the rain is just awesome. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. 

Greg Emmert: So yeah, hopefully there’s not too much background noise from me.

I am founder and principal consultant at Vireo. That’s my consulting firm that I started a little over a year ago. I’ve been in consulting now for a few years. After I got out of the hospitality industry like Cara, I used to be a park owner, so I did that for 26 years and sold it in 2020.

When you sell your job, you need a new job, hence is the consulting work was born. So happy to be back on again and yeah, thanks for having me. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, appreciate you being here, Greg. Like I think the first thing we typically start these shows off for is like to our recurring guests Mychele and Greg and Cara and Kurtis.

What is something that’s come across your desk in the last month since we’ve been together? Obviously the world of AI moves super fast. We have a couple things that we can talk about later that have come out, but is there anything that has really struck you guys that needs to be paid attention to?

And it could, doesn’t have to be ai, right? It could be marketing, campgrounds, anything like that.

Mychele Bisson: We actually had a great year this year across the board we actually were up quite a bit. We just held the last the end of the Sturgis American Road trip tour at one of our campgrounds, which was amazing. Had live music and concerts going on. So it was probably three days of pure chaos. But everybody was great. It was amazing. We didn’t have any issues. 

Brian Searl: And you’re saying about the biker rally, right? That goes the motorcycle rally? Yeah. 

Mychele Bisson: Yeah. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. It was great. Did a big bike competition. And then next week we actually head up to Alaska to close down our park for the season.

Brian Searl: See that Kurtis, you can only run Alaska for a couple months. It’s a bad, it’s a terrible idea. Stay away from Alaska. 

Kurtis Wilkins : It’s the same operating season as Maine is what I’ve heard. 

Mychele Bisson: Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty similar. But we do, because of where we’re located with it being a bucket list item, we do a massive influx of people during the season while we’re open.

Yeah. It’s just beautiful up there. Anyway, going through Canada, it’s just that entire trek is amazing. So 

Brian Searl: I’ve actually never been to Alaska. I, surprisingly, I’ve never been to Alaska like I’ve been to almost, I think I’ve been to every other state in the United States, except. 

Mychele Bisson: You’re gonna have to come visit Brian.

Brian Searl: I’m trying to get it into my schedule. I had to go to Ireland and get a hat so I could look cool when I went other places. Now I’ve got that checked off the bucket list, so now I can actually go out into public more, I think. 

Mychele Bisson: Let me know when you’re ready ’cause we’re in Valdez and we’d love to have you.

Brian Searl: Alright Kurtis, Greg, Cara, anything that’s new on across your desk? 

Kurtis Wilkins : Robotics is actually the thing that has been coming on our radar and it’s been coming across my desk for the last, it’s been coming across my desk for the last 180 days, really. But like when you talk about incorporating simple systems, right?

Like we’re not talking about replacement of our bar staff. They have those robots. I don’t know if I’m a believer that, but like just simple robots that like, that mop and that do like large cleaning areas for like your clubhouses and things that we don’t realize we spend a lot of time doing.

And that’s coming to the forefront. And then also, I don’t know how many of you guys are, watch your lawnmowers, but lawnmowers are expensive. And there’s been a lot of progress made in that sector as well. 

Brian Searl: Lawnmowers are expensive, but also people who mow lawns with lawnmowers are expensive.

Cara Csizmadia: Agreed. 

Kurtis Wilkins : Yeah. 

Brian Searl: It’s interesting. I was reading actually, Jessica, you can share my screen real quick since we’re talking about this. One of the tabs up at the top there, it’s called yeah, your screen. Sorry. Where is it, At the top? It’s the, no, it’s one of the tabs right in front of you.

It’s project Go Big. So just hit share tab on the bottom. Jessica’s been off for two weeks. She needs a little bit of, so do I need to get back into the thing. It’s called the project Go Big. So just scroll down and look for it.

I should probably close like 70% of my tabs so that she has an easier job of finding the things. 

Ari Smith: I’ve been seeing a lot of that robotic stuff too, Kurtis, like that’s a super interesting topic, by the way. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. So this is what we’re, this came across my desk. I’m gonna share this on one of our podcasts or our other podcast Outwired later. We’re gonna talk about some of the employment issues and things that may or may not come.

Yeah, just go back to the restream tab. And then this is project go big from from figure. And Sorry Jessica, you’re struggling today. You’re making me look bad. I’m kidding. I look my like on myself.

So yeah, but you’re right. Like a lot of these robotic companies, like figure one X and these are very easily seen on YouTube videos, if you guys want to go look and see what the future and how fast these things are progressing. But if you scroll down, this is a new thing they released about seven days ago.

You can go down and yeah, you can play on that video and just see like they’re partnering with a residential company, Brookfield, that any of you in real estate probably have heard of. I think they own a hundred thousand. Yeah, they say a hundred thousand residential units worldwide. And they’re actually gonna, they’re putting these things like, these are not simulations, these are not AI generated videos.

These are like robots that are both training in Brookfield’s residential units and also using software from like companies like Nvidia and stuff to learn how to operate washers and go to the fridge and make meals and pack laundry and fold clothes and all the things. So this is, yeah, this is something that like, I know you weren’t getting this deep into it, probably Kurtis, maybe you were, but like this is coming really fast and the only bottleneck here.

Just like the only bottleneck with AI software is compute and GPUs and data centers. The only bottleneck here is how fast can you get ’em off the manufacturing line, which right now is not as fast as we would hope, I think, but is quickly gonna scale up quite a bit. 

Kurtis Wilkins : Last I talked to them, they told me I couldn’t get anything for six months. But that’s, and that’s because they sold out their entire production line for the next year, and so they had to go build a brand new plant just to fill the next round. 

Brian Searl: You talked to figure or someone at another company? 

Kurtis Wilkins : No figure. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. Yeah. These are gonna be like these I think it’s some point I was reading and I have it verified for the show later. You can stop sharing for now. Jessica. I have verified for the show later. Somebody told me there was like a thousand robots a day they’re putting in, which is not a lot when you think about the economy, but like still it’s quite a number of people who, for people who have never seen these videos and have never delved into this, like somebody who’s like me, a geek with no life, right?

Who watches this stuff like it’s really surprising to see like how far these things have come and how ready they are to go. Anybody else have any thoughts on this? 

Ari Smith: Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts, but I’ll try to keep ’em brief because I could monologue forever. By the way energy is probably a bigger model, those other things, but you, the points are definitely valid.

And our supply chain is got a whole bunch of other issues with it relative to our manufacturing capability. But like the reality is however fast we think things are going, they’re happening fast. There was just a conference at Stanford and Google like two weeks ago and like the production is not just they’re not just ramping up, like they’re coming online with this stuff. And when you look at all the different initiatives like Stargate, like what the government’s doing with Nvidia, now, what’s happening with like fabs and intel it’s going to be much, it’s gonna come much faster than pretty much every public estimate.

And if you listen to some of the folks that are like working in this industry they’ll tell you it’s even faster still. So it’s, we’re gonna have these. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, the data’s clearly there, right? Like you can come at this from, as most people do, outside of the AI industry, not knowing even 5% of what I do or you do Ari or anybody else like Kurtis who casually even researches this stuff for their business. You can come at it from that aspect, but if you look at all of these dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars, I think it’s almost up to a trillion this year.

And data centers, I think was the latest number I read commitments of $500 billion for Stargate. And then there’s the new a hundred billion dollar Nvidia partnership with OpenAI the other day, and like just hundreds of billions of dollars. These companies are all quarterly companies. They have to report to their stockholders once every three months. Do you think they’re spending this much money for something that’s gonna be in existence five or 10 years from now? This is coming quick. 

Ari Smith: Yeah. Not only is it coming quick, but because there’s so many unknowns with the guards. This, it normally would say, okay, let’s be a little more careful. But because we’re in this like game theoretics. Prisoner’s dilemma type situation with China. Like we’re just racing forward with it’s past a trillion by the way. It’s already it’s wild. And even when you factor in the UAE stuff that has been going on, it is. 

Brian Searl: Oh yeah. Globally. Yes. Globally. I think it was. 

Ari Smith: It’s just shocking. But the US is agreements with them. Like it’s unbelievable. Like the pace at which we are racing ahead with this stuff.

So yeah, every time I think I know where things are, I’m already wrong by the time I’ve finished that thought process. So it’s, and it’s always, yeah, for sure. 

Brian Searl: Everybody’s wrong. Anybody who tells you they knows what’s happening is complete, including me, is completely full of shit. So talk to us.

This is a good, maybe transition Ari, to your, your glamping business that is your wife’s passion that has affected you, but also your obvious interest in AI and robots and all things technology. Like how are, like, first of all, tell us a little bit about your glamping operation, but then second, lead that into like, how do you think about this as the owner of a glamping operation and also someone who’s deeply involved and passionate about AI. Where are you thinking about taking your business? 

Ari Smith: So first of all, we our space is called a Balance Farm. And it’s, my wife’s like new vision of what, like she originally built this off-grid like luxury, like eco resort in like Folly, Joshua Tree and Mojave and that, property did really well and got lots of awards and whatnot.

So she’s okay, I wanna take that and now do a bespoke version in Vermont. And I’ll say to you, Mychele I had, I’ve been challenging the idea that we can only operate outside of the snow. We get five feet of snow up here because we’re on the top of the hill. So it’s even worse for us. But we are going to operate right through that.

We got electric snowmobiles and all kinds of wacky stuff. We’re gonna see, this will be our first year trying to like, maintain, operate because it’s beautiful here, but it’s hard when you’ve got so much snow and cold. Yeah, we’re gonna see how that goes. And I might be back to you later yeah.

Should I listen to you? That was, we’re trying to put together like basically a winter version of what an off-grid like eco resort can be and the role of automation, AI, computer vision language models, voice interfaces, and just generalized robotics. It couldn’t be, there couldn’t be more ways to apply it.

Like the, when you talk about those the lawnmowers we were talking about, like we have a modified like snowblower that we, my engineer and I, we bolted onto a system that has a GPS like route engine that we put into it. And so it can go and snow blow our mile and a half driveway because we’re really off grid and we’ve been playing with these tools because it’s all becoming commoditized and there’s like incredible open source kits.

You don’t have to have a huge manufacturing operation or like a lot of specialized capabilities. You just have to have a real passion for it. And I guess, some basic, be helpful to know something about electrical engineering and robotics design and systems programming. But the point is, it’s becoming so commoditized and so available that we’re going to see, like what we’re doing here is pretty cutting edge probably for the next three months.

Like we have a private LLM that, is using our computer vision. So it keeps all the data like locally and is like recognizing guests and can unlock doors and all that stuff. We already seen that I custom built is going to, there’s like toolkits that are coming out for that to make it so much simpler.

And that goes across the board. So we see, and we’re using robotics here fairly extensively, but it’s all because it’s becoming commoditized. I am, I can tell you with certitude that this is gonna be the next two years every operator, if they’re not like transforming themselves, not just with AI and voice systems, but with robotics, they’re just killing like their margin.

There’s so much money to be saved. I don’t have the numbers up in front of me. Anything in front of me. So the camera, but I don’t have the numbers off the top of my head, but we saw insane cost savings, like I’m talking about energy. And this was using AI to analyze energy patterns, water usage monitoring septic.

Like we tried to integrate it everywhere and this is gonna be some come something where you don’t even have to be like a DIY hobbyist, nerd like me, you could, you’ll be able to buy systems to do this for you with very little work inside of a year and a half, I would say.

Brian Searl: That’s the transition point, right?

So I’ve been obsessed with this stuff, like even just at my house, the smart homes, the Google assistants, the, home assistant to open source, right? Setting up all this stuff. But previously, like you’re talking about, you had to have a technology background in some capacity, or at least a willingness to figure all this stuff out.

But because it required mapping, it required hooking things up, it required ZigBee and Z-Wave and all the right knowing all this stuff. And that’s where this turning point is now with AI and robots, we’re coming into this era, like almost right now with AI, with software AI, right? Where like you’re talking about, it’s gonna be plug and play.

I, I think I read OpenAI and Anthropic or training agents that are specific to like HubSpot or stuff like that, right? 

Ari Smith: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Where you can just hire a HubSpot CRM expert and it will come in and we’ll know everything about HubSpot. And it will do whatever you want it to do. And its only purpose is HubSpot.

Ari Smith: There is an interesting thing on this point, which is why I actually, let’s mention the private LLM, right? I do think that I just never use like public like LM infrastructure unless I’m building buildup for clients that, you integrate with them. But, and for. 

Brian Searl: Sorry, for clarity, for the people who are watching LLM, Chat GPT, Claude, Gemini.

Ari Smith: Yeah. There’s large language models and the kinds you buy say like Chat GPT, Gemini, whatever, those, you can buy access to their compute, but there’s also open source variance that you can run locally if you know how to do that. And it just, the only difference is, you’re a bit behind the, so state of the art, but you have complete privatization of your data.

So data sovereignty is key. And one of the things that Hillary mentioned to me my wife’s Hillary she mentioned to me about the industry. Is that the customer data is like sacrosanct. And so the idea of log shipping that information to a third party, like I thought, oh, I bet this is going to be a major point of contention.

And if it isn’t, it’s gonna be disappointing in the way that everybody gave away their data to Google and now they’re doing it to OpenAI. I’m hoping that our industry, I now call, say, all ours, though I’m part of the hospitality industry, not just building dirty stuff where it’s, I’m married into it.

I’m hoping that our industry treats customer data much more carefully than virtually every other industry that I’ve encountered. And I can tell you when you do this. It’s not just a matter of protecting customer data. There are incredible advantages when you have data localized. So I think at least for a bigger operator like Mychele you have a sounds like quite a substantial operation.

I could see this making sense economically for you. But even for smaller operators, the price point, this is a non-linear scenario, so the price point’s going to become really attractive even for individual operators, I think very soon to have localized intelligence. And when you do that, you can start providing unbelievably personalized experience for customers without fear that you’re just training OpenAI’s models or whatever.

Kurtis Wilkins : And Ari, that, that’s actually exactly what our company did. We have. Hundreds of thousands of customers, right? And how do we protect that information and make sure that we’re not giving that away? As much as we wanna trust Google, like they already have it. I didn’t realize that.

Brian Searl: I don’t wanna trust Google.

Kurtis Wilkins : But anyway. But the point is like you’re feeding in your business practices and it’s learned that. And what happens? So like Mychele and I we’re friendly competitors, but we’re still competitors. And Mychele if she was feeding all of her data and the last thing she wants is Kurtis to go in and be like, oh, how do Bison Peaks doing this.

Mychele Bisson: Yeah.

Kurtis Wilkins : And that’s, we moved immediately to a panel and then maintain. It’s been fun. 

Ari Smith: I feel like somebody in your position who doesn’t, you clearly share some of my interest in this stuff. If you’re not interested in this. Like my wife’s what are you doing with the wires now? What are you building out there? Why is that what those fans so loud?

But if you love this stuff, it couldn’t be more fun. And you’re securing your customers and giving them better experience. 

Kurtis Wilkins : I thought you were gonna go into running ESP 32 chips with cameras.

Ari Smith: I don’t feel like that would be accessible. I think I gotta avoid artio and those type of conversations, but it would be, there’s incredible things that you can do like robotics and even like local vision systems that will, are gonna change the way that people understand this industry and the way that customers experience it.

Wesley van der Plight: And that’s, I know in, in Europe, right? 

Brian Searl: Like I think the key for people here who are listening to this, who aren’t tech savvy is to understand that the age of being able to deploy this without an Ari who knows all the things, or without a Kurtis who knows all the things or without even a me, is quickly coming to pass, right?

You’re gonna need some of us for the higher level stuff, but like the lower level fruits is gonna be pretty easy to deploy if you’re willing to put your head down and think about some things. 

Ari Smith: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Greg, what do you think here? Like how does this impact you who’ve been doing, like you’ve been doing consulting for a number of years now.

How does this change what you recommend to clients, what they do, how their efficiencies and margins work, what they’re building for the future or not building? 

Greg Emmert: That’s a great question and I’ll tell you what it changes is, everything. But no, realistically though, it does, and it’s really hard because a lot of my clients, while some are like smaller groups that own maybe 10 or 20 parks, some of them are mom and pop operations just finished a master planning call that’s been ongoing for weeks now.

And if anybody out there knows this industry and knows the mom and pop operator, and this is not a shot at mom and pop operators. ’cause I was one of those, my parents were one of those. We are slow to adapt and it has been very challenging. I actually had a call with somebody, Brian, you’re gonna love this.

I had a call with somebody last week and they said, the AI, so if I wanna use the AI, like throwback to who was it? George Bush. That was like the Google right? In one of the press conferences way back when. 

Brian Searl: Was it AL or A1 that the 

Greg Emmert: It wasn’t A1. Yeah, that’s, I still feel that was a bit worse.

But yeah, it’s just, it’s trying to get them to understand the fundamental shift in how they’re gonna access information. It really, in a way feels like I’m trying to teach people about the internet back when it first came out. And you, what do you mean? I don’t have to go to a library? Everything at the library is on the internet plus more.

That can’t be right. I’m just gonna go to the library. So it’s, we’re stuck in that realm. So it’s really, it’s been challenging, but really enjoyable because I like to teach and so it’s been fun getting people that will accept it slowly, just baby stepping them into it to understand what they can do, the efficiency they can bring to their business, or the elevation in the quality of the work, even if it’s just using it.

I typically start with guest communication. Okay. How do you do it now? How do you write your communications? Okay you know what? Use it to polish that email. And I know that’s kinda I’ve seen memes about this online. If you’re just using AI to polish your email, you’re still like napping flint in the stone age.

Alright, maybe. But for some people, that’s where I can get ’em to start. If they can see it, then that’s that’s the gateway drug, then I can get ’em going from there. But it’s changed everything. It’s an entirely different process. When I talk to a guest now top to bottom, how I communicate with them, how I talk to them about communicating with their guests and looking at how to be more efficient on a daily basis.

It has changed the entire process. 

Brian Searl: I think that’s part of the danger though, right? Is is it is changing everything. And so for somebody like really fast or any, like Kurtis or anybody, like when you talk about like, where do you start, right? You have to almost segment that thing like email and say because when you tell somebody it’s changing everything, they just look at you like a deer in headlights, right?

Greg Emmert: Yeah. You can’t communicate that, right?

Brian Searl: Yeah. And so we’re dealing this with even our team that we’re trying, we’ve been trying to retrain our team for two and a half. We’ve succeeded, right? But new things and new things compound, right? And we were talking to them this morning about we have clients who just, who are big marketing teams, and I don’t know how big your marketing team is, Kurtis, or your team is Mychele.

And I’m not saying any of you two are doing this, right? But like we have marketing teams who just don’t grasp the concept that websites are not going to be the gateway anymore. And so for all the five, six people on marketing teams who have agonized for so long over the headline and the header and the placement and the video and the colors and the call to action and all the things it doesn’t matter.

And I had to prove it to my team this morning. I went on there and I said, look, here’s this beautiful website. They agonized all this stuff and the old couple doing this, holding champagne and all the things. And then you go to t and say, tell me about this place. And that tagline is nowhere to be found.

None of the, all the words are regurgitated. They’re all different. Your brand message is gone, so stop obsessing over it. But you can’t have that story because that story then leads to five of those six people don’t need a job anymore. 

Ari Smith: Can I just make a quick comment on that? So first, actually, first of all, Greg, to what you’re saying I think there is something to be said for the fact that there, the problem is people like me, it’s not the customer saying the ai, it has to be simple enough that they shouldn’t have to know that’s not the right way to deal with my, my 10-year-old thinks that the AI is just a thing she talks to. It’s it just natural to her.

Yeah. Like my, my, my brother or my uncle it’s just, it’s a thing they had to get used to, or it required training, understanding and there’s obviously there’s that spectrum. So I think that what will actually happen if we look at historical like trends in business and like just the straightforward econometrics.

Enterprise is adopted first. So they’ll be head of the mom and pops, but then they get infrastructure and they spend actually let’s stick with Mychele just ’cause I heard you the way you described your example. So you would wanna take advantage of the economic efficiencies and you’d be at a scale where you can do that.

Then you implement these systems and then a year later, because of the unbelievable pace at which things are happening, a much better system comes in place. But your cost to rip and replace is onerous. So now the mom and pop has the opportunity to jump ahead because they can take a system that costs 1/10, that is five times as good.

And this is actually a problem businesses faced more than mom pops because it’s going to be so easy for them to implement and the price is gonna come down and they don’t have those same pressures to adapt. So they’ll be able to get the cutting edge stuff when it’s really cheap. And businesses that needed to think about that quarter or that, like that public filing or whatever.

They have to adapt quickly, which actually gives them, it’s some sort of like how South Korea was able to jump right to fiber ’cause they didn’t have like copper. Like we have, billions we still try to rip up. The other thing I would say is this, that even to those people, like obviously AI is really wholesale transforming and wiping out jobs across the board, but even to marketers, if they’re thinking the right way, it’s yeah, okay, SEO is probably not gonna be great ’cause agents we’re already building agents that just are doing the browsing for you.

So it’s not like you, websites are not gonna be your, the main entry point when people are just like, televising glasses, Hey, get me the data. They’re not gonna be scrolling through a lot of stuff and just get the exact information they want. But generative optimization is already a thing where you’re trying to, yeah, figure out how do I make my site, because it’s indexed by these bots.

Make it appear to the agents that are really the things that are people’s new entry points. So there’s. For a lot of situations, especially in this industry, which is probably one of the most protected industries from wholesale replacement because of the human nature of like communication and empathy.

That even if you can get better with an AI, you still want like a biological entity to, to provide. There is ways to adapt and to uplevel. It’s more a question. I think this is to your point Greg, it’s like getting people of all types to understand I need to be thinking differently. I can’t just assume I’m gonna have my skills and that those will take me like I’m going to be obsolete me I’ve run an AI company, I’m a solutions architect. I designed these systems that I’m talking about. And they, I’m gonna be almost completely, if not completely irrelevant inside of three years. So I have to adapt, so am I, and that’s nature of everything. It’s like constantly reinvent. So it’s a challenge we all face, but it’s an opportunity for the people who are like thinking ahead.

Brian Searl: Yeah, so I’m not saying like you go there, right? I’m not saying like you go all the way to I just don’t all of a sudden care about branding. But you have to follow that, that middle ground and start now and think about how does AI read my site? How does AI digest the information? How does it summarize it? How do I get the answer to as many questions as I can, et cetera, et cetera.

And then eventually, as we know with like humanoids, the reason humanoids have fingers and toes and are six feet tall is ’cause they can walk through doors and use all the things that exist in the world already. The reason that AI agents use a computer and a mouse and a keyboard is because that’s the easy way to access all websites today. Eventually everything’s a database and an API. That’s 20 years from now. 

Ari Smith: That’s definitely the future, but also octopus robots, I believe they’ll be here after we get past. 

Brian Searl: Eight arms. I’m an eight chef in my kitchen. That’s what I want. 

Wesley van der Plight: I think America is a little bit different than the European markets with the mom and pops holiday parks, to be honest.

Because what we see in Europe, and especially in the Netherlands, is that that the smaller mom and pop that are the bigger campsites in Netherlands, but they are more innovative than the big chains, to be honest, in Europe. They trying new stuff. They would like to keep up ahead of the big chains.

And they were the first after COVID to start with facial recognition for the swimming pool. What we do a lot seamless access control, AI communication with the guest so that the the girl at the reception can be a host again and not an administrative desk clerk. And that’s what we see in Europe, that they are more innovative than the big change.

I don’t know, is that different in Canada and in America? 

Brian Searl: I think that’s just a lot of case by case, I think. 

Cara Csizmadia: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. It’s also a bit of a demographic issue. Like Greg touched on, I think it depends on the age of the owner. And various other factors, how long they’ve been in the business for sometimes can impact some of those decision making things and strategies.

I was just talking with my kid, Ari mentioned his 10-year-old. I, my kid is 15, asked me a question about a campground and I was like, I don’t know the answer to that. I know a lot about Canadian campgrounds, but I don’t know what if that one has a pool or whatever off the top of my head. So I said Google it instead.

He just pulled out his Chat GPT and voice to, to his buddy on Chat GPT asked him about this campground and he got all this information handed to him. He never opened Google once. Whether it was true or not like I think we need to be ready for, my son is 15 now, but eventually. He’s gonna be he’s out camp he’s going Camping this weekend with his buddies, but eventually he’s gonna be the guy that’s driving this stuff. And he doesn’t even care about Google or any of this is so second nature to them. And so there’s that demographic separation where you have campground owners who have been doing things the same way for a long time.

Brian Searl: Yeah.

Cara Csizmadia: And it’s good for them. And the, the campground’s full, so they’re not worried about it now, but eventually these, the 15 year olds are gonna be the guys they need to capture. And so getting ready for that is, I think the big challenge for a lot of operators here is like, how do you wrap your brain around it and be prepared, given how fast it’s moving and be being prepared to serve those clients that are coming in. A handful of years, the whole dynamic of all of this will be that much farther ahead by then. 

Wesley van der Plight: Yeah. Most of the time they wait to invest until their children are old enough to take over the company. But yeah, most of the time they are a bit too late then. 

Brian Searl: So walk us through some of the things, Wesley, like your company helps parks deploy this technology, right?

You said, yeah. So walk us through some of the things you’ve seen, because I’m excited to see the difference of, what the technology is available over there. I think later, I’m trying to think of the dates in my head. There’s so many conferences coming up. End of October, I’m going to speak on AI at a conference in Croatia, and then I’m going to the set conference after that in Montpellier, France.

So I’m interested, I’ll talk to vendors and all those kinds of things, but I’m interested to hear the perspective of the European market and what you’ve been helping parks with. 

Wesley van der Plight: Oh we go there as well in France. It’s a huge fair. It’s great to be honest. One of and. 

Brian Searl: We’ll have to have a drink. We’ll have a drink. 

Wesley van der Plight: Yeah. It’s on, it’s a good idea. Yeah. I think if France you can, I think your hat will be fine over there. 

Brian Searl: You think so? It’ll work? 

Wesley van der Plight: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: Yeah. 

Wesley van der Plight: We’ll work, we’ll get some wine. Alright. But EasySecure is a leading innovator in access and identity management. So we created the ultimate guest journey and we worked together with different software companies in the branch.

So we connect APIs basically. Like Eric told us to make the guest journey experience great. We have a lot of data and we can send this data to a company who makes apps and can communicate with the guest with AI. But we do the seamless extra journey. So for example you book in a holiday park before arrival, you get an email or a text message or whatever your group would like to receive for information.

You can fill in your number plate. You make a selfie for facial recognition in the app, and you arrive, the barrier will open. You will be checked in on the PMS system. The host knows you are there. You go to your mobile home. You can open the mobile home with a mobile key with QR or whatever technology you would like to use.

So integrate in our platform and no, then there is a problem. The room is not clean yet, so you put your luggage in and you go to the swimming pool and you can enter the swimming pool seamless with facial recognition. And if you don’t want to use facial recognition, you can use QR code, which is dynamic.

So it changed every time. So we make the barrier higher for safety because we had some campsites where they have an inside pool, and then the whole village was going to swim over there when it was shady weather. And now only the camp ground people can swim there. So that’s basically what we do.

Brian Searl: It is interesting I mean we, you talked about how there’s a perception from your side, I think, and sometimes there’s a perception depending on the demographic, like Cara was saying with how Europe is maybe moving a little bit more faster with technology. I think that’s like true in other sectors outside of what we’re talking about too.

Like I know, like we’re gonna, I just said I was gonna go to Croatia. I got, I was reading an article the other day about how they’re upgrading all the EU border entry stations and Croatia is one of the first ones on October 15th where you’re gonna go through and fingerprint and have your picture taken for the first time, if that’s your, if you’re coming from outside the European Union.

And then just the, so the ease of the border, the technology, the facial recognition, like you don’t, I don’t see that stuff anywhere so far in Canada or the United States. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but I haven’t seen it like there are kiosk in Canada, but.

Wesley van der Plight: I was gonna totally GDPR proof.

Kurtis Wilkins : I wanted to comment Wesley too on your on your facial recognition. That is an incredibly useful technology in our sector because I cannot tell you how much I want my front desk staff to be able to go, Hi Mr. Smith, thanks for coming back. And it’s because they have a picture of them on their screen and they know what his license plate is.

As he walks in, they’ll be prompted with that information. Like we can make that experience there. Like with the technology exists. I’m more curious about how you got everybody to like, let you take a picture of ’em. 

Wesley van der Plight: The, what our vision is that the holiday is not starting when you arrive at the park you have to take them. In the journey before arrival. You totally do that for sure, and you totally agree.

But we send them an email or a WhatsApp message or whatever. What we can do. Please download the Camp Park app. So there is a, an app of the Camp Park itself, and there you have all the information you need.

So without the app, you don’t have the whole yeah experience. You have the chil, the children’s disco at what time is it? You can order sandwiches, but just everything. Also upsell is great with this. But you can also communicate. And when somebody is downloading the app. You can see in our platform if the app is downloaded.

And if you are not, you did not download it, you get a message again. Or an AI can give him a call and, Hey, you did not download the app, do you need any help? But if 80% is already downloaded, yeah. And the numbers are higher, to be honest. The season just quit in Europe. But the most of the campsites, it’s 98% are downloading.

Yeah. And yeah, if then the host only needs four people to check in and the rest just arrive and what a lot of campsites do when they arrive at their mobile home and they are happy, everything is packed, they are relaxed. Then somebody, a host is coming by and ask them. How is it? They give them a bottle of wine and then you have a different experience than when you are in a line with 10 people.

And I had Astoria, I’ve become a father last year and our first trip we had to drive three hours and she puked all over and it was a mess. And yeah, if you then have to stand in the line with a lot of people to get a key, yeah, it’s 2025 and I selling a solution, which is much better. So now the good thing is that campsite also bought a system, but yeah, at that moment I was not that happy.

Ari Smith: Yeah. But Wesley, don’t you find that so I like, I, I spent a lot of time throughout Europe and I always, my impression is, like that the individual, like at the individual adoption layer, like edge AI, access control, smart, it’s so hard to even get like a breaker panel of circuit breakers here that are like wifi control.

I have to wire ’em up with Shelly devices and that stuff is, and even like the DIN rail system, there’s so much better individual like technology I think, or at least adoption of that technology in Europe. But at the enterprise level, it’s yeah, like there’s no, like hyperscale cloud really, or there’s no like capital intensity or like GPU infrastructure.

So it’s like the enterprises I think EU is like, they’re killing enterprise opportunities and AI with GDPR and stuff like that. But the indi but I’ve noticed this exact it’s just so odd that the flip is highest return on the individual level. They’re almost always I know, I agree with you Cara, that there is demographic differences and whatnot.

Go to Four Simon in Germany find some old hotel operators who are like pen and paper, here’s your key with a piece of, but in general, I feel like Europe is way ahead on the adoption curve, but only individually, and that they’re, I can only imagine what it would be like if they weren’t being hamstrung by the regulation, because I think it’s, I think it’s a much bigger problem for operators.

So I think Wesley, your business has great individual opportunity because the enterprise is not addressing it in a way that they might otherwise because they can’t, there’s not even anybody to address it because they’re so restricted. At least that’s, that was my, I’m just curious if that’s something that you found as well.

Wesley van der Plight: I think I totally agree. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, let me, lemme throw this out here in as a devil’s advocate thing, right? And this is pure speculation. I have no data to back this up. My data guy Scott, isn’t even here. But like pure speculation. Do you think that the advancement of some of this technology and some of the practices that Europe has just in this case, like other people have it right?

But Europe in this case, because we’re talking about that, has been helped along in a much more quicker or expedient way because of the more competition and the need to compete for those people. Because Germany is two hours from Paris and you can go so many different countries in so many different places and there’s so much more competition versus the wide open US or the wide open Canada.

And because there’s a huge demographic of boomers over here who have, I think for a long time not had high expectations of the places that they were going to camp at? Because they were, have always been used to the, I just wanna pull in and I wanna have my miniature golf course and my pool for the grandkids, and these are the things I expect.

And that feels like that expectation. And we’ve talked about this a little bit on Outwired Greg, right? That feels like that expectation is not moved for 50 years, but now it’s starting to move. So do we think that’s part of the reason that maybe the US and Canada in some aspects, not all, and demographic based certainly, and location based, is that part of the reason why.

Nobody wants to? 

Greg Emmert: Yeah, I think so. In some ways the, exactly what you just described, right? We’re a bit stunted because that’s all that’s been expected of us in some ways. 

Brian Searl: You could fill your park without, right? 

Greg Emmert: Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Near a big enough population center, there’s still gonna be that clump of people, that you could probably draw from.

How big is your park? How big is your market share? It might change if, if you gotta fill a thousand sites or something. But for a small to medium sized operator, you can stay stunted a little bit. It doesn’t mean that you’re gonna grow personally, that your business is gonna grow in value, but you can keep doing what you’ve always done.

And for a lot of operators, that’s good enough. I’m not saying it should be by any means. Please don’t affect if you don’t want. 

Oh, right now. Really?

Brian Searl: Oh, like a lawnmower behind you or animal?

Greg Emmert: I got, no, I got a jack wagon of a neighbor. Nice to see you knucklehead. Sorry. Sorry. I should probably be sitting inside.

Brian Searl: It’s fine.

Greg Emmert: I think he figured out I was on a podcast and was like, watch me do this. Sorry. Anyway. 

Ari Smith: First fist fight live on MC Fireside Chats, Brian. 

Brian Searl: Do we think that this is starting to turn though, right? ‘Cause we read these anecdotal pieces of evidence that the obviously needs studied more.

And again, I’m not the data guy. I’m not here. But do we feel like we have these anecdotes of like the boomers are aging, not aging out, but also sadly passing away. And there’s more boomers that are aging out or passing away than are coming into the RV industry specifically, for example. So this feels like this shift has started to happen. 

When does it begin to accelerate to the point, either because of economics or because the aging out or because of whatever that park owners, a majority of park owners start to really feel like, oh shit. 

Kurtis Wilkins : So I’d like to take that. I think one is like Ari, like I think groups like yourself, right?

Where you’re building these hyper specialized, hyper hospitality you’re like, okay, this is our focus. This is our niche, this is our core. And there are a lot of Americans that are looking for that experience, right? And I think that is growing. I think it started. I believe there is actually a huge core Ari for your demographic in that 45 to 55 range there.

Ari Smith: I think there will be, or there getting there.

Kurtis Wilkins : But then as we approach that younger group, I’m seeing that shift as well, Brian. And that’s one of the things that we’re moving towards is, like I talk about giving that hospitality approach. One of the things that I immediately called out Wesley’s product is I have a secondary use case here that accomplishes how do I become more hospitable?

And so I believe that shift is happening. I think it’s happening faster and I think that when we talk about AI, kinda looping it back to the main subject, like that’s only accelerating it. And so like our expectations of our guests should be higher every year. But I believe it’s due mainly like Ari producing that high level, that high end luxury camping, glamping.

It really started 15 years ago, and it’s just picking up more and more momentum. ’cause it’s that higher end hospitality hotels, they saw that run from like the early eighties all the way to now. I look at the airline industry again. Another great example with Arab Emirates, right?

You can rent a bed and a shower in an airplane, 

Brian Searl: right? We’re again, we’re talking about like overseas, right?

Kurtis Wilkins : Yeah.

Brian Searl: We’re not talking about if you look at first class on Delta, who’s my loyal airline versus first class on Emirates, right? What in God’s name are you paying for upgrade for on Delta? Doesn’t make any sense.

Kurtis Wilkins : I think there’s campgrounds for all spectrums of consumers, but I think that what we’re seeing is the boomer generation, I shouldn’t call ’em that. We should really learn their real name. But their generation, they didn’t have the, that wasn’t an option.

Like a cool new thing for them was 50 amp service. Yeah, that was luxury. Now it’s no, I need a concrete pad. There better be a barbecue there and it better be overlooking the lake with a 15 foot drop and I better have beach access. That’s luxury now and then, providing like an even more extreme version of that, which is it’s a cabin and and so I think that piece is what’s evolving. It’s driving that upper end clientele, which then drives that mid-range clientele up, which then brings up that lower end clientele and that natural cycle. 

Brian Searl: And I think. 

Wesley van der Plight: Boomers are also using more and more than mobile phone, so you get more data. So you can also do more specific marketing on them.

Ari Smith: But there is like an acceleration point here, right? Like it comes, we see this happen whenever, like economic and like demographic forces. Like when they converge it’s what’s happening. Yeah. The boomers are aging out. But all like the next wave of travelers they don’t even, they wouldn’t even think like what we’re doing is so special.

What we’re literally trying to do here is, I try to figure out ways to do what, like they do at Aman or Blackberry, all the places that, like my wife and I will like, love to go say, what are they doing there and how do we automate that so we aren’t paying a staff of five. So we can have a system that costs me electrons and do better.

Like where it’s, there’s, it’s gonna be running 24/7, it’s gonna be like looking at their social media profiles of the guests if they can find them and try to figure out what things like proactively that they’re gonna be interested in this hyper specialized approach we’re taking here.

And I have seen, again, I’ve seen this more in Europe, but I can guarantee you that. The cutting edge, like DIY stuff, like what I’m doing. It actually is happening in two places more than anywhere. One is in America, but it’s tinkers like the, your average adopter in Europe is going to be ahead of the states, not because they’re more tech savvy, but because they’re more service focused and the expectation is so much higher.

So they don’t have a choice. It’s like I have to big provide better service and they think about their bottom line.

Brian Searl: That’s what I mean, the competition.

Ari Smith: Way to do it. It’s exactly. 

Wesley van der Plight: Think there more competition, I think Brian. Sure. 

Ari Smith: Yeah. You just have to look at it as a force multiplier and you can now do the things that like the Ritz does, you can do it for pennies and that’s what, that’s literally everything that you know, we try to do and I know that everybody else is going to be trying to do, and those forces are going to keep pushing us no matter what.

So it’s just making sure adopt like that operator’s yeah, I’m gonna do this versus try to resist or anything else like that. 

Kurtis Wilkins : Yeah. 

Brian Searl: When does the point shift though, for and to be clear, like for if we go back to like boomers, as Kurtis wants to call them, what do you know their real name Kurtis, or?

Kurtis Wilkins : I actually don’t. I should, but I refer to that demographic as boomers.

Greg Emmert: That’s them, right? They’re baby boomers. 

Brian Searl: I baby boomers. Yeah. We’re not, I’m not criticizing the group of baby boomers or boomers for what they’re liking or what they expect or what’s changed.

You’re right. As you walk through the progression of what they want. My question is more of as I’m a Campground owner and I’m looking at these boomers as we’re calling them baby boomers, whatever else, right? As their expectations have been slow step ups to a pool, to a barbecue, to patio furniture, to concrete pads, and those have been not easy, but much easier lifts for current parks to adapt to.

Whereas what we’re take talking about now is like a leap, right? That’s like a complete rethinking in some cases of operational aspects of 80% of how you’ve run a park. And I think that’s where at what point do the expectations either flip or do the boomers spread out so much because of all the new parks that have been built and all the new, things to the point where oh, I’ve gotta pay attention to another demographic besides just the people who want what they’ve always wanted for 50 years. That’s or. 

Wesley van der Plight: Focused on different groups. That’s what we sees in the Netherland. So when does it get In the Netherlands we have one chain, which is great. They focus on girlfriend groups. I never heard about it, but it is great. So they have the, those hot tubs, they bring wine and the park is always full with, yeah, with girls. And the park owner is single still, so I don’t know what he’s doing, but it’s a great concept. 

Ari Smith: Wait, this is specialized just for.

Cara Csizmadia: Yeah. The girls groups. I love it. All the bachelorette parties and the birthday parties and all that. My, my girlfriends and I would absolutely go on a trip like that. For sure. No question. I love it. 

Brian Searl: Yeah, that’s the interesting piece of it though. And that requires we’ve also talked about this on Outwired too.

Is the idea that like, you don’t need to, just we have so many people we talk to from a marketing perspective. On my other, I don’t wanna say hat ’cause I do have another hat, but we talk about to them about Hey, you, most people come in and they just wanna say, I need to fill up my park, I wanna target RVers.

And they don’t have a plan for, and if you just sat down and figured out what your demographic was, what your area was, who the people are already traveling to your area are, or that niche, if you’re near a city, if you can go after things like girlfriend groups or boy scouts or church groups or whatever, if you sat down and really thought of that stuff, then you wouldn’t almost, maybe in some cases you wouldn’t need to even touch RVers.

Obviously girlfriend groups do RV and stuff like that, right? But not the blanket group. You could fill a park of a hundred, 200 sites pretty easily if you just focused on the experience and tailoring hot tub, wine stuff to the group that you’re going after. Not just marketing to ’em, but providing the experience that they will enjoy.

Cara Csizmadia: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think gone are the days of the bare minimum kind of offerings, satisfying everybody, that diversification is necessary. I will note, I know lots of boomers, I think the majority of the one, the boomers I know. 

Brian Searl: What are their names? 

Cara Csizmadia: They’re proud. 

Brian Searl: Sorry, i’m still trying to figure this out. 

Cara Csizmadia: They would be, they’re proud that they’re not, having these high expectations and stuff like that.

They like the simplicity and those things, those are qualities they’re proud of. So I don’t think we’re disparaging them at all. But, and I know my boomer dad always is really? You need all this. It’s just be simple. Yeah, I think.

The diversification is valuable, but it also then exposes that those other demographic groups who don’t really know that they want those things to great parks that are offering incredible experiences. And 

Brian Searl: Also, but you bring up a good point too, is because like that, if you think about it as not just, I want attract all the RVers, if you think about it, like there could be a park that just wants to attract boomers. 

Cara Csizmadia: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: But you have to embrace that. And you have to say I’m the disconnected park.

I’m not the technology, I’m not the, and there’s an audience for that for sure. There’s a huge number. 

Ari Smith: Actually. You can do both. I’ll just tell you something quick. ’cause it’s so interesting you just said that. I hadn’t thought about it. But we have people, because, we’re in the middle of nowhere.

It’s two and a half miles to my nearest neighbor. It’s like just forest every direction, right? I had to run my own fiber and there’s like nobody from miles that even knows what that is. Like they, my neighbor doesn’t even have a cell phone, like they’re three miles down and road have a dairy farm.

But the thing that I think is really interesting is when you look at what you both said and see, they aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. We had somebody come here just just four days ago, and they explicitly were, they paid us to be able to just come and hike and set up a tent and have no technology.

That’s not unique by the way. Like we get requests every week for people to just come and disconnect and have that experience. We still use AI extensively for to make sure that things are optimized for them. But it’s not like they don’t even know it’s there. Like the AI will tell our cleaner or like our property manager say, Hey, this person is from here and we were able to discover that they like this, so let’s see if they want like maybe one of our guests, that rep recommended Japanese shortbread and we made that and brought that to them.

Like you, they don’t have to have access to the AI, or the technology to benefit from it. As an operator, you could still benefit, but you can get both ends. Because we also have the people who come and stay in our cabin and they’re like, oh, it’s cool. We can talk to the TV and say we’d like the garbage to be, removed.

Or if they could bring some firewood down or you can get all ends of the spectrum depending upon how you set things up and still benefit from the economies of scale. And I think that’s what it it’s like how do you provide an AI driven backend without, or how do you provide, as the operators for yourself a, an efficient optimized AI and technology first backend, and then giving the customers the power to decide what level of.

Brian Searl: Yes.

Ari Smith: Information capability that they want because it’s, everybody can be served and you don’t, you, I think you have to use the technology hyper specialize to the customer, but maybe you don’t have to hyper specialize your operation, which could be expensive and might be like a fad of sorts.

So anyway it’s something that is interesting thing because I was surprised too that we were able to get these diametrically opposed customers who like, one’s cool a drone. The other’s I like to go to the well and get my water myself. Yeah. 

Cara Csizmadia: Yeah. 

Brian Searl: It’s finding that it’s that perfect balance, right?

And I’ll give you an example as we wrap up the show here. But I’ll give you an example. Like we restated a beautiful handmade tree house in Ireland that a guy just got locked down during COVID. He’s I’m gonna build this up in the trees. It’s two separate, like completely isolated right hand carved wooden stuff, right?

And we go in there and the bedroom is in one separate building, and so you just have a bed, but there’s a huge window in the front of it. There’s a huge window to the side. There’s windows in the ceiling. They all have automated retractable blinds that work with Alexa. But when you put down the blind in front of the bed, the huge window, you can just project PlayStation on there and play video games if you want to.

That was not me. I didn’t test it out. I’m assuming it works. The controllers were there. But when you open it up, there’s a picture, a pictures view of the whole valley of these beautiful trees. And so then you’re playing to both sides. Yeah. 

Ari Smith: Exactly. 

Brian Searl: So yeah. You just have to understand. It all goes back to understanding who is my customer. And I think there’s a lot of people who aren’t thinking about that the proper way. And if you do, then boy, a lot of things can fall into place.

All right. Final thoughts, Greg. 

Greg Emmert: Thanks for having me on again. I had a birthday this week. I’m not gonna say how old I am, but I will throw this out and if anybody wants to do the math and throw me an email at growwithvireo.com, you get free market analysis ready?

858 billion miles old. There you go. That’s my cosmic odometer. So figured it out. Ari’s already done. He’s put it into one of his AI models. He is already figured it out. Now he is. Get a free market report for his resort there, which is fine. But yeah, thanks for having me on. It’s great to see everybody.

Brian Searl: And where can they find out more about Vireo 

Greg Emmert: growwithvireo.com. 

Brian Searl: Thanks Greg. Appreciate it, Cara. 

Cara Csizmadia: Oh yeah, same. Thanks for having me. I, it’s important for me to stay on top of all of this stuff. It’s great for me to hear direct from so many great folks who are much smarter than me, specific to the AI and tech world, and keeping up with all of it when I’ve got so much else going on.

So yeah, I definitely every time take things away from this and I’m trying to be staying at the forefront in support of members across the country. So appreciate all of you very much. 

Brian Searl: And for the Canadian parks who are watching where can they find out more about CCRVA? 

Cara Csizmadia: Yeah, you can go to ccrva.ca.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, Cara. Kurtis. 

Kurtis Wilkins : Oh, thank you for having me on again, Brian, I absolutely love the subjects, the conversations that we had. I’m really excited to hear more about Ari and Wesley. I’d I’d love for you guys to reach out to me or I can reach out to you after this.

I’ve got a questions.

Ari Smith: Absolutely.

Kurtis Wilkins : But you guys can find me at rjourney.com or advancedoutdoormanagement.com. Both of those will run you towards us. And I just wanted to shout out, Cara, I would love to talk about your Canadian consumers. If you ever have a chat, love to talk. 

Cara Csizmadia: Let’s do it. Sounds good.

Brian Searl: Are you opening up a Canadian park so they can come actually visit with. 

Kurtis Wilkins : I’ll not disclose whether or not we manage a Canadian park because we are an American company and Canada is not very happy with America right now. And that was. 

Brian Searl: Really, I hadn’t heard that. Did we explore that briefly or. 

Cara Csizmadia: Yeah. It’s an interesting dynamic right now, but regardless, yes. Happy to have conversations about good partnership.

Wesley van der Plight: Do you have European parks? Kurtis? 

Kurtis Wilkins : No. No. European Park, not yet. I shouldn’t say we don’t have it. Not yet. 

Wesley van der Plight: Alright. 

Yeah, no thanks for the invite. It was great. Learned a lot from you guys of the American market and yeah, it’s good to get in touch and if you would like to know a bit more about how we create the ultimate guest journey in the Netherlands and maybe we can help you guys to with some ideas for the Canadian or American market or the other way around.

So you can always visit easysecure.com and there are all the models, what we do at the camp sites and all the information. Or just link me on LinkedIn and we can chat. 

Brian Searl: Awesome. Yeah. We’ll connect it set like I’ll be over there for covering it for Modern Campground. I’m not gonna be an exhibitor, but we are gonna send the organizers, the director, a list of people we want to interview.

So I’ll put your company on the list and we’ll do a write up on you in Modern Campground and we can go have that wine and I’ll bring that up.

Wesley van der Plight: Great.

Brian Searl: Ari, final thoughts? 

Ari Smith: Sure. Yeah, this is it’s a cool cool cool podcast here, rock and Brian. I enjoyed the information and like just great energy, great ideas.

Unfortunately it’s never long enough ’cause there’s everyone topic. Yeah. We could spend an entire day talking about and still just scratch surface. But I would just say that, the expectations, like we’re definitely in an inflection point, just hospitality in general, but I think probably glamping specifically, like the expectations I, guests are just rising like crazy. The demographics are changing, like AI is accelerating, like literally everything.

And the operators who are going to win, I really think that they have to just treat this as okay, I have to deliver a high touch hospitality at a repeat in a repeatable manner that I can, where I can deliver automation and capabilities that’ll be cost efficient and that I’m, and I have to constantly be looking to disrupt myself while providing a consistent experience.

So people who can like weave that into their marketing and operations and their guest experience, like that idea holistically, I think that they’re going to do so well. And I think that unfortunately that won’t represent the majority of the operator, so I think there’s gonna be a lot of let’s say a change of the operators you’ll see of minority operators making these adaptations and just thriving. And I think sadly, a majority are going to fall by the wayside or get gobbled up. But I do think that because the future is, it’s just coming so fast that it’s just so easy to grab a hold of it.

And yeah. So very cool stuff going on, and probably a little nerve wracking or a lot nerve wracking for a lot of folks. Oh yeah. And if you wanna get in touch me, I, Kurtis I will talk your ear off this stuff all day because I love it. But you can hit me at you go to my company’s website is fatrat.ai, but that’s like the AI side.

My, the hospitality side is balanced.farm and probably the easiest way to reach me is just go to LinkedIn, connect me there. My wife’s always like in my account, so she’s much better communication and human interaction. So if you reach me there, I’ll, she’ll make sure I’m in touch and I love these topics and I love what all of you guys are doing and I hope that yeah, I hope we can keep advancing the industry just by conversation and raising awareness.

Brian Searl: And for those of you who are out there who want to embrace this AI, move your campground forward, do all that kind of stuff, for the next three months while we’re relevant, you can contact me or you can contact Ari and then after that you’ll just talk to the AI. But yeah.

Great episode. Thanks for joining us again for another episode MC Fireside Chats. Really appreciate you, Ari, Wesley, Kurtis, Cara, Greg and Mychele who had to, I think, drop off for some reason, but hopefully all is well with her. And we will see you. If you’re not tired of hearing from me, we have another live podcast coming up in 51 minutes, called Outwired myself, Scott Bahr, Greg Emmert’s gonna miss it ’cause he’s busy doing some high level stuff, I don’t know, whatever you’re doing, Greg, but. 

Greg Emmert: Don’t start, just don’t start. We were having such a nice finish to the podcast, man. We can’t just go off nice and easy. Ari gave you a nice exit. 

Brian Searl: Nice smooth exit man.

The neighbor, Greg.

Kurtis Wilkins : I was looking for the neighbors show down on this.

Ari Smith: Yeah, that’s what I was holding on for.

Brian Searl: We’re gonna talk about the crazy, like maybe coming employment, like labor issues that are, that might impact parks pretty soon. ’cause where are your consumers gonna get their money to go camping if we start to see more layoffs than we already are, so for sure a controversial topic, one that is very divisive, but we’re gonna tackle it for the next two hours or so, on that podcast.

Other than that, thank you guys for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats and we’ll see you next week. Take care.

Take care, y’all. Cheers!

Greg Emmert: Bye-bye.

Wesley van der Plight: Ciao