MC Fireside Chats – September 3rd, 2025

[00:00:00] Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Searl with Insider Perks and Modern Campground. Excited to welcome you here to our first week episode. We’re gonna talk about some industry trends and insights as we normally do. So we have some of our great recurring guests here.

We have Simon Neal from CampMap, Scott Bahr from Cairn Consulting Group, Eleonore and Phil from RVDA of Canada and the United States respectively. And we have two special guests. We have Whitney Scott from Walden. Whitney, I still after all these years, want to call you Whitney Hep, like it’s just, I don’t know, I’ve just, I’m old and I can’t get outta my head, but Whitney Scott and Steph Curtis-Raleigh from the Glamping Show USA, Glamping Business in Americas, who’s the co-conference director. Is that right?

[00:00:37] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: That’s correct. 

[00:00:38] Brian Searl: New co-conference director. Like David has blissfully sailed off into retirement, wherever David is. So Steph’s leading the charge. We’re gonna hear about all about the Glamping Business Americas, the Glamping Show USA later on in the show.

So do we wanna go around and just briefly introduce ourselves? Phil, you wanna start? 

[00:00:55] Phil Ingrassia: Hi everybody. I’m Phil Ingrassia, president of the RV Dealers Association. We represent US motor home and travel trailer dealers. 

[00:01:04] Brian Searl: Whoever wants to go next. Keep it rolling. No? You’re gonna make me call on you. Okay. Eleonore 

[00:01:12] Eleonore Hamm: Brian, just my phone’s ringing in the background, which is why I didn’t jump on. 

[00:01:15] Brian Searl: It makes you look more busy than you are. 

[00:01:18] Eleonore Hamm: Yes, exactly. Hi, I’m Eleonore Hamm, president of the RV Dealers Association of Canada, and work closely with Phil. And again, we represent the dealers in Canada.

[00:01:27] Brian Searl: Do you think I should get a phone so people think I’m busy too? 

[00:01:30] Eleonore Hamm: We still have landlines Hey. 

[00:01:32] Brian Searl: Yeah Simon. 

[00:01:35] Simon Neal: Hi, I am Simon, the founder of CampMap. We help outdoor hospitality businesses around the world improve marketing and guest experience with professional digital and printable maps. 

[00:01:46] Brian Searl: Thanks for being here. As always, Simon. Scott. 

[00:01:48] Scott Bahr: Scott Bahr, Cairn Consulting Group . We’re market research organization that measures all the different aspects of outdoor hospitality from a lot of different perspectives, so I don’t even. 

[00:02:02] Brian Searl: What is your hat? Camping Advisory Network. Okay. 

[00:02:05] Scott Bahr: Yeah. Have I heard of that before? Maybe not. I don’t know.

It’s something that I’ve been messing around with for a while and I needed a hat today as Whitney pointed out, because the of the mess that’s behind me. And so I grabbed this one and we. 

[00:02:18] Brian Searl: Have you done some market research into how bald is beautiful. I’m not saying there’s anything over here to look at, just suggesting that it’s.

[00:02:24] Scott Bahr: And you were talking about looking like you’re busy, Brian, you’re one step away from being in a recliner, 

[00:02:29] Brian Searl: I could probably do something like that and prop my feet up. There’s a monitor up there somewhere. Thanks for being here as always, Scott. Then we have two special guests. Let’s start with Whitney from Walden. 

[00:02:39] Whitney Scott: I am Whitney from Walden. I’m founder and principal here. We are a marketing intelligence company for the outdoor industry, not just outdoor hospitality, but outdoor recreation, conservation. So we look across the industry from a data perspective and we have data products to facilitate the B2B world of our industry. 

[00:02:59] Brian Searl: And obviously you’re successful. You have a corner suite with a nice view there that gave you access for the window. So. 

[00:03:04] Whitney Scott: Yeah, I got to look at my babies all day long. Yeah. 

[00:03:08] Brian Searl: I’m just in a dark corner here with a black wall and yeah, so welcome. I’m excited to talk to you about Walden and some of this, and know you’re gonna be at the Glamping Show too. Yeah. Miguel, welcome. I thought you were at a trade show, Miguel? 

[00:03:20] Miguel Huerta: Hello? No, I was able to make it. I didn’t take into consideration the the time zone difference, but I’m excited. We have great news for the upcoming Glamping Show, something that we’re throwing with the American Glamping Association.

So the Mexican and the American Glamping Association are working like this, so everything is great. 

[00:03:42] Brian Searl: Nice. Are you gonna be up here in Denver? 

[00:03:45] Miguel Huerta: Yeah, for sure. My wife, sadly she won’t be able to make it because we’re on the verge of having our first baby. But I’ll be there. 

[00:03:53] Brian Searl: All right. As long as we can go to the bar and drink, that’s all that really matters, right? That’s what the whole purpose of the show is for Steph? Is that true? 

[00:04:00] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: I’d say networking is a very important part of the show, and congratulations to Miguel and his wife on the impending birth of their child. I’m joining you from London. I’ve got a busy month. I am going to be managing the conference at the UK Glamping Show and then hopping on a plane and coming over to Denver for the Glamping Show Americas where alongside Sarah Riley, we are co-directors of the the conference there and we’ve been very busily. I’ve been putting together the the latest show issue of Glamping Business Americas as well in anticipation. 

[00:04:38] Brian Searl: Awesome. Excited to talk about the US Show. I do wanna touch on that. I think we should touch on the UK show too. That’s coming up briefly.

I will actually be in Ireland during the UK show, but I figured it would probably just much like you need to leave for your, to make sure that your marriage stays intact. I probably should not ruin a vacation with my girlfriend to go to a different island, to go to a Glamping Show and try to do business in the middle of it.

But I’ll try to be there next year. I’ve always something on my list. We’ve been looking at that. We’ve been looking at a couple, I was emailing Simon earlier, a couple the European UK shows to go and exhibit another this year, next year. So we’re excited to do that.

Alright, let me do what we always do at the beginning of the show. Let me toss it to our kind of recurring guests as Scott, Phil, Eleonore. Oh, there’s Rafael too. You snuck in Rafael’s here.

[00:05:21] Rafael Correa: Hey buddy.

[00:05:21] Brian Searl: Did you wear a suit, Rafael, for my show?

[00:05:24] Rafael Correa: Did I wear a suit? No, I wore a, my Crispus polo shirt.

[00:05:28] Brian Searl: I just, you’ll go see my comment on LinkedIn when you shared the other podcast.

[00:05:31] Rafael Correa: Yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:05:33] Brian Searl: Had the headshot with a suit. I’m like, Rafael doesn’t show it to my show in a suit. I don’t understand why this happens. 

[00:05:39] Rafael Correa: Those were glamor shots I had done at JCPenney. 

[00:05:42] Brian Searl: I like it. I my, my parents told me I was a baby model in JCPenney’s when I was a kid, that I still haven’t found anything. And I think I was a chubby fat baby. I was like the, I don’t know the exception to the good looking children, but. 

[00:05:54] Rafael Correa: JCPenney, Canada, it’s a different catalog. 

[00:05:57] Brian Searl: It would’ve been the United States, man, come on. I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio until 2021. But yeah. So to our recurring guests Rafael, Eleonore, Scott, Phil we have a crowded show, Simon. Is there anything that came across you guys’ desk that you think we should be talking about since last time we were all together here?

[00:06:14] Rafael Correa: I can tell you that, from my perspective and just happy to throw this out there and get comparing results from everybody else, but we saw a really nice, late summer burst of consumer demand across our portfolio. Curious if that was echoed in some of the the RV sales from those folks and from the glamping side of the world, if they have any other kind of perspective on that, Scott, always.

But the which was nice to see. And so the fall is trending up as well and looking forward we have a lot of properties that enjoy strong falls from the leaf peeping season, Halloween festivities and all that kind of good stuff. Excited to see a resurgence of consumer demand in the outdoor hospitality space coming off of a relatively soft spring and early summer.

[00:06:57] Brian Searl: Yeah, it is interesting, like obviously our show is industry trends and insights, right? And we’ve been following throughout this whole year how the kind of ebb and flow of the season is gone. It’s gonna be up, it’s gonna be down, it’s gonna be up, it’s gonna be down, it’s gonna be up. Maybe it’s gonna be up, maybe it’s gonna stay up.

Who knows? Different segments, different areas. And so we have a diverse range of people on the show from the RV industry who’s had its up and downs to everybody’s headed. Its up and downs. So you’ve had your up and downs to the glamping industry who maybe has just been up, I don’t know.

But we have maybe some early reports that I’ve been getting from random people that maybe different styles of glamping or taking off more than others. So what do we all think? Like how’s the year been shaping up? Whitney? You can share data maybe that you have access to, whoever wants to, does anyone wanna touch on it? From their perspective? 

[00:07:42] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: I’ll hop in here with an international perspective, from the glamping side of things, I think bookings have been, certainly slow in the UK this summer. Slower than usual has been more difficult for our glamping operators.

That’s what we’ve been hearing. Whether this is just consumers, they’ve already tried it. They’ve been a few years. And but there are certain glamping operators who are bucking the trend in, in particular, those that have got something a little bit more unique to offer. I suspect that this is a trend that might also, if it’s not already in the US it might be on its way.

[00:08:25] Brian Searl: I think we’ve seen that a little bit. And I don’t know, Scott, do you have any data on this? Like the difference between the types of, and I know there’s many different types of glamping sites, but the difference specifically that Steph is addressing between like the, I’ve already tried it, and the looking for an experience is that, am I not putting words in your mouth, Steph? Is that what you’re. 

[00:08:43] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: Yes, I think so. Yeah. 

[00:08:46] Scott Bahr: The, that, that whole idea is, seems to be waning a bit. People are establishing a preference now and you’re not seeing that as prevalent as it was, especially in a few years ago. 

[00:09:01] Brian Searl: So how do we, like Steph, you’re obviously as the director of two glamping conferences, one coming up in the UK here, which is September 20th, 21st, something like that.

[00:09:11] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: That’s yes. It’s 18th to 20th. Yeah. 

[00:09:14] Brian Searl: Okay. I knew it was sometime during my vacation, so I was hedging my bet. Close to the end. But so you’re leading a conference in the UK. You’re leading, you’re co-directing a conference in the United States. As you look at a show like the one, the both of the ones that you’re leading.

There’s certainly a lot of unique vendors. There’s certainly not a unique operators that have all kinds of different ideas about what glamping should be or shouldn’t be. What kind of accommodations, what kind of experiences, what are you seeing from the type of people who are exhibiting at these shows or attending these shows, or where you’re looking forward to welcoming this year that you think are gonna help continue to drive this industry forward in a way that consumers want to repeatedly come back to again and again versus getting perhaps tired with the same old stuff? Not that most people are doing that, but some are.

[00:09:58] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: Yes I think that I can make quite a distinction between the audiences. In general, the two markets we celebrated the 10th year of the UK Glamping Show last year. So we’re in our 11th year, I think we are on our eighth in total America’s show now. And I was part of the team that first introduced that to the States.

And I’d say that in America everything is bigger and more ambitious. We saw that from the start. The UK glamping market is. Still quite a mom and pop type business in general. So if you look at the number of units on site the majority would be five and under, possibly three and under. So it’s a lifestyle business.

And as a result people, once they’ve set up they may invest then in future years in a hot tub or something or other, but there isn’t a great scope for expansion. Whereas in the US we, from the word go I think it’s. It’s partly space, it’s partly mentality.

It’s it’s the entrepreneurial spirit people were talking about. People came in from the entrepreneurs, they came in with brands, Under Canvas, AutoCamp, people like that in the early days. And this mentality has continued. The, we wouldn’t in the UK for example, run content necessarily on raising investment in terms of streams of funding and things like that.

It just wouldn’t be relevant to the audience that we have there. We are more likely to look at maybe a bit of bootstrapping or, how you would lease equipment or something like that. Certainly we wouldn’t be looking to tell people, you could set up multiple locations, this kind of thing.

But in the US, the thirst was there for this kind of information from the start, and we saw a lot more. People coming say from the finance and the tech worlds into outdoor lodging and hospitality and bringing their, their entrepreneurial spirit. And this year, I dunno whether you’ve picked up on it, but we actually have a very unique a raffle for a 7 million dollar property happening during, will be drawn during the show of the Yurtopian.

And the Konradi’s have actually, they’ve been featured in Forbes. We’ve actually got the show and the, and the raffle mentioned in, in Forbes magazine about could this be a new way, for example, a new exit strategy. 

[00:12:40] Brian Searl: Yeah. We had them on our show a few weeks ago. Yeah. 

[00:12:42] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: Yes. So it’s, that sort of illustrates how different the two markets are in terms of lifestyle businesses and big businesses.

[00:12:52] Brian Searl: I think there’s a lot of, like Whitney, Scott, you guys are both involved in data and helping some of these businesses as from a consulting standpoint. There’s a lot of mom and pop still glamping in the United States though, isn’t there?

[00:13:04] Scott Bahr: Oh, absolutely, yep.

[00:13:06] Brian Searl: Whitney, do you have.

[00:13:07] Whitney Scott: Yeah.

[00:13:07] Scott Bahr: The vast majority, when you kinda look at the distribution the vast majority are still the smaller, individually owned or operations. And I, sorry, Whitney, I didn’t mean to.

[00:13:17] Whitney Scott: Oh no, you’re good. You’re totally fine. Yeah that’s exactly right.

It’s still tenant under is still the majority. However, I would say that the mentality even of those. Smaller mom and pop shops has much more of that investor scaling mindset from the get-go to Steph’s points is like, people who come into this aren’t just I’m just gonna have this kind of side hustle generation and it’s just gonna be something as an asset that I’m gonna keep.

It’s more, we have a much bigger mentality about, America is a, is the marketplace. All we talk about is the marketplace investment and like how to scale. And so that really comes out in that entrepreneurial mindset set that Steph is working 

[00:14:01] Scott Bahr: And we’ll talk about that a lot more in our panel in a few weeks.

[00:14:05] Brian Searl: Why you gotta be all self-promotional, Scott? I know that you’re not.

[00:14:09] Scott Bahr: That’s how I role man.

[00:14:09] Brian Searl: Recognized as Whitney is, and you need to get your name out there. But come on guy. 

[00:14:13] Whitney Scott: I’m like, I’m on Scott’s panel. 

[00:14:15] Scott Bahr: I’m doing the best I can. I wanna get some attendance at this thing. Steph, we. 

[00:14:18] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: Yeah, we’re all on the panel actually.

[00:14:21] Whitney Scott: Yeah. We’re actually all together.

[00:14:23] Scott Bahr: Crowd’s gonna be going crazier. 

[00:14:25] Rafael Correa: It’s gonna be the panel before the panel. I, I’d offer too, in our portfolio, which is primarily, larger scale RV resorts, but we almost always have glamping components within those cottages park models, yurts, safari tents, the whole gamut.

We have a little bit of sprinkle of everything. But that portfolio, while RV was soft for us, that portfolio was up almost uniformly across the board. Which was really exciting. I think that there’s still post COVID people that discovered, outdoor hospitality, camping, glamping. Now, there’s, it gets more and more competitive and the spectrum from large scale resorts like ours all the way through mom and pop.

There’s a million choices, but the good news is in that world, I think the distribution is actually better than it is an RV still today. And so for those reasons that if you have the right product and you have it marketed appropriately, you can get found. But it’s it actually was a completely opposite trend from what we saw on the RV side. As far as demand goes the park model trend and cottage, anything that where I’m providing the bed was generally up. 

[00:15:35] Brian Searl: You bring up a good question about the product though. Do you feel as it continues to, not saturate, maybe that’s not the right word, but gain more exposure, more consumers in the United States get a chance to go glamping for the first time.

Do you think there’s a point where it will have to differentiate itself between just glamping like everybody else has cabin rental, side by side, yurts side by side, yurts between RV sites at campgrounds, Under Canvas experiences that bring people back multiple times because they’re completely different. Not better, but different. Do you think? 

[00:16:08] Rafael Correa: Differentiation mean you got the word right in there, right? It’s all about differentiation. You gotta have something unique to offer, otherwise people won’t come back or they’re gonna try something else. I think differentiation is key and it’s gonna be survival of the fittest just like it is in any marketplace.

[00:16:21] Brian Searl: So how do you look? Go ahead Scott. 

How do you point to that. 

[00:16:24] Scott Bahr: That’s somewhat contrary, but it’s still important by the way. And that is when we first did our glamping research in 2017 the uniqueness was the top selling point, really. That’s what people said. It’s I wanna say in something unique, something different.

And it was, I don’t know, like 47% of everyone who like had an interest in glamping. It was because it was, they wanted to stay in something unique. Now that shrunk, but it’s still about 32%. So the uniqueness, that’s a lot. That’s a big chunk of the market.

[00:16:59] Brian Searl: Yeah.

[00:16:59] Scott Bahr: Still, it’s still there. The uniqueness, I think just because of exposure. Isn’t driving it quite as much. A lot of people are going for the uniqueness comes from I think the services and amenities and experience that’s involved too, but it’s still, people are still looking for that. The the leisure traveler who wants something a little bit different, a little bit different experience. It’s still a very strong pull. 

[00:17:21] Brian Searl: Can I ask you a hard question, Rafael, for a second?

[00:17:24] Rafael Correa: I’m here for it.

[00:17:24] Brian Searl: Maybe it’s not, maybe it’s not hard for you. But so as you look at a portfolio like Blue Water, who has, mostly RV resorts, like you said, that have, is it fair to say added glamping?

[00:17:33] Rafael Correa: We’ve always had a component of glamping since day one. 

[00:17:36] Brian Searl: Okay. Expanded. 

[00:17:38] Rafael Correa: Yeah. 

We’re perpetually expanding it. It’s one of the major value levers that we can pull from an investment perspective, is to add vacation rentals to our portfolio. It always has been. 

[00:17:48] Brian Searl: What do you think the easiest way, or maybe just some ideas you have and are willing to share of ways that campgrounds or RV parks who are trying to integrate glamping can do so in a way that differentiates their product?

[00:18:03] Rafael Correa: I think there’s a lot of different ways. I think differentiation happens in a couple different ways, and the way we look at it at Blue Water is one, am I offering you access to a location that you otherwise wouldn’t have access to. So location differentiation is gonna be key.

The second one that we always look at and try to separate ourselves from the pack is the service offerings and amenities on that particular property. It’s like you could go stay I’ll give you a perfect example. In Luray, Virginia, we have a beautiful RV park that is full and complete with a water park, pickleball, courts. We have a mountain bike, dirt track, we have a remote control car or a track and it sits right on the Shenandoah River and you can tube 45 minutes down the river all without ever leaving the property.

And then you have this, very popular option that’s out there. This was getaway house. Now it’s Postcard Cabins. They have two locations in that market. And that particular, they have a really unique consistent pod, set up. But they’re in the woods. There’s no pool, there’s virtually no amenities, there’s virtually no staff at those properties. But, from what I understand, they do very well as far as generating revenue.

And it’s a completely different experience than what I’m offering. But they’re, I think they’re selling, you escape, almost isolation, almost. Especially if you live in a city and people is you’re inundated with people all the time. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for is that escape because you come to my property, you’re in, dropped in the middle of a giant RV community, with all sorts of things going on. And if that’s what you’re we’re offering, right? Is this instant vacate. 

[00:19:35] Brian Searl: But you also have those things you talked about, right? Like the Shenandoah River access 

[00:19:39] Rafael Correa: Yes.

[00:19:39] Brian Searl: And the amenities. And so that’s, I think where like that very, is a clear way that I think glamping can thrive on a Campground when you’re able to add all those amenities and activities and things.

And I think the difference maker with postcard, like you talk about is this, the seclusion, the isolation. Like I’ve got a couple places booked like that in Ireland the next few weeks, right? They’re in the middle of nowhere that I just, I wanna chill out and not be around technology as much as I talk about AI.

But what about the majority of these RV parks that are out there that don’t have the ability to add millions of dollars versus of amenities who don’t already have them, who is there a viable path forward for differentiation for them to add glamping, do you think? 

[00:20:15] Rafael Correa: I think it then you gotta really lean hard on experience. And that’s the part where, that’s where I think. Places like Under Canvas’ have excelled. They give you an incredible experience from or even, Whitney’s Terramor that she developed out there in, in Maine. Like that, those properties had just incredible beds, incredible bathrooms, and, little teapots and everything that you would need in that room, those creature comforts.

So if you don’t have the ability to add amenities, you can amenitize that unit heavily and give a very luxurious experience. And then you also have places like Under Canvas, which is a very kind of high-touch experience where it’s a very kind of guest forward as far as the manpower that’s on property is they’re guest facing and making sure that they’re having everything they need, that they’re getting connected with all the activities and things that they want in that community.

’cause if they don’t have the activities there on the property, they’re providing that kind of concierge experience to get you connected with the activities that you’re in that area for. And I think those are the two ways that if you can’t sit there and add a tremendous amount of amenities or you’re not on the river, right?

You make the unit super duper nice and you make the ability to, for that guest to connect with that area you facilitate that and you connect the dots. And I think that’s the viable way without just dropping tons of money at it. 

[00:21:29] Brian Searl: Yeah. ’cause it all blends together, right? Phil and Eleonore, you guys are in the RV industry, RVDA’s got all, dealers all over both countries, right? Who are selling RVs, but they’re in, in, sometimes in some places in many RV parks, they’re in the middle of these glamping units or in a different section of the property.

But the people who are glamping are being exposed to the RVing lifestyle through either people they meet on the Campground or the experience of just walking by and wondering what’s inside them and what happened if I, what happens if I buy one in the future or whatever else.

So this is all a circle where that like some people will go, always go glamping and we’ll always, will never go RVing. Some people will go RVing and never go glamping. But there’s a lot of crossover there, I think. Right? 

[00:22:07] Phil Ingrassia: Yeah, absolutely. And our research, and Scott has done some of it. Shows that, our most recent Go RVing research shows that about 11% of people who intend to buy an RV have rented something that was outdoor related before, whether it was a glamping site or rented an RV.

And RVs are part of the glamping. They’re not the entire thing obviously, but they’re part of the glamping experience. You mentioned Auto Camp. And their growth and certainly their partnership with Hilton Hotels shows you that there is a lot of outside interest in that space.

And RVs can and should and need to be a part of it. Because people wanna do different things. They wanna stay in an airstream or a park model or they want to do a different type of a adventure the next time around. So I think, rising tide of outdoor recreation interest is gonna lift all our boats.

[00:23:05] Whitney Scott: Yeah, I would just add to that is like, when you look at the end consumer from a accommodation, perspec, outdoor accommodation perspective, their top three wants to, say Airstreams are number three. RVs play a really big part in the outdoor accommodation world from a glamping perspective.

You’ve got Airstream, you’ve got converted RVs, and then to Phil’s point, you also have park models, which helps our, in the industry of glamping and outdoor accommodations really grow because it helps from, zoning requirements is like without park models, many of us wouldn’t be able to develop because it’s just a requirement.

And what the RV industry does for and with the glamping community is really important. Plus, to Phil’s point, that consumer is not siloed. We, just because we’re a glamper one day doesn’t mean we can be an RVer the next day. It’s really how we explore the outdoors. So I might take my camper 150 miles, but I might fly across the world and go glamping, and yet I’m the same person. And so we have to be able to see that consumer in their complexity to really understand, what that the market truly is. 

[00:24:25] Brian Searl: Steph, what do you think about this from the glamping side of things? 

[00:24:30] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: Yeah, it’s very interesting. Obviously the UK we don’t have the RV side of things as such, but we do have the traditional caravan park, which is also embraced glamping. I think that it depends on where you are in your life as well. What kind of glamping, holiday you want to have. My son is 17, nearly 18, 10 years ago I’d have been straight over to, to have the waterpark, all of those activities because that, was what we were looking for in holidays.

Now, perhaps I’m more inclined to pick something a little bit more luxurious, a little bit more private, a little quieter. So I think that what I’m seeing is that the growth on the luxury end of the market that is is just steady.

And it’s it’s, Whitney joined me at our Eco Resort Network event in Greece where we had international representatives showing the kind of tented luxury, architecturally designed type of lodges which are very much run along a hotel model. So they’ve got spas, they’ve got restaurants, they’ve got, full service.

So that end of the market I’m seeing is growing fast and it’s big business. And then on the other end of the market, you’ve got the sort of hands-off operators who are looking at using AI and connectivity to actually run their glamping site remotely and not even be on site with, smart locks and apps and that sort of thing.

So it’s really, there is something for everyone. But I’d say where I am seeing really strong growth is in the sort of very beautifully designed, rather high cost per night end of the market. 

[00:26:44] Rafael Correa: It’s actually where most of the growth, if you look at the CoStar reports for the hotel industry as well luxury is what’s seeing growth where everything has been flat to down.

[00:26:56] Brian Searl: I did see that. Was that somebody sent me that report the other day. Was that you Scott? No, somebody I shared it with you in the channel, didn’t I? Where the economic hotel nights were down.

[00:27:05] Scott Bahr: Yes. Yep.

[00:27:06] Brian Searl: Yeah. Yeah, that was interesting to me. But I think the RV market’s a little bit different as you were saying, Scott. What are we, Miguel, what are you seeing in Mexico? 

[00:27:17] Miguel Huerta: I, this year has been very difficult for the Mexican market. I think that pretty much the whole country is seeing a decrease by the magnitude of 20% on the demand for hotel rooms. Although for glamping that decrease has only been 4%.

So I think that the glamping industry is quite resilient, but we’re also seeing institutional players such as Accor and some local Mexican tourism conglomerates interested on joining the industry. Now through this, that most of the operators are mom and pop type of managers or owners.

But what I’m, lately, I’ve been having lots of discussions around commercialization. At the end operations, I know that it’s time consuming. Nobody wants to do that. This is the less sexy part of things. But I always tell people when they tell me how do I improve my sales is go back to the five P’s of marketing and truth to be told right now, the place, the location is the most is the most important factor.

Because at the end, as Scott was saying sure. You may have allocation that it’s isolated, but people, they really want to have some sort of added experiences as Rafael also mentioned that and I’m seeing that a lot of institutional players in Mexico, they have failed big time because they think that these are hotels that people will come to them, and at the end what they miss is that where they, what, where people are staying.

It’s afterthought, like the star is the great the Grand Canyon or the Firefly Center in Mexico, something like that. So the place is important. The other one critical to me is the product. And what I’m telling, especially newcomers to, to the industry is even though that it’s easy to bring into import tents from Asia or places like that, now with the tariffs, it’s getting harder.

But that makes you also to take into consideration the location where you are opening your site. So a hut can be a glamping site. A cave like for example in Turkey can be a glamping site. And I think that we have, the industry have lost ourselves a little bit with the product because we think about like this canvas tents or those type of things.

And that may not be the case that will work in any location, but product is critical because at the end that’s how you’re gonna either compliment or fight back the stationarity that the place or the location will have. So you have two P’s out of five, then you also have a promotion. And what I’m seeing a lot of shortcomings is people that they say, okay my, my son or my niece they have social media.

I’m gonna give them a credit card, and they’re gonna run ads to bring in customers. And sadly, that’s not the case actually. I’m seeing a paid social media, less profitable than a Google keyword ads or even like TikTok videos, which is quite interesting. And finally we have the price, which sadly I foresee since I’m seeing places like the UK Spain, Mexico that even places like New York are suffering because a lot of Canadians are not crossing the border.

These less experienced operators, they will fight through pricing, which, that will bring the whole industry down. If we don’t have a, if we don’t get together and start thinking as a group. That’s the easy way out, sure. You, you will be fighting for market share. But at the end you have the other four P’s and the last P is people, which even though that might be interesting and appealing, you won’t get to experience that till you check into the property.

So again, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The five P’s, I think that they work wonderful. We can frame it like that, and I will invite people to, to think about their location based on that framework. 

[00:31:56] Rafael Correa: That’s great insight. Miguel. Thank you. 

[00:32:00] Brian Searl: I want to get your thoughts, Simon, on, you’re up too, but I want to go back to Steph real quick ’cause I know she has to leave us in a few minutes.

And we’ve got just a lot of people on the show, we’re trying to get everybody’s opinions on. I’m not used to having this many people. It’s good though ’cause I’m not talking as much.

So Steph, tell us briefly, like what’s what can we expect coming up here at at the Glamping Show in both the UK and the United States?

[00:32:23] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: I think you can expect some really fascinating stories and some new faces as well. When we were looking at some of the new voices in the glamping market. We saw quite a lot of people who’d come across from perhaps the short-term rental side of the business into the outdoor hospitality sector, and who had garnered huge followings online in the process.

Some of these people are now diversifying, trying to share their knowledge, create new income streams in interesting ways. So we’ve got the Linton’s, Brian and Joanna Linton coming from Camp Ferncrest, who obviously they’ve got an interesting model whereby, it’s a sort of franchise model that they’re growing very fast.

They’re how to type videos that they’ve they’ve had on Instagram, massive followings. We’ve got the Bolts from the Bolt Treehouse Farm, or I’ve got probably got that the wrong way around. But anyway, they again, very, known online people who are following glamping and looking at other people who’ve done that have gone through that journey already.

We are looking, we’ve mentioned our panel session with Scott and Whitney and Todd Wynne-Parry is going to be on that as well, whereby we’re not just looking at the data, we’re trying to digest it a little bit and say, what is this going to mean for you, for your business? How can you take this data that Scott’s put together so carefully and make a business decision from it without, obviously, we can offer no guarantees, what is it telling us?

So it’s stories, it’s real life but also we are looking, and this is a very important point and Sarah would kill me if I didn’t mention it at the changing landscape. And I know everybody talks about AI all the time, but it is making things completely different in the way that people are searching for, for a glamping stay, for example. So what does that mean and how will it impact us all?

And as a, what are the opportunities that AI are going, is going to give us because apart from anything else, it will make life easier. It will automate some tasks that small operators find time-consuming. 

So we’ve really thought, we took all the data from last year’s show. Sarah and I, we went through it. We saw what people reported were the areas of most interest to them, and then we looked for people who were actually doing these things and amenities. Now that is another area that there’s another panel that Whitney is moderating, in fact, but a massive area because if you’ve got a limited amount of budget, where are you going to put that budget? How will you at, how much ROI are you going to get back on on say a hot tub or any other type of amenity that you invest in.

I’ve tried to give you a whistle-stop tour of some of the things in the conference. Obviously we’ve got the massive expo as well. 

[00:35:53] Brian Searl: 120 something exhibitors, right?

[00:35:54] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: And that is, that’s right over 120 exhibitors. And it’s it, the variety of product and cost level for people, whether they’re small operators or whether they’re looking for some sort of standout, flagship piece of accommodation, for example.

It’s, you’re not going to find that variety anywhere else in the world, I think, in one place. And so it’s it’s a very exciting time for the show and I think that Emerald, the team at Emerald have done a great job. This past year in getting a hold of this quite disparate industry, it’s quite difficult to understand if from the outside it’s a steep learning curve.

And they’ve really they’ve invested wisely in in, in, in getting additional data from Walden, for example, to better understand and better serve. I’m very excited to see everybody at the show and to hear the feedback and I hope it will be, I’m sure it’ll be very positive for.

[00:37:03] Brian Searl: Yeah, that’s one of the things that’s always stuck out to me about the Glamping Show is just the diversity of all the people from all over the world who come and centrally located in one place for a couple days every year.

But you, to your point, the, all the exhibitors that come from different countries that have different styles of what glamping means to them, what the accommodation is. Is it a cabin, is it a yurt, is it a dome? Is it, I don’t know, like an igloo-type structure. I saw there one time or like a 3D printed rock thing, like all kinds of stuff, right? There was a Chinese company that had. 

[00:37:31] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: It’s like something outta the Flintstones, isn’t it? 

[00:37:34] Brian Searl: Like thing and just, yeah. I think the ability for you to see all that stuff and if you can go to that conference and you come away with I don’t have an idea for what I wanna do, you probably are in the wrong business, I think because there’s just so many things to see and learn there, right?

[00:37:49] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: That’s true. Miguel made a good point though. I think that glamping is almost a mentality rather than a piece of accommodation though, as well. To say that it can be a cave in Turkey, for example. Absolutely. And I think authenticity as far as you can make, create the authenticity to your area, that’s a massive part of it.

If you can weave that in and you can give a nod to the culture of the location of where you are sighted, then you know that the guests love that and it gives you something then to base your story about who you are and what you’re about. And that helps guests understand what they’re going to expect.

[00:38:32] Brian Searl: All right. I wanna let you go, Steph, but before you go, where can they learn more about the Gaming Show USA and the UK one? Where can they buy tickets? Come? 

[00:38:42] Steph Curtis-Raleigh: Certainly you’ve got to visit the the Glamping Show US website, which let me just make sure I get the is, glampingshow.us.

And so if you visit there, you can buy your tickets and I believe there are offers still on go quickly because they will disappear as we get closer to the show. And yes, just again look at glampingshow.com for the UK that is free entry and a free seminar stream. So just turn up. But don’t turn up if you’re on holiday in Ireland Brian, that might. 

[00:39:21] Brian Searl: You could have, you could’ve just stuck to my side, Steph. I could have taken it to my girlfriend and listen, Steph said I had to go. She said she was on the show. 

[00:39:30] Rafael Correa: Hey, Brian.

[00:39:31] Brian Searl: Yeah?

[00:39:32] Rafael Correa: I was curious if we could I’m, I have a big question in my head for Whitney. I know that conservation, really working on that side of your world everybody had that on their radar this year when the government and the current administration was trying to, or considering selling a lot of public lands. Fortunately that didn’t come to fruition. But I’m curious what other hot buttons there are in the conservation world today that we should be paying attention to.

[00:39:56] Brian Searl: And please introduce Walden for us before you answer that question. 

[00:40:00] Whitney Scott: Walden is a market intelligence company. So we’re watching all of the business information around the outdoor world, including conservation to Raf’s point, outdoor retail, outdoor recreation, outdoor hospitality, because technically we all feed into the.

The same thing, which is the outdoors. And we all need the outdoors to survive. And to Raf’s point, we did this big work around like how policy changes were affecting, not like outdoor recreation, public lands, like access. And there was a a potential change that luckily was shot down to sell off a lot of public lands.

I think right now the one we’re watching is so there’s a policy in place about public response on things and being able to stop development. And so it, what used to be, I think, and then I’m gonna think, I think it’s a 75 day response on developments from a federal land perspective. But it’s like being shortened to 14 days, which is almost impossible for people to understand what the impact of things and be able to respond in a, in any positive or negative fashion thoughtfully and intentful and with intention. I applaud the American, the Great American Outdoors Act.

It’s in that gray area of things where, how that money is coming into public, public lands and conservation is really great. It’s actually comes from oil money. We don’t often understand that is how that money is coming, but it’s like a portion of these kind of extractive industries goes into conservation and I think that’s really important for us to know is the, one we’re feeding a cycle, but it’s that Jane Goodall model of at least we’re coming together and say, okay, if we’re gonna do this, let’s also make a counterbalance and have access to, to land some of the administrative budget changes for next year.

I think seeing if all of those are implemented, it’s really what’s gonna happen in 2026 with cut, major cuts in departments where we don’t even know. Really how that impact is going to be felt from a National Park Service perspective, a National Forest Service perspective, or a US Forest for service perspective.

So it, we’re seeing a lot of those changes. How it will affect recreation is probably a little bit more down the line. I do think that there’s some really positives from a business perspective is that there’s a lot more willingness to look at commissionaires and public private partnerships.

I think what Amazon did in Oregon. Literally giving a municipality millions of dollars to build an RV park was amazing. They needed, they needed RV space, they wanted to grow this. And now the municipality has a cash flowing asset that they didn’t have to pay for as long as they give a certain portion of sites to Amazon for for their workforce.

So I think that, there’s some positives, even some of the lessening of regulations and, like conservation is important. We need the outdoors for our business. We need the outdoors to survive. But I think there’s also some good lessening of things that might let us explore expansion or, building more outdoor recreation space, campgrounds and things that might help the industry grow. I don’t wanna sound like a middle, there’s good and bad but there is. 

[00:43:56] Brian Searl: Choose a side, Whitney. 

[00:43:59] Whitney Scott: Good things and bad things happening. 

[00:44:02] Rafael Correa: I didn’t know about the the oil money. I didn’t, that didn’t come up in my watching of Landman recently. So that was. As I was becoming educated of the oil industry through Landman. 

[00:44:12] Brian Searl: It is, I don’t want to, I definitely don’t wanna change the topics of this, but it is indu, it is interesting to me ’cause I live in Calgary where a bunch of the big oil companies are headquartered up here and like the perception you get coming in of the oil industry is that well in some cases from an outsider looking in right, if you care about air quality as the oil industry maybe doesn’t care so much about air quality, but they keep Calgary like the cleanest, most well kept city in ’cause that’s where they live.

So it’s just really interesting where some of those dollars go to, not that the oil industry should be vilified like that at all. Just saying that’s the perception of some people as everybody has different opinions. Or be both sides just like Whitney is. So. 

[00:44:49] Whitney Scott: It, I think if we sometimes let down the hate and look at where we’re all looking to build and things like that and what we can do together. These are good things that are happening within our government ish. Right now. 

[00:45:04] Rafael Correa: And the, so the sword cuts both ways, right? Always. And then, in our world we are all tied to this outdoor hospitality world one way or another. And I think in our world, even more so than the traditional hospitality world, we are, our success is linked to striking this balance between development and respecting nature and embracing kind of the reason people wanna come see us to start with.

It’s a it’s a it’s not an easy thing and it’s not a straight answer everywhere you go, but it’s great to see these things coming to the surface, being addressed and, ultimately, hopefully finding the right balance. 

[00:45:40] Whitney Scott: Couldn’t agree more. 

[00:45:42] Brian Searl: Absolutely. Simon, I promise I’d get to you. And now it’s 52 minutes in. And I’m getting to you finally. Just to circle back to our ’cause industry trends and insights, right? We were all talking about Camping and glamping and some of the trends we’ve seen. So you’re in Europe there, Croatia. You go to a lot of the shows over there. And I know you also cross over with the states, but specific to Europe, are you seeing some of the same things we’re seeing in Mexico with Miguel that he cited in the United States and Canada with the RV industry too?

[00:46:08] Simon Neal: I can share a bit about what our customers are doing with glamping. So we, our customers are definitely more, the larger RV parks, campgrounds, holiday parks 100 plus sites. And they’re definitely all investing a bit like Rafael’s model that they have some glamping, they have some mobile homes in there for the diversification.

So we’ve seen a lot of investment in that over the last few years. Changes coming off season, building new things, glamping tents. But I’ve got a really interesting story that’s actually comes from a campsite I used to go to every year for my holidays with wife and kids. They’re not our customer, but they actually leased out two portions of the Campground, pretty big areas to a third party agency.

And they were both glamping operators, but they both did a completely different way. So one of them was the mass produced, this is a glamping tent. It looks like a glamping tent, but the materials rubbish. They’re all stack next to each other in rows. You’re looking straight in your neighbor’s tent, three, four meters away versus the second operator that picked a spot, right at the edge of the Campground. In forest, they cleared a small area. They had seven or eight units only. Great materials, a bit more space. You weren’t looking at each other. And they were both sold as the same thing and basically marketed the same way, a completely different product.

And at the time we had, two very young kids, two, three years old. So we stayed for two years in this glamping, and they were just fantastic. The experience was amazing, but we’d walk every day to the water park, passed, all these other guys stuck like tuna in these glamping tents. And it was just horrendous.

So I think, like you said, it’s all about, it’s the same space, it’s the same Campground, but two totally different approaches, two totally different products, all labeled glamping. So it’s a small touches. It’s making the special experience, the special feel, I think is really important to make that successful.

[00:48:07] Brian Searl: Where do you think the future of the glamping market goes in Europe then? Does it continue to evolve? Does it continue to go towards like the UK’s doing more different differentiation or stay mom and pop or, 

[00:48:18] Simon Neal: yeah, I think, like Steph was saying there’s a big trend in the mom and pop because you have people who have a big bit of land next to their house, or particularly farmers looking for some extra income, have a spare field and they’re just chucking, these four or five lamping pods out there, they’re sticking out in a marketplace and getting some extra money in the pocket.

That’s pretty big ’cause it’s easy to do, but there’s also now a bit more of a trend of the more sophisticated, more organized groups coming in. I think taking that American mentality back to the UK and I’ve seen a couple of those starting to pop up a bit more now. There’s one called Secret Garden Glamping, which is really big in the UK, it’s growing extremely fast. That’s taken that approach. So you have that. 

[00:48:59] Brian Searl: Derry’s been on our show before he. 

[00:49:01] Simon Neal: Yeah, actually. 

[00:49:02] Brian Searl: He was gonna unveil a new location in Ireland that I could go to and then he just invite unveil a new one in the UK instead. 

[00:49:08] Simon Neal: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that’s an example of this entrepreneur approach where they’re growing bigger and it’s very sophisticated, high quality, but essentially the same product and just packaged in a different way.

But definitely in our customers, the big campgrounds there, they’re investing heavily. They’re going for the experience, they’re going for the quality. And that’s the biggest growth, I would say. 

[00:49:33] Brian Searl: But ultimately, that’s what differentiates us, right? Is the packaging, whether we’re in the RV industry or we’re in Camping, or we’re in glamping, or we’re at RV resorts with blue water or blue water hotels too, right? Like it’s all packaging. It’s how you package that experience. And then, are you just putting together a package that’s marketing, or are you putting together a package with substance?

And then that’s gonna end up determining what the consumer both wants now is happy with now, but also wants in the future, and is willing to try in the future, glamping to RVing, RVing to glamping. It’s a whole big circle with the outdoor industry as a whole.

[00:50:06] Rafael Correa: Absolutely. 

[00:50:07] Brian Searl: A couple final questions. I have, Whitney, I’m sorry we didn’t have more time to get to you for the Walden, but what do people come to Walden for? What. 

[00:50:13] Whitney Scott: We have a couple of data products. We have something called the Lot, which is like a it’s for, as you come into outdoor accommodations, if you’re evaluating parcels of land for what you should build.

So a lot of people, they have things like feasibility studies, which are done like after you pick, purchase the land, after you’ve, after you picked accommodations. And this is before you get to that. Before you, you could, best case scenario, you do it before you purchase a piece of land.

And so it looks at 120 different data sets. Across things like the site itself, the market itself competition, and then gives you a score. 50 and above means, this is a good outdoor hospitality site and 50 and below is you probably should stay away from it. But it’s really hard to get, a good analysis of whether or not the markets, the market fits it, the site fits it and the actual, like from a competitive landscape fits it.

So we have a product like that in outdoor hospitality. On Monday, we actually launch a product that’s a buying guide for outdoor accommodations. So we’re going to the Glamping Show, we’ve spent a year putting this guide together. It’s like a consumer report for outdoor accommodations. The first one to launch is the unique accommodations, and then we have tents, and then we have cabins.

And we had to break it up into three just for North America because there’s over 750 manufacturers in the United States, and there’s over 3000 products. And so the guide was getting so big that we could. 

[00:51:53] Brian Searl: I never would’ve guessed that, like I knew there was a lot of manufacturers in the US, but 750 is. 

[00:51:58] Whitney Scott: Yeah. We thought.

[00:51:58] Rafael Correa: That sounds more like an almanac than a. 

[00:52:01] Whitney Scott: Yeah. We thought we could like, quickly do this in a couple of months, and then we just got in these rabbit holes and realized how completely disparate our market is. Like how people sell, how people talk is so different that buyers can’t find them.

And then the product, how people measure them, how people communicate warranties. Does it have electrical, does it not? Is it Canvas, is it not? It is, it took us over a year to aggregate all the information and then start making decisions on how do you categorize and produce this type of guide. So that is it. 

[00:52:39] Brian Searl: Alphabetical? 

[00:52:40] Whitney Scott: It actually.

[00:52:41] Brian Searl: I wanna start a ABC glamping company. 

[00:52:44] Whitney Scott: It’s not alphabetical. In each category. 

[00:52:46] Rafael Correa: It’ll be after aaa Camping by Raf’s.

[00:52:49] Brian Searl: Damn it. I shoulda have thought of that. 

[00:52:50] Whitney Scott: We do it by pice.

[00:52:51] Brian Searl: Such a good name. Yeah.

[00:52:52] Whitney Scott: You can find ’em by price. And then from there the alphabetical and manufacturers, so you can find them alphabetically, but it is, it’s a beast.

And it, it launches actually on the eighth, on Monday. And you can peruse it. It will take a while. ’cause there are so many. 

[00:53:10] Rafael Correa: Wow. That’s exciting. 

[00:53:12] Whitney Scott: Yeah. 

[00:53:12] Rafael Correa: I’m look forward to seeing that. 

[00:53:13] Brian Searl: How many deals, how many manufacturers there are? Eleonore, do you know of RVs? 

[00:53:17] Eleonore Hamm: It’s a bit different because you’ve got the big three. 

[00:53:19] Brian Searl: Yeah. Do you have an idea of the smaller ones too, or no? 

[00:53:23] Eleonore Hamm: I wouldn’t have a number off the top of my head. 

[00:53:25] Brian Searl: Okay. You don’t wanna. 

[00:53:27] Eleonore Hamm: It’s not that many. It’s definitely not as many as what Whitney just said. 

[00:53:30] Brian Searl: 750, yeah, but I think that’s because there’s consolidation, right? I think when it get, yeah, when it was probably at its infancy getting started and scaling up.

There probably were hundreds and hundreds that consolidated over time, and I think that’s probably what’s gonna happen too. 

[00:53:43] Whitney Scott: And it’s just this niche, because this outdoor accommodation is built on innovation and creativity, everyone just built the next thing and everything’s that way.

Categorization was the hardest thing, is we had to build this new taxonomy because. Everything, you have panorama tents, you have spike tents, you have wall tents, you have safari tents, you have, it’s crazy how creative people get and it’s just like everyone did something a little bit different. And as a new manufacturer where RVs, because of DOT, you had to stay in a box, so. You don’t have to stay in the box. We get to go in the cave and the dome and the pod and the tree and the, So.

[00:54:28] Rafael Correa: Container.

[00:54:29] Whitney Scott: Yeah. 

[00:54:29] Brian Searl: I want to date, I wanna date myself here and maybe not date myself, but put myself to account on the show and we’ll see how well this dates is what I meant to say.

I think whoever can start a glamping company that’s designing thousands of different glamping accommodations with 3D CAD that can be downloaded into robots heads and they can build them on site is gonna be the winner of it all. 

[00:54:50] Whitney Scott: Oh, he already exists. He’s out of California. He has a 3D outdoor accommodation print shop.

[00:54:55] Brian Searl: But he can’t download it into robot’s heads so they can build it on site yet. That’s not quite possible. But now. 

[00:55:00] Whitney Scott: It comes out in a 3D printer. That’s like a crane that does this. 

[00:55:03] Brian Searl: Oh, Yeah. Okay. Yep. Yep. I think those are interesting companies in the future.

[00:55:06] Rafael Correa: Pretty close, Brian.

[00:55:07] Whitney Scott: Pretty close. It’s not a head, it’s a crane, but. 

[00:55:10] Brian Searl: The same thing, right? The cost is what I mean. The getting the cost down and having the owners be able to do whatever they can imagine is really interesting to me without shipping it everywhere else, but, okay. I know we’re a couple minutes early, so final thoughts. Simon, final thoughts and then where can they find out more about CampMap?

[00:55:28] Simon Neal: Yeah, I don’t have many thoughts to say. I’m too tired. But campmap.com you can find us there all information. 

[00:55:34] Brian Searl: Thank you, Simon. Appreciate it, Eleonore. 

[00:55:36] Eleonore Hamm: Yeah I learned a lot today. I don’t know that much about the glamping side, so it’s really very interesting. So thanks for having me. And any questions on the Canadian RVs dealer side our website’s rvda.ca. 

[00:55:47] Brian Searl: We’ll get you more involved next time, Eleonore. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting to have a full house today. It was crazy. I guess I should look at my guest list before I show up unprepared. Scott from Cairn Consulting. 

[00:55:56] Scott Bahr: Yeah, it’ll be interesting to look at the fall numbers to see how this comes into place.

Just looking at the summer so far, I know Phil mentioned it a little bit earlier, but the numbers here in Maine for Canadian visitation were pretty bleak down 28%. 

[00:56:10] Brian Searl: Is that border crossings or at Camping, at campgrounds? 

[00:56:13] Scott Bahr: That, that’s border crossings. Or no, that’s at, that’s, I’m sorry, that’s short term rentals on site. All sort term rentals.

So it’s got a 28% Maine’s estimated to lose by the quarter of a million Canadian visitors this year. That’s the latest figure. So I know that’s a little bleak to end on, but I’m hoping you know that we can get some good close to home travel from our residents here in the fall and keep. 

[00:56:35] Brian Searl: We had Csizmadia on the show last week from the Canadian Campaign RV Association, and she said everything in Canada is wonderful. So just to end on a positive note, Scott, for all of us up here.

Whitney from Walden, final thoughts and then where can they learn more about Walden? 

[00:56:52] Whitney Scott: I’m really excited for the fall. It’s, the business season for Camping and outdoor hospitality. So I’m, gearing up for that and for the Glamping Show like Steph said, there’s, it’s. They’ve done a really great job putting together panels, Scott’s research so very excited there.

You can learn more about Walden and get our accommodation guide at waldeninsight.com, and I hope to see you guys all at the show. 

[00:57:18] Brian Searl: Thank you, Whitney. Appreciate it. Miguel, where can they learn more about what you’re doing? I know you have your businesses and the Mexican Glamping Association. 

[00:57:24] Miguel Huerta: Yeah. They can always go to our website Asociación Mexicana de Glamping, Mexican Glamping Association in Spanish asociacionmexicanadeglamping.com. Of course for my company Nantli, nantli.travel we are, a holding that specializes in glamping tour operators and hotel commercialization.

And well on, on my side I’m really excited for the Glamping Show. We’re gonna be a hosting the first Spanish speaking event, which will be hosted along with our friends from the American Glamping Association. So on September 30, we are gonna have some cafe de audia and some insights in Spanish that we will be translating in real time with Brian’s help through chat GPT in English.

And at the end we’re looking for cross-pollination, where we share good practices that are working in Latin America that can be applied in the states and vice versa. So as you can see, we have lots of numbers. I’m dressed up because as soon as I hang up I’m going to a huge tourism summit.

So as always, it’s a pleasure and I’m looking also forward for Scott’s report that would be my highlight of the event. 

[00:58:44] Brian Searl: Look at that, Scott. He’s coming all the way from Mexico just to see you. You should, like Steph said, you should guarantee the outcome of your speech. I bet more people would come if you guaranteed the data would turn into good actionable profit for them.

I don’t know if that would be a win for you, but. You’re muted. I can’t hear you. We’ll, just assume you’re agreeing.

[00:59:03] Scott Bahr: I’m sorry I’m muted because of the dogs. But yeah I can make guarantees.

[00:59:07] Brian Searl: All right. Noted. Alright, Rafael, last but not least. 

[00:59:11] Rafael Correa: Yeah, I just wanna put my board of director hat for OHI. So board of director voting is open right now, opened on September 1st and closes on September 18th. So there’s a slate of new and some returning board members that are up for reelection. Some great names in there. So if you’re an OHI member, definitely encourage you to go to ohi.org o-h-i.org and and cast your votes.

[00:59:35] Brian Searl: Do you know all the names who are up right now? Can you 

[00:59:37] Rafael Correa: I, yeah I do, but there’s eight of ’em and yeah. 

[00:59:40] Brian Searl: I just wanna see if you knew ’em by memory man, I was just giving you a test. 

[00:59:43] Rafael Correa: Yeah, no, I got it up on the screen here. I got, the dual monitor set up buddy. 

[00:59:47] Brian Searl: Yes, definitely good vote for that stuff. ‘Cause obviously the board of directors is very important for OHI and how they steer the industry forward and all that kind of stuff. So yes, please, if you’re a member, go do that. Where can they learn more about Blue Water? 

[00:59:57] Rafael Correa: Bravo-whiskey-delta-charlie.com. 

[01:00:01] Brian Searl: All right. Awesome. Thank you guys for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

If you’re not sick and tired of hearing from me and Scott Bahr, we will be on Outwired in 4, 53 minutes, 52 minutes and eight seconds. So you can hear more about us talking about some what are we talking about today, Scott? I don’t know. Some crazy topic about some futuristic things. Yeah, that’s a good. 

[01:00:20] Scott Bahr: There is no off season, sorry. 

[01:00:21] Brian Searl: Scott will guarantee your success if you show up and watch our podcast. 

[01:00:25] Scott Bahr: Of course. So welcome. 

[01:00:26] Brian Searl: But other than that I’m gonna be gone for the next two weeks and MC Fireside Chats. We have two great guest host Zach Stoltenberg will be taking over next week for me, and then Rafael’s gonna host for me two weeks from today as a guest host.

So we will see you in three weeks. I’ll see you in three weeks. Other than that, join us next week for MC Fireside Chats, later for Outwired. Take care guys. 

[01:00:43] Rafael Correa: Safe travels, Brian.

[01:00:44] Simon Neal: Bye-bye