MC Fireside Chats - April 16th, 2025

April 16th Episode Recap The episode of MC Fireside Chats, hosted by Brian Searl of Insider Perks, convened a diverse panel of industry professionals including recurring guests Jeff Hoffman (Camp Strategy), Mike Harrison (CRR Hospitality), and Sandy Ellingson (Industry Liaison/Consultant), alongside special guests Kurtis Wilkins (Private Equity Analyst, Rjourney), Jennifer L. Grissom (Co-Owner, Crystal River KOA), and Yolanda “Yo’EL” D’Oyen (Owner, ARK@Denali Campground Resort). The comprehensive discussion explored crucial aspects of the outdoor hospitality sector, focusing on operational strategies, the interpretation of market data, adapting to consumer shifts, and navigating the increasing trend of institutional investment. Brian Searl opened the show by introducing the panel and highlighting recent technological advancements from Insider Perks. He announced the rollout of Rigsby, their AI voice chatbot, which is now capable of handling reservations via chat and is soon expected to offer voice reservation capabilities. Brian emphasized that this innovation is poised to be a significant disruptor in the industry, providing 24/7 booking options and eliminating common issues like busy signals, acknowledging that early adoption may involve a testing phase. The conversation quickly turned to industry data, prompted by insights drawn from the KOA North American Camping Report. Sandy Ellingson shared her positive takeaways, noting substantial increases in camping households and high retention rates among campers who began during the pandemic. She also highlighted encouraging growth in specific accommodation types, such as a significant rise in tent usage. However, Sandy expressed concern that some parks were limiting tent camping, which she sees as a vital “onboarding” method for introducing younger generations to camping, and advocated for viewing tent and car camping as strategic tools. Providing additional perspective on the data, Mike Harrison and Kurtis Wilkins cautioned against solely comparing current figures to 2019 (pre-pandemic) growth, which naturally saw a massive surge. While acknowledging continued overall interest, they stressed the importance of analyzing recent year-over-year changes and noted signs of potential headwinds, including recent nationwide dips in consumer activity in Q1 and April. Kurtis specifically highlighted that Rjourney is observing tighter booking windows, making forecasting more challenging despite no overall drop in bookings. A key theme discussed was the need for campgrounds to adapt to the evolving consumer. Mike Harrison pointed out that demographic data in some CRR Hospitality resorts shows a nearly equal distribution across age groups (Baby Boomers to Gen Z), necessitating varied marketing strategies across different platforms to reach each segment effectively. He and Kurtis Wilkins stressed the importance of adopting “experiential hospitality” to make stays a lifestyle experience and utilizing technology for simple enhancements, not just complex systems, to cater to the modern traveler. Kurtis Wilkins emphasized that understanding each park’s specific demographic and location is crucial for effective microtargeting in marketing efforts, noting that even regional terminology like “campground” versus “RV park” matters. He stressed the critical need for operators to closely monitor operational data such as pace reports, leads, and conversion rates at a granular level to identify demographic shifts and pivot strategies quickly in response to market changes, including those influenced by external factors. Jennifer L. Grissom shared her firsthand experience as a new owner/developer of the Crystal River KOA, which opened recently. She spoke about the success of her first year, exceeding initial projections, but also highlighted the operational challenges posed by the current narrow booking window that complicates forecasting. Jennifer discussed her surprise regarding the volume of tent...

Episode Transcript

Brian Searl (00:45):
Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats.
My name's Brian Searl with InsiderPerks Super excited to be here with you.
I don't even know what week it is.
I'm on so many meetings and so many calls.
It's like week two, three of April.
I don't, it's gotta be two, right?
Week two, yeah, week three.
Anyway, something like that.
Super excited to be back here forwhatever episode we're doing at my show.
But excited to welcome back someof our recurring guests here

(01:06):
that we always have on the show.
Mr.
Jeff Hoffman who is nursingsome bronchitis and I have
no idea why he showed up.
I think we should requiredoctor's notes in the future.
Make a note of that Sharah.
So they can come to the podcast.
Mike Harrison's here.
He's a little, like fuzzy and fadingin and out, but we're just assuming
he's as handsome as he always is.
And then we have SandyEllingson here with us as well.
And then two special or threespecial guests, sorry, Kurtis

(01:28):
Wilkins from Rjourney runs a greatcompany, man multiple companies.
Sorry Kurtis, I didn't mean to slight you.
Multiple companies.
We're gonna talk to him aboutthat thing and some of the
interesting stuff he has going on.
We've got Jennifer here from CrystalRiver KOA And we've got, is it, do you
wanna be Yolanda or, I don't know howto pronounce the shortened version of
your name 'cause I'm not smart enough.
So do you wanna be called Yolanda?
Or how should I pronounce your first name?

(01:50):
I can't hear you.
So maybe that's, we'll just assumethat it's Yolanda for now, and
sorry if I'm doing it wrong.
But that's what's in my notesand I know you have commented on
our podcast before as Yolanda.
Anyway, welcome.
I want to first toss it to our recurringguests here Jeff, Mike, or Sandy.
Is there anything that's come across yourdesk in the last, month or so since we've
last had this kind of group gatheringwith all of us together that you really

(02:14):
feel is important to talk about or share?

Sandy Ellingson (02:20):
I've been going through the KOA report for this year.
I still don't think I've fully consumedit, but I'm loving all the data that
I'm getting there, and I think that'llbe a great conversation at some point.

Brian Searl (02:34):
Yeah, like I, we should talk about that briefly.
I don't have it pulled up in front of me.
We're gonna digest thatlater on Outwired too.
But go ahead.
Somebody else was gonna talk.

Mike Harrison (02:42):
Yeah, I was gonna say, what's new?
We've had a lot of big newsrecently with CRR and Insider Perks.
Last week it was announced thatRigsby, our AI voice chat bot
rolled out the reservations viaRigsby on chat, which is huge news,
first of its kind in the industry.
And then another month or so we're gonnaroll out Rigsby voice reservations,

(03:03):
which will change the industry forever.
You'll no longer get a busy signal,we'll no longer get a no answer.
You can call and make areservation at 1:00 AM.
So we're very excited for thisnew technology with Insider Perks.
We've all been the industry for the modernworld and, moving it forward, we expect
that it will be broken a few times inthe first month and won't work perfectly.
But that's what innovation and testingand working through this is all about.

(03:27):
But we're super excited forthis technology and to look at
the guests and drive revenue.

Brian Searl (03:32):
Your check is in the mail.
Mike, thank you.

Mike Harrison (03:34):
I hope my check is in the mail.
It better be,

Brian Searl (03:37):
The, it wasn't planned to be clear.
I don't, I do need to sponsor the show.
I should commit myself as.

Mike Harrison (03:40):
I don't mean to check from you.
I want more money.
More money.

Brian Searl (03:43):
Oh, okay.
All right.
As long as it's not for me, youcan have as much money as you want.
So anything else, anything from you, Jeff?

Jeff Hoffman (03:49):
Just that I got quite a few data reports today.
One from OHI, one from KOA,and the, I'm trying to think
where the other one came in.
One of the reports said that a greatmajority of the people that started
camping during Covid have stayedin the industry so that we haven't

(04:11):
lost as many as we shared we might.
So that was encouraging.

Brian Searl (04:16):
Okay.
Good news.
And Sandy, do you happen to have a copyof the KOA report that you could pull up?
Not this second, but in a fewminutes if I gave you a few minutes?

Sandy Ellingson (04:24):
Oh yeah, I can.
And I also wanna add two more things.
Brian, even though you did it,I'm gonna take credit for it.
Okay.

Brian Searl (04:32):
That's fine.

Sandy Ellingson (04:32):
I love getting the Modern Campground weekly,
or daily actually, email.
And there were two things in there thislast week that I thought really hit home
for me 'cause it's something I've been soexcited about is one, all the different
things I've been seeing about campground.
Now embracing and doing events becauseI do believe that is key to the new

(04:53):
campers creating these experiences.
And the other thing I saw, whichreally excited me, was how campgrounds
are now partnering with somedealerships to actually do training
at their campgrounds for new campers.
And so to see that kind of come outthis week and I really appreciate what
you're doing with Modern Campground toget that out and encourage all of us.

Brian Searl (05:17):
This is how it goes, Kurtis.
They just talk about all my companies foran hour and then we just close the show.
So thank you all for coming.
I appreciate you watching.
We're done.
Thank you.
I appreciate the kind words like Ihave very little to do with Modern
Campground is the honest truth.
It's Akari, my Editor in Chief.
Sharah actually here, mypodcast coordinator has a
lot with Modern Campground.
So kudos to the team behind that, butI'm glad you're finding it useful.

(05:38):
I glad

Sandy Ellingson (05:39):
I can take credit for it 'cause I've been the thorn in
your side on a weekly basis talkingabout how we need these things.

Brian Searl (05:47):
Yeah, for sure.
You're one of the people as manypeople are in the industry, but
you're, not many people I would say.
Few people probably less than 50, whoreally try to push this industry forward.
And so yeah, you'vedefinitely had your impact.
And I'm happy to know you andhave you on the show as are some
of the other people here too.
Do we wanna spend a couple minutestalking on data, because I know we're
focusing mostly on operations here.

(06:07):
I want to give for a second, I wannagive Kurtis a chance to introduce
himself, Jennifer and Yolanda.
And then obviously we can goaround to Sandy and Jeff and Mike
and introduce yourselves as well.
And then maybe decide if we wanna talkabout five minutes and spend that on data,
because that obviously impacts operations.

Kurtis Wilkins (06:23):
I'll go first.
Thank you Brian for having me on the show.
It's my first time.
Also, so I'm the Senior Vice President ofAcquisitions at Rjourney, and I am also
the Head of our Data Science Department.
And what we're seeing rightnow is this the first quarter.
There was two major road bumps interms of consumers and how they

(06:43):
were consuming our product and RVs.
And I thought it happenedright after about January 23rd.
We saw a big drop in terms oflike activity and it, not just
Rjourney activity, we're talkingnationwide activity in terms of like
conversion events and consumption.
It took a little bit into February andthen it slowly recovered and then we just

(07:03):
saw another round of that here in April.
And so this consumer changedits consumption habits.
I don't know what everybody elseis seeing, but I know that our lead
times are are definitely gettingtighter in comparison to what
they've been historically, so wehaven't seen a drop in bookings.
We've seen a change in the waythey're consuming our product.

Brian Searl (07:27):
Great.
Thanks for being here.
I want to dive into all the things you'redoing with Rjourney and Advanced Outdoor
Management and all that kind of stuff.
Somebody's squeaking in the background.
I don't know whose it is, but ifyour mic, if you feel like your
mic might be squeaking, feelfree to mute it intermittently.
Jennifer from Crystal River KOA.
How are you?

Jennifer Grissom (07:43):
I'm Jennifer from the Crystal River KOA.
I'm the Owner I also was the developerand engineer for the project.
We opened in July of last year.
So this is all new for me andthank you, Brian, for having me on.
So engineering is my background.
I partnered with anotherKOA owner, franchise owner.

(08:06):
And yeah, it's, honestly it'sbeen a great year for us.
We're obviously in Floridaa different market.
We had a great January well overprojections yeah I'm so happy
to be part of the KOA franchise.
I don't know where we would'vestarted marketing and getting
customers without that base.
But we've had a

Brian Searl (08:26):
Go ahead, please.
I thought you're done.
I'm sorry.
No, I was just gonna saythank you for being here.
I appreciate it.
I wanna dive into your KOA, learneda little bit more about that.
Some of the trends maybeyou've seen in Florida would be
interesting, and then some of theoperational aspects of KOA too.
And don't be nervous whileyou're on the podcast.
I'm still don't know what I'm doing.
This is new to me.
Like I'm a very slow learner andI'm confident you're a fast learner.

(08:48):
So you'll pick it up quick.
Yolanda, from Alaska.
We still, can we hear Yolanda?
Still can't hear.
Yolanda, I'm sorry.
Yolanda, I don't know if maybe youcould try joining from your phone.
That might help, but we can'thear you for whatever reason.
But just yell anytime if youthink you've got your mic fixed
and we'll try to get back to you.

(09:08):
Mike, Sandy and Jeff, do you wannabriefly introduce yourselves?

Jeff Hoffman (09:14):
Sandy?

Brian Searl (09:17):
Now we can't hear Sandy either.
We're like losing everyone's audio.

Sandy Ellingson (09:21):
No, I was a good girl and I muted when you told us to.
And then I forgot.
So I'm Sandy Ellingson, I had a technologyconsulting firm and sold it and then
decided to hit the road full-time asan RVer and fell into a second career.
So I serve as a liaison between theindustry campgrounds, making sure
there's proactive communication,and I absolutely love it.

Brian Searl (09:45):
Awesome.
Thanks for being here.
Mike.

Mike Harrison (09:50):
Hi there.
Mike Harrison.
I work with CRR Hospitality.
We both own and operate luxury RV resorts.
We also do third party management andconsulting and love participating in the
industry in many different associations.
And panels and different venues andopportunities like Modern Campground.
So happy to be here.
Thank you.

Brian Searl (10:09):
Thanks for being here.
Mike and Jeff, last but not least.

Jeff Hoffman (10:13):
Yeah, I'm Jeff Hoffman.
I just enjoy the campground industry.
I have been in it for a long time andsold everything off and thought I was
going to retire and decided not to.
So I started a business called CampStrategy, which we go out and try to help
campground owners make their parks better.

Brian Searl (10:36):
Awesome.
Thanks for being here, Jeff.
I know you've only been in theindustry for 10 years, but if you can
say that a long time, that's fine.
We can tell this joke.

Jeff Hoffman (10:42):
I've

Brian Searl (10:43):
got stocks older

Jeff Hoffman (10:44):
than that.

Brian Searl (10:45):
So yeah this show is mostly about operations and improving operations.
I think it behooves us though, tospend just a few minutes and talk
about data because there's quite abit that is changing in the industry.
And I think it would help our audienceto understand how other owners are
either not being impacted or beingimpacted by some of the changes.

(11:06):
And just clean some data.
And I think just because we have that KOANorth American Campground report, we don't
wanna dive too much into it, but if Sandyhas a couple things that she wants to call
out from there that she found interesting,we can maybe talk about those things.
And then I'd love to get I think at leastand any of you're willing to jump in,
but I'd love to hear Jennifer's opinionon, we don't know what she's seen.
She just said she had a great year, butwe just saw the report in Woodall's who

(11:30):
we talked to, I think Mike has talked toToby O'Rourke and a few other people about
some cancellations and things that theyhad seen at KOA properties in Florida.
So I'm just curious specifically aboutthat, but where do you wanna start, Sandy?
Like just no pressure, but like themost important and most impactful
thing in the entire report go.

Sandy Ellingson (11:48):
I just thought it was super encouraging because we've been doing
some kind of companion research alongwith some of the other things and seeing
how those two balance each other out.
We are seeing significant increasesin the number of people camping, the
types of camping that they're doing.
I think somebody else has alreadymentioned our retention of those

(12:10):
covid campers that have come in.
And so we're showing like a 98% retentionrate year over year from if you go
average everything from 2014 forward.
And just the number of new households.
Something else that was reallyencouraging to me that I saw
that I loved was that there's 9.6
million tent usage up 56%.

(12:33):
And I'm very burdened by the fact thatbecause we had such increases during
covid we've lost some of our onboardingcapability for younger campers.
We've priced them out in some ways anda lot of parks stopped allowing tent
camping now, not KOA, but a lot of parksare no longer allowing tent camping, which

(12:54):
means, that we don't, we're losing ouronboarding process for the younger camper.
And you can only do that forso long before you start dying.
And so this was super encouraging to me.
And so operationally, how to tiethis back, one of the things I'm
talking to my campgrounds about islooking at things as onboarding tools.

(13:15):
And that includes not only tentcamping, but car camping, which is not
a homeless person parking on your site,but somebody coming in who's probably,
I mean

Brian Searl (13:24):
it could be, to be fair.
Probably isn't, but it could be.

Sandy Ellingson (13:27):
Yeah, it could be.
You're right.
The biggest fear when somebody hearscar camping from a campground is
this is a homeless person coming in.
And that's not the case because a lotof times they are coming in with a lot
of expensive equipment and the reasonthey're not tent camping is safety.
They are concerned about tentcamping, so they wanna be in their
car where they can close the doors.

(13:49):
And so there's just a lot of reallynuanced kind of things that I think we
are gonna be able to flip the scriptthis year and have people view what they
thought was a negative as a positive tobe able to grow our occupancy even more.

Brian Searl (14:03):
So I think I'd like to talk about, and I don't wanna spend
the majority of the show on this,but I think I'd like to talk about a
couple points, like just, and maybeyou already said them, but directly
from the North American CampingReport, if you have it in front of you.
'cause I know you collect your owndata, and I know I'm not questioning
the validity of any of your data,but I just wanna make sure it,
our audience knows like where it'scoming from when they hear it.

Sandy Ellingson (14:21):
Yeah, so I'm just looking at the first page of the KOA report, which
says that camping households, those whoidentify as campers increased by 16.5
million or 23%

Brian Searl (14:33):
year over year?

Sandy Ellingson (14:35):
This says camping households, those who identify
as campers have increased by 16.5
million Additionalhouseholds, 23% increased.
It didn't tell me a timeframe.
All types of accommodationshave seen an increase in use.
And again, this is exciting to me.
So 9.6
million in 10 usage up 56%, 6.4

(14:56):
million in RV uses usage up 96%, 7 millionin cabin or glamping usage up 101%.
So those are the things that arereally exciting to me to see that.
We are growing, we are we're continuing,I think in some of the growth that

(15:16):
we got in Covid and retaining thosepeople, I think that really proves this.
So that's what the firstpage of the report actually,

Brian Searl (15:25):
Mike, have you had time to read this?
I assume you're usuallya voracious reader.

Mike Harrison (15:29):
Yes, I am.
I'm not seeing those same numbersthat Sandy's seeing, and I
don't, I'm not let me be clear.
I'm excited about the camping industry,but I'm not seeing that growth.
The numbers are skewed if you'relooking at it from five years ago.

Brian Searl (15:45):
And that's why I asked her the question because a
lot of those numbers I was lookingat in the KOA report were 2024.
Not that they're wrong.

Mike Harrison (15:51):
Yeah.

Brian Searl (15:51):
But they were 2024 over 2019.

Sandy Ellingson (15:54):
Yeah, and I'm pulling this specifically
from page three, by the way.
And the report is availableat koapressroom.com.
So any, they make it publicly availableto anybody, even if you're not a KOA

Brian Searl (16:07):
For sure.
To be clear, we're notquestioning the data, right?

Sandy Ellingson (16:09):
Yeah.

Brian Searl (16:10):
Because we love Scott Bahr.
We put it together or helpput it together, right?
We're just questioning the methodologyof there's a difference between
2024 over 2023 and 2024 over 2019.

Kurtis Wilkins (16:20):
Mind if I chime in here?
Have you guys looked at the GoogleTrends reports for the keyword searches?
In those, in thesesectors for our keywords?
There are some tailwind.
There's some headwinds in front of us.

Mike Harrison (16:32):
So for sure.
Yeah, and I guess that's my pointis comparing to 2019, it's like
saying let's look at the AC industryand the filter industry from 2024
to 2019 and exploded after covid.
So the numbers, comparing inthat timeframe just I don't
think are very prevalent.
While it's an amazing growth, youreally gotta look at the last year
and the last two years and see it.
If you ask me what really stuck out in thereport more than anything is just, and it

(16:54):
doesn't matter if it's the KOA report or Iknow Scott released one, American Glamping
Association released one, Sage Outdoor.
They're all saying the same thing, andit's the evolution of the modern traveler.
And I think that's what's reallyencouraging is that there are new
voices to echo what Sandy said,that are coming into our industry
that we have to be prepared for.
And I think there's some interestingthings that you should pull from that.

(17:17):
Which is, we look at all of our dataand demographics and interestingly
enough and not every property is gonnabe the same of course, but for five
of our resorts, our demographics arealmost mixed, very equally, right?
Baby boomers, like the same percentage asGen X is the same percent as millennials,
the same percentage as a Gen Z.
So what that tells us is if you lump,the Gen Z and the millennials together,

(17:39):
which is when you have to, they'renever gonna look on Facebook, right?
Versus our, baby boomers and Gen Xerswho are never gonna look on TikTok.
You can't market the same way to everyperson, and you have to understand who
your target market is and evolve howyou're gonna get these new campers and
make sure what you're doing to get them.
And then part two to that iswe're talking about operations.

(18:00):
We've been focusing heavily onexperiential hospitality, is how do you
then evolve your offering, especiallycampgrounds been in business for 40 years
that have been doing the same thing.
How are they evolving their experienceto make sure that it is becoming more
of a lifestyle experience, whetheryou have glamping or it's just an
RV site, or if it's a tent site, howis that becoming more interesting?
How are you evolving and integratingtechnology into your campground?

(18:23):
It doesn't have to be a robot like Brianwants, it can be, simple enhancements.
But, how are you evolving to basicallycater to the modern travel, which is now
going to as the baby boomers expire orretire or whatever word you want to use.
And I'm not saying Jeff whenI say baby boomer or expiring
but how are you evolving that?
That's what I pull fromit more than anything.

Kurtis Wilkins (18:44):
And to go right off of that, Mike, I couldn't
agree more, but the we talk aboutthe changing consumer, right?
And those demographicsare changing rapidly.
I'm sure we're all aware here ofour Canadian travelers, right?
And where do you redeploy those marketingassets and how fast are you reacting?
'cause you don't wanna be sending moneyafter conversions that aren't gonna come.
Just because it worked last yeardoesn't mean it's gonna work again.

(19:06):
So you need to be reallytracking these conversion ratios.
You need to be tracking everythingand it's, you gotta be doing
it almost daily at scale.
To get any kind of effectivenessout of what you're doing.
'Cause we are we do have youngdemographics coming in and
they require different things.
And so how do we fill that void?
How do we make sure that thevalue proposition we're offering
is there for that customer?

Brian Searl (19:26):
I think that's the easy low hanging fruit key, right?
Is how do we make sure the value prop isthere first for your guest of your park,
which is different across your portfolio.
Chris, across your portfolio, Mikeacross all the people you consult
for, Jeff, across all of KOA, Jenniferall of your clients, Sandy maybe
they're all the same in Alaska.
I dunno I can't hear from Yolanda yet, butwe'll assume that they're different people

(19:48):
in different parts of, can I hear you?
Is that you?

Yolanda D'Oyen (19:51):
Yeah, I think that's me now.

Brian Searl (19:53):
Oh, hi Yolanda.
I can't, you're notmoving, but I can hear you.
Which is the important part.
For your wisdom, would you liketo introduce yourself real quick?

Yolanda D'Oyen (20:00):
Woo, after all of this, I just want to, hold on.
Let me give my elevator pitch.
Hi Brian.
I am Yo'El, a Chinese Jamaican creativeserial entrepreneur and real estate
professional, a radical woman ofGod and the owner builder of the Ark

(20:21):
Denali RV Campground Resort in Alaska.
The Ark boasts the best view of MountDenali in the state as quoted continually.
And it is set to become a top tierdestination for outdoor enthusiasts.
So put Alaska on your places to visitlist and come and have fun and adventure

(20:47):
with me because we, Jamaicans areeverywhere doing big things and so there's
just a little additional little pitch.
So hold on.
So if you want to discussfurther, contact me.
I have very lucrative investmentopportunities still available.
I'm sorry.
I still have on my capital raise hat.

(21:08):
It's been quite an adventure here inAlaska, building this brand new RV park.

Brian Searl (21:17):
That's fine.
You can wear we all wear many hatshere, but I really like your intro.
I think I'm just gonna seed thepodcast to you, if you don't
mind just starting it off for me.
In future weeks too.
'cause that was prettypassionate and inspirational.
So thank you for sharing.
And Alaska is definitely on my list.
I was actually gonna go there in Mayand ended up having to, not cancel.
Yeah, I had to cancel a flight 'causemy girlfriend couldn't get off enough

(21:37):
time for work for her birthday.
But definitely on our list we'llbe back there or we'll come there.
It's one of the states.
I haven't been there, yet.

Jeff Hoffman (21:44):
Isn't Alaska your next door neighbor?

Brian Searl (21:47):
It's not really, like Jeff do you know how big Canada is?
Have you measured Canada?
It's not like the same on a mapwhere like you can fit two fingers
instead of province and it just,then you go to the next one.
It's big.
Jeff, I'm not anywhere near I'm about19 hours away from the Alaska border
I think, or something like that.
Maybe it's further.
Anyway so let's talk about thank youfor being here, Yolanda, and we wanna

(22:09):
talk about your park in a little bit.
I just wanna finish up thedata discussion briefly.
I think this is theimportant thing, right?
There's so much data to look at.
There's so much that we're gatheringfrom Google Analytics or call
centers like Kurt and Mike do to,dozens and dozens of things, right?
What do you look at?
What do you pay attention to?
Obviously we could have thatconversation for hours and it

(22:30):
would, I think, be different.
There would be a set of maybe 10 or 15or 20 things that you would say every
park owner should look at, but not allof them have the tech savvy ability to do
that, or the team behind them to do that.
And so I think the foundational aspect ofit is let's start with who our guest is
and understanding them so that we can tellour story and we can set ourselves apart

(22:52):
from an experiential standpoint, but alsoin a, whatever headwinds we're facing.
Like Kurt said, I think there'sgonna be a ton of 'em this year.
But why am I different?
Why?
And we've talked about thison the show before, right?
It's not enough to have, I alsohave a miniature golf course.
I also have a swing pool.
It's, I have better customer service,or I have this that you don't have.
And you've gotta be able to tell thatstory at an individual property level.

(23:12):
And by doing that and telling thatstory in a way that resonates with the
type of guest you're trying to reach,I think you'll be ahead of 85% of parks
in this country, in both our countries,

Jeff Hoffman (23:23):
Brian, and what I've found out by having multiple parks
in multiple states, and I think Mikecan attest to this, although we like
to systematize the operations, everypart that has a different feel to it,
they all have their own personality.

(23:44):
They all have their ownindividual little markets.
So if you try to run them as allthe same, you're not gonna do well.
Each market almost has to be doneindividually, and you have to praise what
you've got in that market and capture.
The people you're trying to get orwhat your, who your customer really is.

(24:10):
And a lot of that you can pull outof this data to try to figure it
out who you need to go after andthat's who you need to market to.

Brian Searl (24:20):
How do you compensate for the fact that everybody's been consulted
on by Camp Strategy with your brain andthen thus they're all similar, Jeff?

Mike Harrison (24:27):
It won't be.

Brian Searl (24:30):
Go ahead Kurt.

Kurtis Wilkins (24:32):
I was gonna say, Jeff, I think you're spot on.
I think each park has its own demographic.
I think there's I think alot of parks rhyme, right?
Like they are different.
But they rhyme and they come with alot of similar points of action because
your messaging in Colorado shouldbe different than your messaging in
Texas, and it should be different thanyour messaging in Pennsylvania, right?

(24:54):
Those, there's dialects there, right?
Freebie here is like the differencebetween campground and RV park, right?
Different parts of thiscountry use different words
to search for the campground.
And if you are, and it's not a onesize fits all, but if your model
supports a multifaceted businesslike that and you're mining your own

(25:14):
demographics, I think you're spot on.
You can get in there and you canmicro targett your customer bases in
terms of acquiring a new customer.
The things like, Brian, I don'tknow if you want me to go through
my top things, but like the.

Brian Searl (25:28):
Go ahead.
Yeah.

Kurtis Wilkins (25:29):
The bread and butter, I think of this industry
is you're gonna, you need to belooking at your pace reports, right?
You need to know what you're, howyou're performing, and what your park
is performing at in terms of what'scoming up into your future and are
you filling up as fast as last year?
Do you need to fill up faster?
And you need to betracking your leads, right?
And you need to be trackingthose at a microscopic level.

(25:50):
Are you converting at the same rate?
Are those campers that you had lastyear converting at the same rate?
Are there different demographicsthat are converting better?
And should you be refocusing yourefforts into those demographics?
Because with the changes that arehappening on the political level, right?
There are demographic changes rightnow and we need to be pivoting

(26:11):
our strategies towards those.
And you can't wait.
You gotta do it quick.

Jennifer Grissom (26:15):
I think Kurtis, one of the things that we're struggling with
right now is our people are reserving.
Our reservation window is so narrowright now, whereas, in previously campers
were reserving three, six months out,the booking window is so narrow, it's

(26:36):
making, projecting so difficult, thepickup report and stuff that I really,
we're relying, it's very difficult torely on those things now because, you are
picking up reservations in three weeks,but it's really hard to forecast way out.
And then, I also wanted to speak towhat Sandy said about the tent campaign.

(26:56):
We were blown away with the numberof tent campers that we received.
And at first we had them, Iwould say, priced too low.
And it was a very negativeexperience for our manager.
And so we raised the price plan on those.
I would say we do get a lot ofhomeless people, but not the homeless
people that at the lower price pointswhat we're getting are a lot of

(27:18):
elderly who are living outta theircars, parking in Walmart at night.
They come because they wanna usetheir facilities once a week.
And these are clean, great people.
I'll see the same lady there every week.
Just something that I did notanticipate as an owner that somebody
would be paying $65-$70 a nightfor a tent site when, there's an RV
site that's just priced over that.

(27:41):
I'll say I do have my partner'scampground in South Florida and she
has one in North Florida, and it's beeninteresting to see how their numbers
and everything compare to ours justbased on the areas and demographics.
And, we started thinking we'dapproach it like those two,
but like you said, we couldn't.
It's a totally differentarea, a different beast.

(28:02):
And you really have to get, withyour local what do they call
it, like Chamber of Commerce?

Brian Searl (28:07):
Yep.
Destination market organization.

Jennifer Grissom (28:10):
And they've done a lot of the work that you're talking about
so they can help you and identify that.
And they've been a huge help for us.

Brian Searl (28:17):
But to your point, like you're right to be clear, I'm not like
destination market organizations area wonderful partner depending on the
area you're in, in most areas, right?
But some are just don't have thefunding, necessary sometimes.
But DMO and people you canpartner with to get that data.
But to your point, like I think thisis a, an interesting discussion to
have of the booking window gap becauseboy, that can make forecasting scary.

(28:39):
Can it?
And I'm not an owner, I'm just imaginingit from a marketing perspective of
how I would talk to 500 of our clientsof if they, and they're not asking
me to forecast every day to be clear.
But but talk a littlebit about that briefly.
Who wants to take that?
'cause that's interesting to me.

Mike Harrison (28:53):
Well, I think it's a bigger discussion than that.
You had asked earlier about kind of dataand I was on a panel last week and I was
asked to with Paul Bambi and Chris fromKOA, and we were asked to speak about,
what does the next five years look likein the outdoor hospitality industry?
And, one of the things, as we allknow, there's some headwinds, that are
facing us still very exciting industry.

(29:14):
But, forecasting to be fallsinto the bucket of, let's call
it operational excellence.
And, there are many campgroundsthat have existed forever that
have never had to compete.
And, locationally, they've just beengreat and they've been around for 50
years and maybe the owner still has anAOL email address and maybe their website
picture hasn't been updated for 20 years.
And it's pixelated, thepics on their website.

(29:36):
And, with the evolution of Covidand the hospitality industry,
there's been certainly the last twoyears and overabundance of supply.
That's also, the Canadian travelerisn't the only reason, the only
answer why the market's down.
There's also all the new supplythat's opened in the last two years
from the covid boom, let's call it.
And so the markets now needto absorb the new supply.
What that means is all of thesecampgrounds that have never had to compete

(30:00):
or don't know how to compete, or havenever marketed or haven't evolved, or
still are handing out the brochure at thetruck stop, and that's all they're doing.
The operational excellence isreally needs to be applied, right?
And those that are forecasting, andforecasting effectively, those who
understand that there's a change intheir booking window, those that are
leveraging, the better enhanced marketingtechniques, those that are utilizing

(30:24):
experiential hospitality and evolvingtheir product, that's who's gonna survive
or thrive, I guess is a better word.
And so yes, while theforecasting can be scary.
To me it's really more about, do you knowthat your forecasting needs to be scary?
Have you looked at that, your booking.

Brian Searl (30:40):
Any of your forecasting at all?
Very good point.
Yeah.

Mike Harrison (30:42):
And so that's to me is the bigger issue at play is that
there's a segment of the industry that,that may end up getting left behind
if they do not hop on board of, makingchanges and becoming more operational
experts on their own properties.
So that's, to me is the bigger context.

Jennifer Grissom (31:00):
Mike, the two things that you said.
So we started developingour property in 2017.
Covid hit.
Couldn't find a contractor.
Anyway, by the time we got it allsaid and done, they build a 400
sweet citrus acres, pops up atexaggerating a mile away, 400 sites.

(31:21):
They're expanding another 500.
I'm terrified, right?
No, it, we have been somuch more successful.
I only know because the owner happens tobe, of my ex-husband's and he's talked
to me, they had to pay off their loan.

Brian Searl (31:40):
Such a fascinating story.
This show's gonna go two hours.
We gotta dive into this.
Sorry.

Jennifer Grissom (31:46):
They had to pay off their loan, which must be nice, right?
'cause I can only imaginewhat that loan was.
And these are all concrete sites,a clubhouse because they couldn't
make their loan payments wherewe're in a much better situation.
We were profitable I thinkwithin two months of opening,
which is pretty unique, I think.
And I would say operationally that's key.

(32:07):
Our management and keeping our staffhappy, that is our number one priority.
When you ask what do I focus on?
And that's morale of my staff.
So right now we are running withouta maintenance person because we,
my partner and I, Paige and Igo up there, my manager does it.

(32:28):
We weren't able to find one that reallyfit in, so we just run it as an all girl
crew, which Yolanda we might appreciate.
But we're women owned and operated.
And even our maintenanceperson was a woman before we
decided to do it without her.
Yeah.
Is the most important.

Brian Searl (32:45):
I think you touch on a lot of important things here too,
but like both you and Mike are right.
The data's important.
The forecasting is important as wetalked about, but you like, you've
gotta get to the point where you're setup to forecast and you, again, going
back to understanding your audienceand who they are and how you appeal
to them and all that, you have to dothe operational, not even excellence.
You have to do the operational likehalf-assed first and then get to

(33:06):
the good and then get to the great,and then get to the excellent.
But you have to get those fundamentalstaken care of first, right?
And then you're set yourself up for asituation where maybe you can forecast
well or great one year, maybe youcan't another year, but because you
have your operational excellence downbecause you know your team is in a
good place and your, amenities are ina good place and your resort looks good

(33:27):
and you're treating your guests good,that like you have less to worry about
probably than most other people who areor are not forecasting in your area.
Is that fair?

Jeff Hoffman (33:38):
Brian, I think, and Mike, you can correct me if
you think I'm off base here, but.
If we go back years into the hotelbusiness before franchising really
took over the hotel business, itwas where we were before investors
started coming into our business.

(33:59):
Nobody was really modeling anything.
Nobody was really putting in systemstracking data, and now campgrounds
are starting to get a little bit moresophisticated in their marketing, in
their pricing and everything else.
So it's, right now it's a dynamic industrybecause of the changes that are happening.

(34:24):
What I foresee in the future isprobably between KOA Jellystone
and maybe a couple hotel franchisescoming over into our market space.
We'll grow more into that franchisetype model on campgrounds from now on.

Brian Searl (34:44):
I think they're all gonna be Rjourneys and CRR Hospitalities.

Kurtis Wilkins (34:48):
I was like, I don't know about Mike, but I know that we
definitely talk to a lot of institutionalclients and that there is a demand there
and this institutionalization of thismarket space it's happening and they
want they wanna see these forecasts,they wanna see these projections, they
want to know where their marketingdollars are and is it being effective.
And those, we went out and we had tobuild our own tools to provide that

(35:10):
to provide that dynamic system thatmoves very rapidly to get there.
And so I, Jeff, Iwholeheartedly agree with you.
I think that this is, we are in the earlystages of institutional investors coming
in, and I think that's good for everybody.
I think that raises property value.

Mike Harrison (35:27):
Absolutely.

Kurtis Wilkins (35:28):
Love it.

Mike Harrison (35:28):
Yeah, I was one that Brian's very first guest on Modern
Campground several years ago, andif you go back and if you rewind
the tape I said way back when,don't be surprised that one of the
hotels, are gonna get into the space.
And then fast forward to a yearago, and then, Hyatt was the first
to get in with Auto Camp, and thenHilton was under Canvas and then
Marriott with Postcard cabins andit is only the beginning, right?

(35:53):
What this market does orwhat this industry doesn't
have is distribution, right?
There's no marriott.com,
there's no expedia.com,
and once that becomes normalized andsimplified, the access which has started
to touch everybody with glamping,et cetera, et cetera, and the entire
dynamic of the industry is gonna change.
The RV park isn't going to die, but it'scertainly going to be more RV park with

(36:13):
glamping, blended as we go forward, the30 site RV park isn't going to die, but
there are going to be few and far between.
And it's exactly what I said last week atthat panel was, how many more Joe and Bob
Motels are there on the side of the road?
That are 30 rooms, itjust don't exist, right?
The smallest hotels that are beingbuilt in the last 20 years are
basically a hundred room town, placesuites, a hundred room Fairfields,

(36:37):
and the super eights and motel sixes,eh, not a lot of those new builds.
And we're, and we're several yearsaway from that, but that's what's,
and unfortunately, same thinghappened to Home Depots, versus eight
little neighborhood hardware stores.
And so it doesn't mean that the smallcampground's going to die but it certainly
is, there's going to be aggregation,there's going to be accretion and, hop on

(36:58):
board, I guess is the best way to say it.
The ones who will not,are going to struggle.
And to Kurt's point, wehave done the same thing.
That's how we've cut our teeth isthrough sophisticated analytics and
data and reporting and marketing andall those things, which is attractive
to the institutional type, buyers.
And so I don't say this for you.
I see, Yolanda's in the call.

(37:19):
I don't wanna run your call Brian and Isee, Jennifer's on the call and they're
small property owners, so I don'tsay any of this to scare away a small
property owner say you don't exist.
That is not what I'm saying whatsoever.
But the complexion will change.

Brian Searl (37:31):
And I think you have to look at and just, sorry, one second.
Kurt.
Can I call you Kurt or is it Kurtis?
So I have to be official?
Yes.
Okay.
I just wanna make sure youcan call me Bri if you want.
That's fine.
We can be friends.
So I think there's a couplethings here that you mentioned.
Mike, and then I wanna let Kurtis talk.
I think you're a hundred percentright with the people evolving.
Like nobody, I don't think I'mgonna speak for you Mike, and

(37:51):
you can tell me if I'm wrong.
I don't think anybody's saying you haveto embrace institutional investing and
sell your park to an institution or lovethe fact that it's coming in our industry.
But you have to understand thatit is, and you have to adapt to it
because there's going to be new anddifferent expectations placed on you
as a result of consumers being ableto choose from not just independence,

(38:11):
but independence and institutions.
Is that fair?

Mike Harrison (38:14):
It's if everybody's using a car and you're still using a horse,
that's basically what we're saying.

Brian Searl (38:20):
But there, it's still a place, like for some
of you, just not all of you.

Mike Harrison (38:24):
Yeah.
There's still horses, there's stillranches in this world and Yep.

Brian Searl (38:27):
There are lots of motel sixes that are just not properly charging
the meth labs to set up in their rooms.
And if you did, you would probablybe fine not to pick on Motel six.
Like I actually did this.
I actually were on vacation.

Mike Harrison (38:40):
Height in.
That's a better.

Jeff Hoffman (38:40):
Hey.

Brian Searl (38:41):
We, I speak that way out of joking, of course, but I still remember
we went to a La Quinta one time or wewere staying next to a La Quinta and
there was a bunch of police that pulledup and like the whole wall blew out of
the side of the building and we weretold it was a meth lab that was there.
Like we were at dinner and came backand it was so interesting times.
But in all seriousness, likethere is a place for you, but you

(39:03):
have to figure out your niche.
You have to figure out your guests,you have to figure out the type
of customer you wanna serve, andyou've gotta be different than
the institutions if you want to bedifferent than the institutions.

Jeff Hoffman (39:12):
Well, I think where we're also heading that's gonna help
the small campground owner is ourVMS systems are developing so much
quicker than they did over the years.
There's, right now there's so many peoplein the industry, there's people that
are looking at the industry to come inand, I just think that the mom and pops

(39:36):
for them to stay competitive are gonnahave to change a little bit and get new
systems in and learn how to read the data.
And I think that is gonnahelp them stay in the market.
KOA is helping a lot with theirfranchises by trying to give them,

(39:57):
the best systems that are out there.
They're always trying to upgrade.
And everybody else I know in the industry,whether it's Camp Life, CampSpot, New
Book, they're making changes every weektrying to stay up on top of demand and
I think I make calls to different peopleevery week saying, why can't we do this?

(40:20):
Or why can't we do this?
Why can't I look at this number?
For me it sounds simple for them.
It's a lot of programming.

Jennifer Grissom (40:27):
Jeff,

Brian Searl (40:27):
I, Kurt, oh, hold on.
I'm gonna let Kurt talk'cause he's been waiting.
I'm gonna let Kurt talk and then Jennifer,if it's somebody to say, and then I
wanna talk to Yo'El about her park.

Kurtis Wilkins (40:35):
Yeah, I, Jeff couldn't agree more.
Our, I mean our engineering teams,'cause we have our own proprietary
property management system.
And it's integrated top to bottom rightwebsite all the way through the call
center to our rate management teams.
And that definitely has given us acompetitive edge because we aren't waiting
on production timelines for someone tocome out with a feature that's gonna

(40:57):
make us, an extra million dollars a year.
We can prioritize that.
We can set that out and we're, I.
We always say that the tagline hereis operators that run the software,
operators should also be prioritizingwhat comes out on that software.
And so that's, I couldn't agree more.
I think that the industry has a lot ofwork to do on that side of the business.
I know we still have a ton of newfeatures that we want to add to

(41:19):
our platform that keep yielding.

Brian Searl (41:24):
Jennifer, were did you have something?
I'm sorry.

Jennifer Grissom (41:25):
I was just gonna say, I could not imagine opening a
park, not being a part of a franchiseand not having the operating systems.
Bless you, Sandy.
I think that.
Just the value that's provided, notjust in the name recognition, which
of course you do rely on a franchiseto maintain that name recognition.

(41:45):
But the value that I have as aowner in terms of marketing, name
recognition, and just the softwarealone, I don't know that I could
develop that as a single campground.
Now Kurtis, with his multiple,it's different, right?
But as a 68, 6 site campground,it just wouldn't make sense.
That's what I had.
I don't feel like a small campgroundbecause I am part of a huge

(42:10):
franchise, if that makes sense.

Brian Searl (42:11):
Which is a different way you can take it, right?
You get institution, you got byyourself, you got in the middle
somewhere, which is where KOA is, whereyou have the benefits of both, right?
In some capacity.
So I think there's a good fitfor everybody of and there's
so many other players thatwe're not talking about, right?
But that's how Camps Spot and New Bookhelp people the smaller parks that don't
have the resources to develop their own.
So there are pros andcons to all the things.

(42:31):
It just depends on where you sit.
So let's talk to Yo'El real quick.
I got corrected.
It's not, it says Yolanda, butshe wants to be called Yo'El.
I'm very confused, but I always am,Yo'El, so don't feel like it's your fault.
Tell us about your property, likeyou did, give us the elevator pitch.
What I'm interested in is first, howdo you decide to develop in Alaska?

Yolanda D'Oyen (42:53):
That's such a loaded question, but I
just wanted to let you know.
I just wanted to thank you verymuch, Brian, for this platform,
because I'm the newbie on the block.
And what it is that I'm a primarily adesigner and developer and visionary.
I have marketing background.

(43:14):
It's truly a unicorn.
And this particular site, I tellthe people, I said, Lord had
to trip me to get me to Alaskabecause I wouldn't have done it.
And I even have a little testimonyon my website because everybody
asks, how did I get to Alaska?
But I just wanted to let you know thatthis has been a five year, over five

(43:39):
year of me planning, and we're right,we're shovel ready to start as soon as
the snow melts that we can get started.
And the thing about it is that I'm it'sgood to not have a preconceived notion
of what the RV industry was supposed tobe because I'm a visionary, because I'm

(44:07):
a planner and I do master planning andmarketing, and this was what was presented
to me and I researched my property is.
It's like location.
It is a blessing to even be, to have thisproperty and it's in the Denali State

(44:30):
Park and it's at the very beginning stageand we, everything that everybody has
been talking about, I have the benefitof implementing all that knowledge
and all that information into my park.
Even though my land, the propertyis 85 acres, I'm only developing

(44:57):
35 of it, and of that 35, I'monly putting 40 RV campsites.
My park is like a, isa resort on steroids.
Because what I'm doing, andmost places in most resorts in
Alaska, they close for the winter.

(45:19):
Alaska has anywhere from anaverage of six months of winter.
Our summers have, are amazing becausethey're 24 hour day of summer.
It has very unique qualities, butwhat the driving force of me being

(45:40):
in Alaska, of me doing this projectand I will be open 20 all year.
I will be open 12 months for the yearbecause the winter time I have discovered
because honestly I didn't even knowhow to get dressed during the winter.
But now I love all aspectswinter included of Alaska.

(46:05):
Is that there is so much winter activity.
Denali is gorgeous.
During the winter, the night skies arefantastic with the Northern nights.
Mr.
Jeff, you just coming backfrom your trip, right?
We have Northern Lights.
It's fantastic.
The but the main reason for mepersonally, it's a personal thing.

(46:26):
I found out that Alaska has thehighest rate of suicide in the nation.
And you know what if I, becauseeverything closes down during the
wintertime and that's a darkness and all.
If I can save one person, that's my goal.
And I'm telling you,we're going to be open.

(46:50):
We have like about minimum ninetour buses that go up and down.
The highway, and I'm not off the highway.
I'm on the highway and you cansee Denali, the view of Denali
right there from the highway.
So what I've done is diversified andI have the area for the park, the RV

(47:15):
park, but I'm taking and capitalizingon my traffic, on all those guests.
When you think of one tour bus, onetour bus holds 90 people on average.
So what do I do?
I invite them in.
I have a nice roundabout.
I'm having a 2000 squarefoot heated viewing deck.

(47:38):
So they come in for free, theycome and they take snap, snap.
I'm having a conveniencestore, a gallery of food.
They can, you want to keepthem there as long as possible.
Let them spend a little moneyand then they go on the way the
next stop, is 80 miles north.

(47:58):
The other stop below is 20 miles south.
As a matter of fact,it just goes on and on.
If you can think it and you diversifyit, it has the most, I have a helipad.
It's just amazing.
I have the only safe riveraccess because we're on the
river, the large Chilena river.

(48:20):
I have the only safe, a riveraccess in 50 miles north and south.
That's amazing.
So we can have overnightcamping day picnicking.
We can, I'll have riverfront cabins.
The idea is not to overbuild, but to stillhave the good, excellent customer service.

(48:45):
And you keep them thereand they still drive up.
It's an amazing opportunity.
And you know what?
I'm going to be there.
That's my home.
So I'm an onsite, I'm an onsite builder.
Why wouldn't I want tolive in the best view ever?
So that's, it's very exciting.

(49:05):
Very exciting.
And I've been told that my part,especially because the RV is on
only, we're going to have 40 unitsand they're going to be triple wide.
So if you feel, and everyone has theview of Denali, that's the amazing thing.
And so I really capitalizeas a builder, a visionary on

(49:30):
everything that is spoken about.
So I'm like a product, the child ofeverybody's vision of the future RV future
industry is what Ark Denali is about.

Brian Searl (49:48):
And I think you're touching on a good point, right?
We've talked about this throughout thewhole show, this coming, this recurring
theme of operational excellence,understanding your guests recognizing
the location and the blessings that youhave with your specific property that are
unique from everybody else, and takingadvantage of those, like the view deck
of Denali and the river access and allthe things you're talking about, right?

Yolanda D'Oyen (50:07):
Yes.

Brian Searl (50:08):
And I think none of us would probably complain maybe some of
us who really are beach people, which Idon't understand, mountains are better.
But most of us would really wannawake up to a view like that.
But there's things that you canidentify, whether they're mountains
or rivers or beaches or whatever orsomething smaller, even if it's just
down to a customer service or a warmcookie that you're giving away at
check-in, that really sets you apartand lead to that operational excellence.

(50:31):
You've just gotta not only takeadvantage of making your operations
better, but understanding your guestand understanding your location as
you clearly have a vision to do.
Would you agree, Kurt?

Kurtis Wilkins (50:44):
Yeah, I would totally agree.

Brian Searl (50:46):
So talk, go ahead.
Somebody else.
Oh, I was gonna ask youanother question, Kurt.
I was just gonna, I was gonna ask,so talk, tell us a little bit and
that we have a few minutes left andwe can go over a couple minutes.
If somebody needs to drop off, they can.
Unless it's you, Kurt, and you'rein the middle of your question,
then please finish your answer.
But so talk to me a littlebit about Rjourney, right?
How many locations do you guys have now?

Kurtis Wilkins (51:06):
So right now on the platform, there are I think it's
34, 35 on the Rjourney platform.
We manage an additional 20 on top of that.
And then we have quite a few onboardingscheduled for the rest of the year.
So it's we're definitely moving forwardin the space and through growing.
The I think you, did you want meto touch a little bit on what we

(51:28):
just accomplished in the last week?

Brian Searl (51:30):
I do, but first, my opening question for everybody who's watching
and is unfamiliar with Rjourney.
I'm just super curious and I ask everybodythis, who has a lot of properties,
has been successful in the industry.
The first time they're in the showis, how did you get here, man?

Kurtis Wilkins (51:44):
Oh, this is a wild wild story.
So we are, we're a family office.
And where we started was weactually started in garbage.
We were the one of the largest garbagecompanies in the country for trucking.
And over the years we've invested anddivested of different businesses, whether
that be solid waste hydro facilities,solar farms, wind farms, apartment

(52:08):
buildings, hotels we've done housing.
I can't tell you how manythousands of homes we've built.
But we've been quite a fewreal estate asset classes.
We, the most recent one was self-storage.
We saw an opportunity during a the covidmarket to, to make an exit in storage.
And we've rolled into RV parks.

(52:28):
We started with 27 and we've grown since.
And that's how we got here.
How I got here is I went to school,got a degree, and some crazy guy named
David hired me, said, her you go kid.

Brian Searl (52:41):
You have the best story board, right.

Kurtis Wilkins (52:43):
Go try it out.

Brian Searl (52:45):
I think we all have our crazy guy in our history that, or girl
that helped us get to where we are.
Right?
We could all tell those kinds ofstories, probably multiple in my history.
But so tell us about the recentnews briefly that you've been going
through, and then I'd love to hearas a secondary answer, where do you
see Rjourney five years from now?
Let's pretend you get everything you want.

Kurtis Wilkins (53:04):
In industry news, what we've, what we just accomplished was
it's groundbreaking for our industry.
So CMBS is not foreign to this market,but it is foreign in terms of a
transient component on an RV park.
Pure seasonals, right?
Pure monthly, it's availableto get this kind of lending.
But what we were able to do is we wereable to blend in a monthly seasonal

(53:26):
transient mix into a loan package.
It was the largest of its kind, andit paved a road for other RV park
owners and other RV park investorsto use that as a comp to go get that
kind of financing for themselves.
I don't know how familiar this groupis with CMBS, but that's that's

(53:46):
institutional lending on on Wall Street.
And that's gonna be some ofthe most aggressive lending
that you can get in the space.
And so that's a big achievementfor the industry, not just us
because now people will be able touse our comp to go get the same.

Brian Searl (54:00):
So give me like, for the people who don't understand that and
aren't in the financial Wall Streetworld every day, or even if they are,
like, I think there's a significantnumber of people who trade stocks who
may still not understand that, give usthe elevator pitch, like Yo'El perfected,
but a little bit shorter 'cause we'rerunning outta time of how that might
benefit the everyday campground owner.

Kurtis Wilkins (54:17):
If normally what you're working with in on your loan
packages is that the regional banks,some parks are too big for regional
banks and they run into constraints onfamily of debt limits on acquisitions.
And if you are going in and you'rebuying, say, a 15 to $16 million loan,
there's, there you start to narrow downyour buyers and your pool of people

(54:40):
that would consume that kind of loan.
And what this opens up is theability to get more competition
for your loan package.
So if you are doing a refinance, youcan, do equity extraction, you can get
cheaper interest rates for lower LTVs.
It'll, it makes the bankscompete harder for your business.

(55:02):
And that's what it is because itbreaks up that loan into securities
and then everybody can buy alittle piece of the security.

Brian Searl (55:08):
Interesting.
So there's new opportunitiesfor Jeff to own 20 parks again.

Kurtis Wilkins (55:12):
There's opportunities for Jeff to own 200 parks.
Just come talk to Rjourney.

Brian Searl (55:16):
Yeah.

Kurtis Wilkins (55:17):
And I will plug, shamelessly plug our management company.
We brand name Rjourney, but theAdvanced Outdoor Management, that
is the team behind the brand andthey're phenomenal to work with.

Brian Searl (55:30):
Thank you, Jennifer.
I know you have to drop here,but thanks for being here.
I appreciate it.
I'm sorry we didn't get to talk alittle bit more about your park.
We gotta have you back on.
We had so many people in,so many good conversations.
But tell 'em where they canfind more about Crystal River
KOA before you have to drop.

Jennifer Grissom (55:42):
Come check it out, crystalriverkoa .com
and yeah thanks for having meand I'd love to come back on and
share more about our campground.

Brian Searl (55:51):
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Jennifer.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Sandy's been super quiet today too,but before we get to Sandy and ask if
she has any final thoughts she's neverquiet, Kurtis this is very strange.
Very it's almost like creepy.
I can't understand it.
Anyway so five years from now, if youhave unlimited funds or unlimited, like
everything goes your way, is what I mean.

Kurtis Wilkins (56:11):
So Rjourney's intention is to, of course, grow in locations and size.
Whether that's through partnershipsjoint venture or just pure management
place we're actively lookingfor to get a larger footprint.
This, I would say like ourfive-year vision is somewhere
between 102 hundred locations.
Location count isn't asimportant as people think it is.

(56:35):
It's more which locations?

Brian Searl (56:37):
Yep.

Kurtis Wilkins (56:37):
It's more important.
I think Jeff and Sandycould both attest to that.
It doesn't matter.
It's the adage of real estate, right?
You can change a lot about a park,but you can't change where it's.

Brian Searl (56:48):
Are you planning on being the first campground
on Mars when Elon gets there?

Kurtis Wilkins (56:52):
I haven't had any conversations with him about that, but I'm
open to them if he watches the podcast.

Brian Searl (56:59):
It's never too early.
We actually we did a, and I don't wannatake up too much of the show here.
We did a thing on Outwired our, myother podcast, which starts in an hour.
It's like a Joe Rogan style.
We drink whiskey and have fun.
So now that we're not having funhere, to be clear, it's just a
different kind of fun over there.
But we talked a couple months agoabout the, like how you would take $5
as a startup investor in a campgroundand turn that into a trillion

(57:22):
dollars just by owning RV parks.
And it went all the way to space traveland become becoming the sole exclusive
provider of the first mover on Mars.
And it's pretty interesting.
So I'm just saying there's a future there.
We use the $200 a month thinking AI model.
It laid it all out.
I'm not saying it's easy, butyou're not looking for easy.
Are you, Kurtis?

Kurtis Wilkins (57:42):
No.
Definitely not.
Looking for easy.
Give us a challenge.

Brian Searl (57:45):
Sandy.
Tell us something.

Sandy Ellingson (57:47):
First of all, it's very easy to be quiet when
you've got such great guestsand that I enjoy listening to.
So I had fun with you today, Kurt.
It was good to see you again.

Kurtis Wilkins (57:56):
Good to see you too, Sandy.
I was and it was apleasure to see you again.
And Jeff, it was nice to makeyour acquaintance on this podcast.

Brian Searl (58:03):
I'm just gonna, I'm gonna point out, she said it was lovely to
talk to all the guests, but not the host.

Sandy Ellingson (58:09):
I get to talk to you a lot more than I do them though.

Brian Searl (58:11):
Probably true.
Okay, so final thoughts.

Sandy Ellingson (58:14):
And, I do love what you're doing, so I get to
tell you that on the back channel.
But the other thing too that Ithought was interesting as I listened
to everybody and because I'm alittle more seasoned than some.
Not older, just seasoned.
One of the things that struck me is thatI've always loved that KOA kinda led the
pack with doing these annual reports andthen being willing to share them, not

(58:36):
just with KOA, but with other campgrounds.
And I really believe that 2025 is gonnabe a year where we're gonna have to
see some changes in that happening.
And all of us are gonna have tofollow the example that KOA set
and be able to share agnostic data.
Nothing where we're,messing up people's privacy.

(58:56):
But there are so many more typesof parts and so many more pieces
of aggregated data that we needto be able to collectively gather.
If we wanna be able to competewith the hotels and the things
that are coming in with this.
And so I just thought today was a reallygood conversation leading to that.
And again, I wanna just encourage parksthat, technology is the underpinning

(59:20):
platform of everything great.
That everybody I've heard talking today.
And so you've got to have theright technology and if you don't
know what it is, ask one of us.

Brian Searl (59:30):
If you don't know what technology is or the right technology?

Sandy Ellingson (59:33):
No the right technology for you because it's,

Brian Searl (59:35):
I think if you dunno what tech is period, you're in trouble.
But Go ahead.
Sorry.

Sandy Ellingson (59:39):
I was just gonna say it's an individual question based on
the kind of park, but there's certainlya lot of people out there with a lot of
great experience who can give advice.

Kurtis Wilkins (59:49):
And Sandy, I actually have a great analogy that I use for technology.
I'm like, technology is thecar, data is your windows.
And you want great technology 'causeyou want a fast car, you wanna be
able to go places, you wanna be ableto stop, you wanna be able to steer.
But if you're not looking at your data,imagine driving a car without any windows.
Can't see where you're going.

(01:00:11):
And that's how I describethe two and how we works.

Sandy Ellingson (01:00:13):
I'm stealing that.
I'm totally doing that from my conference.

Yolanda D'Oyen (01:00:18):
I just wanted to say as far as a five year, it's interesting,
I've been doing this now for overfive years in the planning stage.
I know we're, we are implementing,but I do have my, the first phase
and we're doing it by phase becauseall the underground, when you're
doing from a brand new situation,building brand new, all the

(01:00:43):
infrastructure is really important.
And getting everything set up.
My phase two is actually putting myriverfront cabins and my phase three is
the hotel because not everyone is goingto be having the RV in the interim.
I just, it was like finding treasure,is that my phase three site that

(01:01:12):
I had set aside for my hotel.
I'm going to implement and putin workforce housing and hostel
accommodations and I can actually get thatup and running in 80 to 90 days while the
rest of the project is being constructed.

(01:01:33):
And so there revenue can start right away.
Just for the, exactly what we'retalking about for the institutional
loans, that sort of thing.
Another to come in andbuy for the business.
But not just that.

(01:01:54):
Also, RV parks are prime for USD loans.
They're 85% loan guaranteed loans, andthose are actually really good loans.
I know all these various differentloan opportunities, funding

(01:02:14):
opportunities it's been amazingjourney for me personally for growth.
And as I am quiet listening to.
All your podcasts.
Now talking about theindustry, I'm learning a lot.
I connected with Mr.
Jeff there and there's so muchknowledge, Brian, that you bring to this.

(01:02:39):
I'm personally humbledthat I got invited here.
I'm like, what do I bring to the table?
But, as I said, I'm the newbie goingout the child that is gathering all this
information and putting it into action.
And there is, and making a difference.
And we can make a difference.

(01:03:00):
We are here.
The RV industry is an opportunity.,
It is a hospitality.
I see it as an a hospitality.
Component for longevity of life.
Seriously, because there is thatwork everybody in life going

(01:03:23):
into that work life balance.
And we offer that, we offer anopportunity for families to get together.
We are not just RV owners orwe offer things more grassroots
opportunities than most hotels do.

(01:03:44):
We can do this.
And so there is, I feelthere is a responsibility,
to for what it is that we do.
There is a responsibility that we have.
So I thank you for me being here.
I didn't, let me getoff my bandwagon, my, my

Brian Searl (01:04:00):
box.
No, you're fine.
Thank you for being here, Yo'El.
We actually have a lot of guests onthe show, just so Jeff talks less.
So in addition to your intelligenceand all the good things that
you're doing, that's a sidebenefit for you being here too.

Yolanda D'Oyen (01:04:11):
I'm very happy that I was able to connect with Mr.
Jeff.
I'm sorry.
I'm Jamaican, so we, there is acertain amount of respect, for Mr.
This and that.
You can't take that.

Brian Searl (01:04:23):
Absolutely.
I've known Jeff for a long time.
He knows.
I'm just messing with him.

Yolanda D'Oyen (01:04:26):
Yes.
Thank you so much againfor the opportunity.

Brian Searl (01:04:31):
Final thoughts, Jeff and Kurt, and then we can wrap up.

Jeff Hoffman (01:04:34):
I'm pretty much just gonna have to take off, Brian.
I got another meeting.
I enjoyed the show.
This was a good one.
I enjoyed the conversation andhopefully for the next one I'll have
all the KOA data read and, dribbledown into something I can use.

Brian Searl (01:04:49):
Awesome.
Kurt.
Final thoughts?

Kurtis Wilkins (01:04:51):
My final thoughts are thank you for having me on, Brian.
Absolute pleasure to be here.
Hope I get invited back and I'mexcited also to dive into the KOA
data and see the performance of 2024.
It's always good to look back.

Brian Searl (01:05:03):
Awesome.
Thank you guys for being here.
I appreciate it.
If you're interested in the KOA data inand you haven't heard enough of me talking
already in fifty-, I don't know, eightminutes or so we're gonna do our Outwired
show live with Scott Bahr, who actuallydid the KOA North American Camping Report.
And Greg Emmert, who is myco-host on Outwired, we're gonna
drink a little bit of whiskey.
We're gonna have somefun dissecting that data.
We're also gonna talk about what'smore important to consumers from a data

(01:05:25):
standpoint, from like the physical ofthe gasoline to the mental of the safety.
And then we're gonna even dive intoflying cars and talk about that
and how that's gonna impact realestate and all kinds of things.
'cause China just approved their first oneand they're flying around over there right
now, and they're coming to America soon.
So if you're not tiredof me, join us there.
Otherwise, we'll see you nextweek on MC Fireside Chats.
Thanks, Kurt and Yo'Elfor sticking out with me.

(01:05:47):
The end Yo'El.
Remember when you get your parkdeveloped, the three people
here stuck it out to the end.
We should come visit first.

Yolanda D'Oyen (01:05:53):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah, you're, you are definitely welcome.
And please and I'd love to comeback again if you don't mind.

Brian Searl (01:06:01):
Absolutely.
Thank you guys.
Take care.
Have a great have a good day.

Yolanda D'Oyen (01:06:04):
Alright, byebye.