MC Fireside Chats - July 2nd, 2025

In the latest episode of MC Fireside Chats, the show welcomed a mix of returning guests and a special guest to discuss the evolving landscape of outdoor hospitality and the RV industry. The show, hosted by Brian Searl of Insider Perks and Modern Campground, delved into various topics including RV sales and consumer behavior, campground occupancy, and international trends. Phil Ingrassia, President of the RV Dealers Association of the US, joined the panel and shared insights from Go RVing’s recent study on RV purchase intentions. He reported that between 60% and 70% of “COVID buyers” (those who purchased RVs between 2020 and 2023) are interested in purchasing RVs again. Ingrassia noted that this figure was higher than his initial expectation of 40% and that the industry is entering a repurchase cycle. He also acknowledged the current macroeconomic issues influencing sales. When asked about the gap between interest and actual purchase, Ingrassia highlighted that the “want to” is present, which offers opportunity. Rafael Correa, President and CFO of Blue Water Hospitality, provided an update on his company’s portfolio of RV resorts. He reported that Blue Water Hospitality is at 104% of the same revenue as last year, attributing this to a significant uptake in long-term and seasonal sales, as well as vacation rentals. He noted a recent surge in transient RV bookings, which had been lagging previously. Correa also observed a shortening of the booking window, with consumers making plans closer to their stay dates due to increased inventory availability and user-friendly booking systems. He emphasized the importance of encouraging people into the RVing lifestyle to maintain industry growth and highlighted the dynamic nature of campground inventory, allowing for shifts to meet consumer demand. Simon Neal, Founder and CEO of Camp Map, offered a European perspective, sharing data from France. He reported a sharp rise in international tourism for Q1 and Q2, driven by neighboring countries and also growth from Canada and China. Summer bookings across the entire tourism sector in France were up 16% from last year. For outdoor hospitality specifically, there was a 1.7% growth in overnight stays. Neal also highlighted that price is the most important factor for 39% of current bookings, with 60% of people wanting to spend less than $1,000 per person on their summer holiday. He mentioned the average site rate per night in Europe is around $60. Scott Bahr, President of Cairn Consulting Group, echoed Phil Ingrassia’s sentiment about consumer interest, stating that it is “sitting out there” and represents an opportunity. He noted that interest is up over last year, though it is not always translating into immediate sales. Bahr suggested that 25% to 30% of interested individuals are holding off due to economic uncertainty and price concerns. He also emphasized that the ability to use an RV (e.g., parking, operating) is a significant barrier for many, particularly for COVID-era buyers, with 40% experiencing operational issues. Bahr asserted that actively using an RV, such as through rentals, has a much higher impact on purchase likelihood compared to staying in a static RV on-site. Susan Brenton, Executive Director of the Arizona Outdoor Hospitality Association, shared insights from Arizona’s market. She noted that hotel rates in areas like Phoenix and Scottsdale are typically higher, with groups paying $200-$225 per night for a hotel. Brenton indicated that her association doesn’t collect specific occupancy or revenue data but shared anecdotal evidence. She highlighted that Canadian travelers, who usually contribute a large influx to Arizona’s RV parks during winter, have an impact on year-round park model rentals. Brenton also discussed legislative issues faced by the association, particularly concerning a growing trend of people living year-round in RVs due to economic factors. She estimated that it’s around 30%, while a tenants’...

Episode Transcript

Brian Searl (00:45):
Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats.
My name's Brian Searl with InsiderPerks and Modern Campground.
Excited to be here with you all fornot our first kind of week of this, but
an industry trends, data insight show.
And we've got a couple new people on here.
One is Phil Ingrassia from the RVDA.
Welcome Phil from week four.
We will be joined in the futureby Eleonore Hamm too, who's

(01:06):
Phil's counterpart in Canada.
She just had a meeting this week comeup so we're excited to dive into some of
those RV industry trends, facts, figures,Phil and his organization and Eleonore's
too, collect a bunch of really useful datawe think that will be helpful and blend
seamlessly into this show in the future.
So excited to have you here, Phil,you wanna introduce yourself and
then we'll go around the room andintroduce everybody else real quick.

Phil Ingrassia (01:26):
Sure.
I'm Phil Ingrassia, president of theRV Dealers Association of the US.
We represent the nation'stravel trailer and motor home
dealers all across the country.

Brian Searl (01:37):
Awesome.
Thanks for being here.
Phil.
Rafael, you wanna go?

Rafael Correa (01:40):
Yep.
Rafael Correa, president andCFO of Blue Water Hospitality.
And we are an owner operatorand manager developer of RV
resorts across the country.
Currently oversee a portfolioof about 60 properties.

Brian Searl (01:55):
Thanks for being here.
Rafael, Simon.

Simon Neal (01:57):
Yeah.
I'm Simon Neal, the founderand CEO of Camp Map.
We are a digital platform thathelps outdoor hospitality improve
marketing and guest experiencewith professional digital maps.

Brian Searl (02:09):
Thanks for being here, Simon.
You're back home now?

Simon Neal (02:11):
Yeah.
I am, finally.

Brian Searl (02:13):
Scott,

Scott Bahr (02:15):
Scott Bahr, Carin Consulting Group.
We're a market research organizationthat gathers, compiles reports
data from the outdoor hospitalityindustry across nearly all sectors.

Brian Searl (02:28):
Welcome.
Thanks for being here, Scott.
And last but not least, ourspecial guest, Susan Brenton, from
Executive Director of the ArizonaOutdoor Hospitality Association.
Susan?

Susan Brenton (02:36):
Hi, Susan Brenton.
I've been here at the ArizonaOutdoor Hospitality Association
about three and a half years now,and it's great to be on board.
Thank you.

Brian Searl (02:46):
Thanks for being here, Susan.
Excited to dive into a little bitmore about your, make sure we give you
some special time to talk about yourorganization and things like that.
So I think, Rafael, we were talkingabout something you wanted to bring up.
Before we get to that, is thereanything else that anybody else
has come across their desk?
Scott, Simon Phil, who you think weshould bring up and talk about this week?

Simon Neal (03:08):
I have some small news topics from the European side of
things to discuss at any point.
A bit about external investments,environmental stuff, and also
the trends, the booking so far.

Brian Searl (03:20):
Okay.
I think, we'd probably spend alittle bit longer conversation on
that because we could dive into someof that, Scott, from the US side
and compare and contrast numbers.

Scott Bahr (03:28):
Yep.

Brian Searl (03:28):
Phil, did you have anything, or

Phil Ingrassia (03:30):
Go RVing put out a study this past week about people
that are intending to buy RVs andI've got some high level results that
might be interesting to the folks.

Brian Searl (03:41):
Please share.
Let's start there.
That sounds like a good idea.

Phil Ingrassia (03:44):
Go RVing does some research into the industry and there
were especially interested comingout of COVID and, we basically
pumped almost 2 million RVs intothe North American infrastructure.
The installed base of RVs during COVID.
And then certainly there was a lot ofinterest about would that be sticky?

(04:08):
Would those RVers continue to RV onceCOVID protocols were lifted or would
they go back to doing whatever theydid, going to resorts or cruises or
buying boats or whatever they mighthave done prior to the pandemic.
And one of the things that came out ofthose Go RVing studies is that between

(04:30):
60% and 70% of the COVID buyers areinterested in purchasing RVs again.
Which, frankly, I thought itwas gonna be closer to 40%.
I thought people would buy their RV,use it during the lockdown periods
and whatever was going on, and thensell it and go on to something else.

(04:50):
But what we found is those folks,the vast majority of 'em, enjoy the
experience and want to continue to RV.
And the good thing for the RV business isthat, now our install base is higher of
users after this growth and the purchasetimeframe for a lot of people with RVs is

(05:13):
they keep 'em four to five to six years.
So now we're starting to enterthat repurchase cycle which
should vote well for the industry.
Now, certainly there's a lot ofmacroeconomic issues, interest
rate, sentiment, things like that.
But I think that as we look to the futureas far as the intended repurchase at

(05:41):
least what they're telling the researchersis that there's a good possibility
we'll be able to keep those COVID erabuyers, if you will, and build on top
of that, unprecedented really, salesthat we had between 2020 and 2023.

Brian Searl (05:59):
Do we have a sense of, and I know Scott will wanna weigh in
on this in a sec I hope he will anyway.
Do we have a sense of what the differencebetween I want to and I end up doing
is though, because there's because ifit happens on the Camping side too,
the I want to go Camping doesn't alwaystranslate into the I did go Camping.

Phil Ingrassia (06:16):
Yeah, certainly, the follow through.
Okay.
What they wanna do it, but, I wantto do a lot of things too that
I don't, may not end up doing.
But what I'm saying is, at leastthat I want to, is there, and
there was a lot of skepticism.
I was taking calls and I think,Scott, you probably were too during
the pandemic from Wall Street people,private equity people that were

(06:39):
looking to invest in the industry.
Maybe they were looking to investin campgrounds, maybe they were
looking to invest in some of thepublic companies in the RV space.
And they were very skeptical ifthese people would stay in the
market or at least even want to.
And at least this research is showingthat between, depending on the product
type, between 60 and 70% of thosepeople are interested in staying

(07:02):
in the RV lifestyle, if you will.
And whether that's howeverthey're using their RV.
And Scott, you have some thoughts on that?

Scott Bahr (07:12):
Absolutely.
You're absolutely right, Phil, about thewhole idea is that if people are at least
expressing interest, that's opportunity.
That's opportunity that's sitting outthere because they ain't saying no.
As anyone in sales knows, untilthey say no, still a chance.
And that bodes well.
I think the biggest issueis finding that sweet spot.
Like you talked about the timeframe ofthem buying again and the folks that

(07:36):
were out there and maybe sold theirRV even early on in the pandemic.
There's a decent number of thosefolks who are also interested.
So the interest isstill sitting out there.
As an industry, it's figuring outhow do we actually get them to buy.
Because we've seen, in all of ourresearch, we've seen the high interest.
We do one of the quarterly pollsfor RVIA and Go RVing as well.

(07:58):
And interest is up over last year.
It's not always, as we all know, notas translating into sales yet, but I'd
be more worried if interest that wasdown, that people were soured on it.
Because I feel like there's a lot ofexternal factors and we've measured
that too, probably 25 to 30% of thepeople who have some interest are

(08:21):
holding off because they wanna seewhat's gonna happen with the economy.
They wanna see where prices are gonna go.
And that's a big chunk,that's a lot of people.
If you could add half of those, the 12% to15% even, and get them, the industry would
see a nice little bump, I think in sales.
Yeah, again, it's why, in the consumerindex, consumer confidence is always
such a key in indicator is if peoplehave a good attitude, it will translate

(08:45):
at some point into them participatingin outdoor hospitality at some level at
least, and hopefully they're buying RVs.

Brian Searl (08:51):
Well, so let's briefly dive into this, right?
And I think this will lead us to theWall Street Journal article too, Rafael.
But let's briefly dive into the prosand cons here in the mind of the
consumer, because we've got a lot ofCampground owners who are watching us.
We got a lot of people in the outdoorhospitality industry, generally
dealers, manufacturers, watching us.
What are the reasons that they'recurrently holding off and what are the
reasons that would make them buy again?

(09:13):
And there's the differentangles here we can take from
everybody's perspective, right?
Scott, you've got data.
Phil, you've got data.
Simon, is it showing the experienceat the Campground more clearly and
communicating that to all the fun thatthey can have if they purchase an RV?
Is it the same thing with you, Rafael?
Is it the experience atthe Blue Water properties?
And is that gonna make them pullthe trigger because they can
do all these kinds of things.

(09:34):
Susan, to you is it communicatingthat Arizona has more places than
just the Grand Canyon in Sedona,which you already do, right?
But I'm just saying so what arethe pros and cons here, guys?
What do we think?

Rafael Correa (09:46):
I can definitely share from the, now that we've
this is our first episode, I thinksince we've really entered the
true prime Camping season, right?
That two weeks into June, andnow we're seeing the kids are
all outta school and this is likeprime time booking season for us.
And so I could tell you from ourperspective, we're sitting at
about 104% of same time last year.

(10:08):
So we're up slightly a lot of workwent into doing a lot more long-term
and seasonal sales is built into thatnumber where people are buying, for
either an entire Camping season long,or even like a short summer seasonal,
what we offer as well in our portfolio.
So that's helping to drive it, but alsoseeing significant uptake in vacation
rentals, and most recently, what'sreally starting to light up is transient

(10:33):
RVing, which was dragging and laggingfor the most part across the portfolio.
Starting to see that gap close,which has been very encouraging.
At a lot of properties, I'll tell youthat some of the outliers from that
is still national park driven parksare still have a bigger gap to cover.
I think the driver for that ismore of the uncertainty component.

(10:58):
I think it is to do with people wanting tocamp closer to home and maybe be more cost
efficient with the miles that they travel.
The national parks obviously are,huge demand drivers typically, but
they also are usually much longertrip than they would take on their
RV than they otherwise would in campmore of their like local campgrounds
within that two hour time window.

(11:19):
I apologize for my voice in advance.
I'm getting over a bit of a headcold, but the infamous summer cold.
But I can tell you that what we areseeing is a nice little surge in bookings
now that we are in the peak season, andI'm super excited to see it confirmed
a theory of mine that, or is beginningto confirm a theory of mine that the
booking window is just getting a lotshorter, a lot tighter to the actual

(11:41):
stay they know inventory is available.
The systems are much more user friendly.
People are much more accustomedto using the booking systems
that are out there today.
So for all those reasons, I think peoplewere just waiting and now they're really
starting to lock in their plans for thesummer now that the kids are outta school.

Brian Searl (11:58):
So that 104% is that revenue or camper nights or

Rafael Correa (12:02):
Sorry, that's revenue.

Brian Searl (12:03):
Okay.
Have you.
And you talked a little bit aboutyour long term and your pivoting.
Have you done any of that youfeel has made a difference or?

Rafael Correa (12:11):
Absolutely.
There's been a large push withthe kind of uncertainty from the
perspective of the owner side,like the Campground owner side.
Like people want to have that more,have a little bit more of a stable
income base in their portfolio.
And that's come as a mandate fromseveral of our ownership groups.
It's stuff that we've donein certain assets of our own.

(12:31):
Again, just to create a nice littlebase of business that we can rely on.
And and there's been demand for it, right?
And there's certainly an elementof cannibalization in that effort
because that person that parks theirRV is less likely to roam in that RV.
It's not to say they don't,they still will potentially.
And that's the beauty of an RV.
It has wheels.
It can go where you want to go with it.
Even if you have a seasonalsite that's home base, you could

(12:54):
travel, but more often thannot, they set up for the season.
But generally the RV, transientRV was the scary part for us.
And we're starting to seethat gap close a little bit.
And as it sits today, transient RV byitself, like just isolated, that group
is only at 80% of same time last year.
Just to give you an ideawhere it sits for us today.

(13:15):
But when you combinethat with the seasonal,
together,
sorry, the numbers refresh on my sheethere, we're at 102% of same time last year
when you combine those two categories.

Brian Searl (13:34):
Nice.
So let me ask, lemme play devil'sadvocate for a second with you, and then
I want to go around the room and geteverybody's different opinion and take
on, both RV purchasing and Campgroundreservations in general, whatever clarity
you guys have, and we'll touch on Europe,Simon, with you and everything else.
But lemme play the devil'sadvocate for a second.
If you're at 104% occupancy, if you have.
Let's pretend whether you're Blue Wateror any Campground out there, right?

(13:57):
If you have the ability to eitherpivot to long-term or monthly,
which not everybody does, right?
But if you do, or you're doing reallygood marketing, which you guys have
a great team at Blue Water, likethere are lots of other campgrounds
who are doing decent marketing, greatmarketing, most probably aren't.
But if you have the ability to dothose two things, do we need RV

(14:19):
sales to jump back quickly or arewe okay with the amount of RVs
that are on the road if we're doingstrong marketing and we're able to
be flexible in who we're attracting?

Rafael Correa (14:30):
I would tell you from my perspective, is we absolutely need to
make a concerted effort in a post COVIDworld as an industry to encourage the
most people possible to get into theRVing lifestyle and vacation lifestyle.
And I think that it's moreimportant now than ever.
Quite frankly, for our industryto maintain a growth trajectory,

(14:53):
to show people the appeal and theattraction of this type of travel.
Getting more people and more RVs on theroad, I think is a priority for both
the manufacturers, the dealers, and theCampground owners needs to be a concerted
effort that we collaborate on to promotethe RV vacation lifestyle as a whole.

Brian Searl (15:15):
I agree with you, and I'm just still playing
devil's advocate here, right?
So the follow up to that is, isthere a lot of campgrounds who have
alternative accommodations beyond justRVs, tents, glamping cabin rentals?

Rafael Correa (15:26):
Absolutely.
I'll tell you that, and we specializein transient RV resorts, right?
That's Blue Waters bread and butter, thistransient, destination market, RV resorts.
But one of the things that, and we'realso happen to be in the hotel industry,
we own eight hotels ourselves as well.
So we love that industry as well.
But we like the RV world andCampground world much more.
And one of the most unique and specialthings about this particular asset class

(15:50):
is how dynamic the inventory is, right?
That inventory can be an RV site,it can be a park model, it can be
a safari tent, and that can evolvefrom one season to the next, right?
It can be a standard RV site,it can be a patio RV site.
And one of the greatest assets that wehave as an industry is the ability to

(16:11):
have this dynamic in inventory that we canshift it to where the consumer demand is.
I don't think it's ever a good ideato fully commit yourself to one site
type or one style in a large scaleresort like we manage, if you're 250
sites and up, the best option you haveis the diversity and optimizing that

(16:32):
diversity is what it's gonna get you thehighest and best result year after year.
And I think, it may be if you wentall in on transient RV and COVID,
you probably made more money.
But if you alienated all your longterms after COVID disappeared,
you're going long terms back.
And I think anytime somebody wantsto go all in on one site type it's

(16:54):
not necessarily healthy for thelong-term survivability of that asset.

Brian Searl (16:59):
Scott, what do you think from your data?
And then we'll compare yoursto Simon's and then we'll
eventually swing back to the RVs.

Scott Bahr (17:05):
Yeah, I think, overall the whole idea of getting more people
in our RVs is, I agree on that.
It's healthy for the industry andthat and like I said earlier, I think
there's enough information to suggestthat it's there for the taking.
The softness of the market right now,which means that, essentially there's a
lot of people out there who are reallyundecided and who are doing other things.

(17:28):
We're in the era of themore casual participant, the
people who aren't hardcore.
It's a harder sell, as Phil knows,probably all do well, is that if
the person is not taking a bunchof trips a year, it's a lot more
difficult to get them into an RV.
So that person, that takes the,maybe just a couple trips a year,

(17:48):
maybe a few weekends or whatever,a couple weekends they're doing the
calculus in their head that, eh,this isn't a good use of my money.
Especially now again, where there'sa lot of economic uncertainty, but

Brian Searl (18:01):
Right.
And that's not unique tothe RV industry either.
That's unique to I'm only gonnabuy a really expensive pair of
hiking shoes I just did because I'mgonna go hiking 15 times a year.

Scott Bahr (18:09):
It's any big ticket item, we actually did measure, the
carryover and big ticket items,and it carries over to everything.
Even buying a new TV, that's notreally a big ticket item, but it's
the people spending on some ofthese other items in their life.
Right now, they're hesitating andit's a large part of the market more
than a third of the market rightnow is kinda sitting on their hands.

(18:30):
There's probably about 20% ofpeople who are not impacted.
Everybody makes some kind of adjustment.
About 80% of the market makes some kindof adjustment based on where we're at
right now and to me, when you see thisand I think, I talked about this at the
RVIA meeting too, is that like Phil,you talked about people in the user
caused problems with repairs and so on.

(18:52):
What we know from our research is that theability to use the RV is a huge barrier.
It's like they don't how to park it.
They don't know how to operateit, and it's intimidating.
And I remember someone that askedme if that was really an issue.
And it is, it's a huge issue.
It's a huge issue and if you look atsome of those people feel that you talk
about who bought during COVID there's 40%of them have issues operating their RV.

(19:18):
That group in particular, they gotin quick, they didn't, learn how
to use it properly or whatever.
And that's one of those barriers.
The other thing that we know is ifwe get people to stay in an RV, and
I'm going to say that staying in anRV besides just staying at one that's
static on site at the Campground, likeactually using an RV to get on the road

(19:43):
and be mobile has a much bigger impact.
Staying in a Airstream at aCampground does not equate to buying.
That percentage is much lower.
It's like in the teens that peopleare interested or likely to purchase,
but that person actually say they rentone, that rent, renting and using it
translates at a much higher level.
We're talking in the thirties,forties that people are much

(20:06):
more interested in doing it.
So what that tells us is that whenpeople are exposed to the usage and
the kind of the style that the Campingstyle of being in an RV that it takes.
It takes.
And I always say they got someskin in the game at that point.
They've done something, they'veactively done something.
So that to me is really,part of what, where we're at.
It's we just need to get peopleon the road a little bit more.

(20:28):
We need to get them in these andusing them, actively using them.

Brian Searl (20:33):
Is there a easy path to do that though, given the macro factors
that we all know are existing right now?

Scott Bahr (20:41):
Again, rentals are a good way, but not to, speak badly of
anyone and I won't talk, call anyoneout in particular, but honestly,
renting an RV is not that cheap.
I did it and the cost per night wasfairly substantial I thought, and
when you're looking at that personwho isn't an RV and they can stay in

(21:03):
another short term rental for half theprice of a nightly rental in an RV.
Depending on what kind of tripthey're gonna do they're probably
gonna do a short term rental.

Brian Searl (21:11):
What was the price?
So you don't have to tell us the company.
What was the price?

Scott Bahr (21:14):
For a small towable, it was about $275 a night.

Brian Searl (21:18):
Yeah, that's rough.
That's a luxury hotel in

Scott Bahr (21:21):
Yeah.

Brian Searl (21:21):
Chicago, not Chicago, probably Philadelphia.

Rafael Correa (21:24):
The campsite fee on top of that.

Scott Bahr (21:27):
Exactly.
Exactly, so now you'retalking over $300 a night.
It's a little prohibitive.
So, anyway, I guess Brian, toanswer your question, I'm not really
answering that because what I'msaying is that's not a great way to
get a lot of people out using RVs.
I don't have a good answer on that.
Someone at the table may have a betteranswer for that, but if we can get 'em
out there on the road, get 'em using them.

(21:47):
Maybe there's some sort of creativeidea someone can come up with.

Brian Searl (21:51):
Is the RV rental, is that price?
And I don't have any data on this.
I don't know that everybodycharges the same thing.
Is that a reflection of the same thingwe had in campgrounds where every,
not everybody, but a lot of peoplejust got money hungry and greedy over
COVID and jacked up their prices.
Is there a margin for that to lower andstill be profitable for a rental company?

Phil Ingrassia (22:12):
We look at rental across the board, from rental agencies that
are professional, rental agencies thathave backup units if something goes
wrong to the peer to peer platforms andScott's exactly right, that's the price
points you're looking at for rentals,especially during high usage seasons.

(22:33):
Now, if you get into the shoulderseasons, you might be able to
do a little bit better than whatScott did, but that is the cost.
And then when you look at, especiallyin the entry level RV space, you can get
an entry level trailer very affordably.
And if you're gonna use it,it can turn out to be a very

(22:54):
good deal for family travel.
But it depends.
If you're not gonna use it enough,then people have to make that decision.
But I will also say that look at thecompetition price of cruise, price
going to Disneyland or Disney Worldor any kind of all-inclusive resort.
It's expensive to recreate thesedays and it, people have to weigh,

(23:19):
where they are as far as theirfamily budget for vacations and
make the decision based on that.
But nothing, nothing other than maybepitching a tent in your backyard
is all that affordable these days.

Brian Searl (23:30):
Yeah, and I guess I am a little bit disconnected from that, right?
I remember traveling around the USand we were starting our company
like bootstrapped and anything.
For me, even today, still likeanything really that's above
maybe I would say two 50.
And that's my personal line, right?
I'm saying I wanna look at thoseamenities and make sure that's something
I'm willing to pay it, but you needto justify the cost to me, right?

(23:54):
So like when you get up to the $275 anight plus the campsite fee, like that
feels like a big barrier to cross forpeople, especially when we're trying
to bring new people into the industrywho don't understand the value of it.
Is that fair?

Rafael Correa (24:06):
No, it's a good point.
I would argue that, it's all, like yousaid, it's all getting more expensive.
A $300 a night, depending onwhere you are, might be a steal.
I don't know where Scott was travelingto, but in many cases, he would be
hard pressed to get, and if you'retraveling with a family, especially
you're also talking about sleepingmaybe four or five people in this RV.

(24:30):
And in a hotel room, that might meantwo hotel rooms or attached to rooms.

Brian Searl (24:34):
That's fair.
Okay.

Rafael Correa (24:35):
And so that, that could easily outpace that.
Not to mention the fact that, thereare many more aspects, as we all
know, to Camping in a Campground,especially with kids, that they
have this place to roam around.
I always remind people that whena traveling baseball team shows
up in a hotel, they're a nuisance.
If they're at a Campground, it'sjust another day at the Campground.
That's the beauty of it.

(24:55):
And so we see a lot of traveling,athletics, moving into our space, and we
really are catering to them because thekids can roam around and have a blast.
I have campgrounds where we'veactually put up batting cages
to just cater to them, right?
Because it's actually been something thathas been a growing part of our industry.

Brian Searl (25:14):
Before we get to Europe, US or Europe, North america,
I guess is really more fair.
Susan, what have you seen inArizona as far as what we're
talking about in trends and.

Susan Brenton (25:24):
Arizona market has always been a little higher price,
especially in the greater Phoenix,the Scottsdale area, and that area.
And I put on quite a fewdifferent conferences and
things like that every year.
So I'm looking at hotel rates andcomparing them, and I've seen hotel
rates even when I've got a groupof, a hundred people coming in,

(25:45):
the best rates I'm getting are,$200-$225 a night for just a hotel.

Brian Searl (25:50):
Yeah.

Susan Brenton (25:51):
We'd much rather be someplace fun like an RV park.

Brian Searl (25:55):
What have you seen from your members so far this year
as far as interest in Camping?
Some of the numbers we were talkingabout, occupancy or revenue,
if do you have any of that?
Do you collect any of that?
Does Arizona's,

Susan Brenton (26:06):
I'm sorry.
We're not collecting any ofthat sort of information yet.
It's just hearsay.
I know that there's been,particularly in the RV parks,
those year round park model parks.
So the Canadian travelers,because we normally do get a
large influx of Canadians herein Arizona during the winter.

Brian Searl (26:26):
Is that impacting those types of parks yet, or
will it be more widely felt if itcontinues into October, November?

Susan Brenton (26:34):
For those parks, people are paying year round
rent on their park model space.

Brian Searl (26:40):
Okay.

Susan Brenton (26:40):
Regardless of whether they're here or not.
But, people are trying to sell them.
We don't know what's going tobe happening in the future.

Brian Searl (26:47):
Do you have a sense, then, of how transients are doing in Arizona?

Susan Brenton (26:51):
Yes, I think that we're still getting pretty much,
it's probably stayed about thesame as far as transits coming.
We always have a lot of visitors herein Arizona, and luckily we're one of
those few states, I know everyone thinksof us as being a great big desert,
we're not Southern Arizona is desert.
So like today's a cool day.
It's 104 degrees outside.

(27:13):
But I can go up north.
In the wintertime I can drive an hourand a half up north and be in snow.
I can be in 60 degrees here and in snow.
So we also have a large influx ofpeople up in Northern Arizona during
the winter or during the summer months.

Brian Searl (27:28):
Okay.
Before we go to more data, I'm justfor the clarity for our audience sake,
tell us a little bit about the ArizonaOutdoor Hospitality Association.
What do you guys, like I know what youdo, but just in case most people don't.
I think I know what you do anyway.

Susan Brenton (27:41):
You might surprise me.
We represent like the ownersand managers of Camping and RV
resorts and glamping resorts.
We started back in 1988 and we've got anew website and marketing campaign that
we're putting together now to influencepeople, more people to come to Arizona.
So watch gocampinginarizona.com

(28:02):
in about a month or two, hopefully.
I get involved as the executive directorin quite a few issues here in Arizona.
For example, I am a lobbyist.
This year we had quite a bitof legislation regarding us.
We're seeing, I think it's probably morelike 30% there's a tenants association

(28:24):
that represents people who live in RVparks, stay in RV parks in Arizona.
They're saying it's 50% of peopleare now living like year round
in their RV here in Arizona.
I really don't think it's that high,but because of that, we're seeing
more and more legislative issues here.

Brian Searl (28:45):
Do you think that, I don't mean to interrupt you, but
just for clarity on that piece ofit, assuming that was true or there's
a middle ground between what youthink and what they think, is there
a sense of why that's happening?
Is RV just more appealing?
Is it economic?
Is it.

Susan Brenton (28:59):
A lot of it's economic, people can no longer, people are
retiring now with their social securityand possibly a little bit more.
A lot of people are retiring that way now.
And so that's what we're finding.
And we're different than a lot of theother associations, a lot of the other
state associations, because we do havequite a few RV parks with full-time

(29:19):
park models, we're getting into issueson the legislative side, such as,
there was a bill this year that passedsaying that if you're in an RV park
and your air conditioner goes out, thelandlord has to allow you to replace
your air conditioning or your coolingsystem somehow including like a window

(29:41):
unit in a park model or something.
Which many of the parks havenot allowed in the past.
It was a hard one to fight, of course,because, do you want these people
to die while they're in the heat?
But so we're seeing moreissues like that coming up.

Brian Searl (29:56):
So what's the balance there?
I don't mean to put you on thespot, but what's the balance of we
obviously don't want people to die,but we also don't wanna, I don't know,
what's the counter argument to that?

Susan Brenton (30:05):
Our counter arguments were, first of all just the electricity that's
coming into the homes, the electricityallowed per home could actually, an
air conditioning unit could throw thewhole power out for the whole park.
And then the noise factor, ifit is making too much noise for
neighbors, you can, kick them out.
They can be thrown out of a park.

(30:28):
So it's been a tough situation in Arizona.
In about, I guess it was about 1998-1999,we actually have a long term RV Space Act.
It's like our, a landlord tenant act.
For those people that stay for more than180 days or have a park model in a park.

(30:51):
And that, we've worked for years.
They've tried and tried to throwpark models in with the manufactured
homes and the manufacturedhome laws here in Arizona.
And Arizona has some of the most strictMobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act laws.
And so we've tried for years to keep awayfrom them mixing RVs and manufactured

(31:14):
homes, but we're still fighting it.

Brian Searl (31:18):
Some of that depends on who owns the park too and what
they want to do with the landand how they want to pivot and.

Susan Brenton (31:23):
Exactly.
Exactly.
And, and there are still some parks thatare only open, six months out of the year,
but quite a few of them here in Arizonaare open 12 months out of the year.

Brian Searl (31:35):
Thank you Susan.
I wanna get back and talk about yourpriorities a little bit later for your
association and the future and 2025and to 2026 where you see that going.
But I wanna get to Simon.
What data do you have for usSimon, for Europe, or anything
else you wanna chat about?

Simon Neal (31:49):
Yeah, so I have just a summary of an article that came out
last week on France, which is a prettygood metric for the rest of Europe.
Big tourist destination, big country.
And it's pretty, pretty promising outlook.
So in general internationaltourism, so this is everybody else
coming into France to visit forQ1, Q2 has a sharp rise this year.

(32:11):
Most of that has been driven bysurrounding companies and countries,
neighboring ones, France, Germany,Netherlands, Germany, Netherlands,
Spain, which is up 10 or 20%.
But also interesting, there's been agrowth in international markets outside
of Europe, particularly Canada and China.
So there's a nice littletrend going on there.
And that's just tourism in general.

(32:32):
And if we zoom in a bit on bookingsand holidays summer bookings for
June, August across the whole sectorin tourism is up 16% from last year.
So really good growth.
Outdoor hospitality specifically isa bit less quite a bit less, 1.7%
growth in overnight stays.
But some interesting trends theypicked up on as well is 39% of people

(32:55):
who are making bookings now, priceis the most important factor when
they're booking, and actually 60% wantto spend less than about a thousand
dollars per person on their summerholiday and about 30%, $500 or less.
So it's pretty specificnumbers and costs coming down.
So they are traveling, they are going out,but really wanting to spend less money.

Brian Searl (33:17):
I'm sorry, a thousand euros or a thousand dollars just to.

Simon Neal (33:19):
Yeah, I converted to dollars.

Brian Searl (33:20):
Okay.
Thank you.

Simon Neal (33:21):
Yeah.
Just another fact, the average siterate per night in Europe, standard
site for tent pitching and RV ifit's small, is around $60 a night
across all different countries.

Brian Searl (33:36):
Do you know by chance what it costs to rent an RV in Europe?

Simon Neal (33:40):
I don't actually, I've never tried to look.
I can maybe quickly do a search for it.

Brian Searl (33:45):
It would just be interesting to see the comparison.
But Scott, while he's lookingthat up, what do you compare
that to in the US and Canada

Scott Bahr (33:51):
In terms of.

Brian Searl (33:52):
Do you have any numbers that kind of mirror that show that
the consumer behavior is the same,different, similar the French
Canadians you're missing from Maine.
They clearly have gone home to France.
We know that, so.

Scott Bahr (34:02):
Yes we are missing our French Canadians here in Maine big time.
Yeah, from what I've heard,is that interest again, that
word interest is pretty high.
I saw, I think it was LinkedIn, aLinkedIn post or something recently
from the folks that Harvest Hostsaid that a number of reservations
on their system was the highest it'sever been, I think is what they said.
I always say this, I know my sister's aHarvest Host and she can reflect on that.

(34:25):
She said she's never hadthat many people booking.
And she said there's also been adecent number of cancellations and
anyway, so it would be interesting tosee if, I think, rafael was talking
about the shortened booking window.
I feel like there's some ofthat, the usage of the trip
stackings going on a little bit.
'Cause people are waitingtill the last minute.
They're gonna bookseveral different places.

(34:46):
I feel like the outlook for the rest ofthe year is fairly favorable right now.
If we don't get any bad weatherhere in the Northeast, we've
had some really hot weather.
But I do know that inthis area, tourism is up.
Overall and anecdotally, that's anecdotal,but overall nationwide, I think bookings

(35:07):
are a little bit better now than wethought they would be about six weeks
ago, I think six, about six weeks agowe were a little concerned that it
was gonna be maybe a down year, but.
We seem to be slowly rebound.
And again, going back to that shortenedbooking window, the shorter the
booking window, the harder it is.
It's gonna be to predict,to call this, further out.

(35:27):
But I'm trying to stayoptimistic about it.
I think people want to get out.
I really do.
And that feels the sentimentthat we've been measuring.
And we'll have some more datacome out here and hopefully soon
through our friends at KOA that'sgonna show, that there's a fairly
favorable sentiment right now.
Again, as we talked earlier, itdoesn't always translate to behavior,

(35:49):
but we want that, we wanna keep itpositive because the more positive
it is, the more people are actuallylikely to book that last minute trip.
And I think Campground owners as, thinkingabout this, that if you're not full,
go out there and get these short-termpeople these people that are booking
last minute, use that to your advantage.

Brian Searl (36:06):
Do we have a sense of, or do you have any data on
how price conscious they are?
Are they pretty price consciouslike they appear to be in Europe?

Scott Bahr (36:13):
It is always the top factor that people consider, but it's
less if you have someone who like,say an RVer, they're willing to pay
extra to get the amenities they want.
So they will pony up that extra amountto stay at the Campground that they
know is gonna not have, not justhookups, but good hookups, good sites.

Brian Searl (36:33):
Right, that matches, it's like my $250 threshold, right?
I'm willing to spend it, but yougotta prove to me that you're worth
that $250 or more or whatever.

Scott Bahr (36:39):
Exactly.
They're seeking the value, especiallythose experienced RVers out
there who they know what you get.
That sometimes, cheap is cheapand they're definitely willing
to pay that they complain.
Oh my goodness.
They love to complain, but they pay it.
They'll come back and pay it.
It's oh, they rumble the whole time.
But, I don't feel like the costconsciousness is as big a deal, especially

(37:01):
for, again, at the resorts and so on.
The people who are really cuttingback again, that kind of that
lower income tier, they're stayingat the state parks a lot more.
We're seeing a little bitof, trending that way.
The national park situationis keeping people away.
I know you talked about thatearlier, Rafael, but it seems
that people are readjusting.
That was a wild card I feel that gotthrown out there this year, for a lot

(37:24):
of people who make those big trip plans.
The national parks are big trips,go hit a few of 'em, take a couple
weeks and that kinda got thrown off.
But it kinda looks like people arenow, they're not gonna go to the
national parks, but they're gonnatake a different kind of trip if
they're gonna take a bucket list trip.
They want it to be really nice.
Again, I feel likethat's what we're seeing.
All these factors are, coming full circleagain to that shortened booking window

(37:45):
and people making more last minute plans.

Brian Searl (37:48):
And I know you touched on this briefly, Rafael, but do you have
some data on how the booking windowhas impacted Blue Water properties
that you'd be willing to share?
Because we kind of watchedthis from our side.
We were doing marketing for a largeluxury review resort in Louisiana
and we watched this happen in realtime, where they were like 10% oh,
vacancies for July 4th weekend.

(38:08):
Then a couple days later itwas 7% and a couple days later
it was 4% and a couple, right?

Rafael Correa (38:13):
Yeah.

Brian Searl (38:13):
And so we watched this really happen in real time.
It's fascinating to see.

Rafael Correa (38:16):
I don't think we'll have anything really definitive.
The trend's telling me that's what'shappening, but I don't think we'll
have anything really definitivetill the end of July and which
is like that really peak season.
And I really wanna see how the bookingwindow has really truly changed for
transient RV in the month of Julybefore I'll really put my stake on the
ground that this is really happening.
Because that'll be a real, populationof data we'll be working with.

Brian Searl (38:40):
Is your sentiment though, is it fair to say, and I'm
gonna intentionally put words inyour mouth so you can correct me.
Is it fair to say that if you'redoing your marketing correctly, and
you have a park that is worthy ofpeople coming to visit, and you're
not outside of National Park that.
You don't have as much to worryabout as perhaps you might've
thought a couple months ago.

Rafael Correa (38:59):
A hundred percent.
It is more important than everto have the right mousetrap
when it comes to marketing.
And it's such amultifaceted effort, right?
Between your website, emailmarketing, your digital ad placement,
your more traditional placements.
The checklist is gigantic thatwe have for any single property.

(39:19):
And we have what's called a playbook.
We refer to it as the playbook for everyproperty, and that's how we manage the
marketing for any individual property.
And that playbook takes into account,all the digital marketing aspects,
all the billboards that you haveto have, the local listings, all
the local events that are happeningin that particular marketplace.
It is basically a gigantic checklist.

(39:40):
And if you're not beingcomprehensive in that effort.
You have the potentialto lose out on business.
And that's, I think what we've done reallywell at Blue Water's really perfect that
mousetrap and we're still perfecting it.
It's a never done process.
It's very iterative and we'retrying to find that next and we're
constantly experimenting, right?
I've thrown thousands of dollarson things that didn't work as

(40:01):
much as I've thrown thousands ofdollars on things that did work.
But everything we were learningfrom that effort, and so
absolutely have to be dynamic.
If we're gonna cost cut to makebottom lines, it shouldn't be on
the marketing side today, becausethat's where you're going to get more
market share than the competitorswho aren't doing that activity.

Brian Searl (40:21):
Yeah, we're gonna talk about that a little bit later in
Outwired, Scott will be there with us,Greg Emmert will be joining us too.
We're gonna devote a portion of theshow to how that marketing landscape,
the funnel was completely collapsing.
The whole thing's getting rewritten aroundus and most people are standing still.
There was some really good data thatcame out from CloudFlare CEO that I
posted about on LinkedIn where I thinklike 10 years ago, for every page

(40:42):
Google scraped on your website, everytwo pages, Google scraped on your
website, they sent you one visitor.
Six months ago, I think the numberwas, I'm gonna butcher it now.
I should go look up my own LinkedIn post.
I think it was every six scrapes theysent one visitor, and now I think it's 18.
Every 18 pages, they scrape,they send one visitor.
Open AI is 250 to one or was 250 to 1.

(41:04):
250 pages they scrape for one visitor.
And now I think it's 1500scrapes to one because behavior
and the trust is shifting.
The discovery is changing the landscapeof how they do the research is changing
and there's so many people that aresitting still out there, so we'll talk
about that a little bit later on Outwired.

Rafael Correa (41:21):
But gotta be dynamic in that effort.
It's huge.

Brian Searl (41:24):
Simon, did you find a number for us in RV rentals?

Simon Neal (41:27):
I did.
So it's a bit hard to get our comparisonon size 'cause we generally have
smaller r RVers than you guys, butsleeps for, so if you're looking at
shoulder seasons $140 per night, butas soon as you get in peak season,
that goes to $270 or above easily up.

Brian Searl (41:46):
Okay.
So same really basically.

Simon Neal (41:49):
Yeah, similar.

Brian Searl (41:51):
Maybe even a little bit more if it's a smaller unit.

Simon Neal (41:53):
Yeah.
I mean it's tiny comparedto what you guys used too.
So sleeps slower to squeeze.

Brian Searl (41:59):
It'll be interesting to see how the industry, if the industry,
and I'm sure somebody will figure it outsomewhere, multiple people will, how we
pivot if we get to a situation where amacroeconomics continues to deteriorate.
Which I think it will, eventhough I don't want it to.
Is there a way that we can pivotthe offering that we have through
rentals or campgrounds or dealers orsomething else that will make it at

(42:22):
least temporarily more affordable topeople while still maintaining enough
of a margin to make it a healthybusiness for the RV rental companies,
for the dealers, for everybody else?
I don't know the answer to that, butit would be interesting to see, how
that ends up working if we continuedown this path that we're on right now.

Rafael Correa (42:37):
It's gonna be interesting to watch too, how the boating world
has done it with these boat clubs.
And we have a couple marinas and the boatclubs rent a certain number of slips for
us and their boat club members come in andout and make reservations for the boats.
But they're more membership models,I think the nightly models that
we usually use in the RV space.
I'm not overly familiar with the RV rentalspace, just looking at the parallel there.

Phil Ingrassia (42:59):
Somebody asked me this week about fractional ownership of RVs.
And over time there's beenseveral efforts to do that.
And everything from a major manufacturertried it to some startups that have came
over the last 10 years, and nobody'sbeen able to figure out the secret

(43:21):
sauce for fractional ownership or amembership club model for RVs yet.
Not saying it won't happen.
But nobody's been ableto figure it out yet.
And these boat clubs and thingslike that, are one thing, but
they're pretty much staying in thesame area, same lake or whatever.

(43:42):
They're not moving aroundall over the place.
And if a motor goes, you have anupward motor, you can replace it.
It's a little bit different in an RV, sowe'll see if somebody can figure it out.
But it's certainly interesting thatyou brought it up and somebody had
just asked me about it this week.

Rafael Correa (43:59):
Sorry, go ahead.

Brian Searl (44:00):
No, please go ahead.

Rafael Correa (44:01):
I was just gonna say, I think part of the challenge
to that too is, not that boats arefamous for the reliability, what
do they say that boat stands for?
Break Out Another Thousand?

Brian Searl (44:12):
Well, it's Better than Ford.
Ford found on Road Dead.

Phil Ingrassia (44:15):
The day he buys it and the day he sells it.

Rafael Correa (44:18):
Yeah.
Which I'm an avid boater and.

Phil Ingrassia (44:20):
Oh, I grew up with boat.

Rafael Correa (44:21):
My thousand for my Boating time.
I think the other issue infractional ownership with RVs is
relates to that Wall Street Journalarticle that popped up recently.
And, I think it's worth mentioningon here because anytime our industry
is noted in the Wall Street Journaland not in a positive light, I
think it's something that we allhave to take note of and react to.

(44:42):
And it's the title of the articlewas Even Warren Buffet hasn't fixed
the RV industry's Searl breakdowns.
And it's really highlightingthe quality that's coming out
of these RV manufacturers andsome of the quality issues.
And again, coming into a national majorfinancial publication, it was really
highly focused on the forest riverside,but it really gave some specific case

(45:06):
studies of where people are havingsignificant issues, wiring issues,
fuse issues, electrical issues thatled to some pretty catastrophic events.
Fortunately nothing with theloss of life, necessarily, but
significant loss of property.
And so this is something thatkeeps popping up on my radar.
I mentioned it to Phil that, thiswas a comment that was made by a
major dealer on a panel at the RVIAleadership conference is that the

(45:30):
industry needed to slow down and reallyfocus on building quality product.
And I think, quite frankly, it'sa huge factor, entirely down the
supply chain, whether it's dealers,manufacturers, obviously, but then
the dealers who are selling them,and then us who are the ultimate,
providing the end use experience.
I can only go so far, but if they havea bad time with their RV or their RV

(45:51):
isn't working and they have a terribletime at my park unrelated to what I'm
doing, it's taking certain things out ofcontrol and not necessarily doing anything
to help attract people to the space.
And so it's like one of the areas whereI think we all need to pitch in and
find ways to be more helpful on makingsure that people are having a good
experience in their RV from the ownershipperspective all the way through the buying

(46:14):
perspective, through the use perspective.

Brian Searl (46:17):
Yeah.
I don't wanna be completely negativebecause let's be clear, Wall Street
Journal, according to my phone,charges two seventy five a week to
subscribe, and I am not paying that.
So not everybody saw thearticle, so there's at least
a little bit of good news.
But Phil, your response.

Phil Ingrassia (46:30):
And I work for the dealers, but I know the manufacturers.
We work with RVIA in both ourstrategic plans, both the RV Dealers
Association and RVIA is improvementsin what we call repair event cycle
time, or RECT as we've called it.
And we have major initiatives underway.
And I will tell you that the manufacturershave basically match production

(46:55):
levels right now to what demand is.
And I think that a lot of us learnedour lesson in COVID when we went from,
600,000 units produced in the top yearthere, 2022 to where we are now, where
we're gonna be about 330,000 units.
So I think just by thenumbers, quality will improve.

(47:19):
And I know that the manufacturersare bringing in new ideas, new
systems, and new people who arevery focused on quality issues.
The Wall Street Journal focusedon recalls and things like that.
And then you can always fill in anecdotalstories of people that have had trouble
on their trips or trouble with theirunits, but, from the inside, because

(47:42):
believe me, as Rafael said, dealersare very focused on this as well.
Because the service capacity ofthe RV business is limited, and
if we can get quality up, then theservice capacity can be used for the
units that are older or whatever.
And we're not fixing aunit that's six months old.

(48:03):
So I think everybody in the industryunderstands that certainly the CEOs of
the major RV manufacturers understandthat and are investing into systems,
people, and processes to improve that.

Brian Searl (48:16):
Do you believe it's just a slow down and be more careful, or is it a
deeper problem than that, that apparentlyWarren Buffett might not be able to solve?

Phil Ingrassia (48:27):
I think it was a product, it was a kind of a hair on fire
production environment there for a while.

Brian Searl (48:33):
Okay.

Phil Ingrassia (48:33):
And when that happens, quality control becomes more difficult.
And I believe, and I've talked toseveral manufacturers about this,
as the industry has improved, theywould like to see more of a stair step
improvement in shipments and salesversus this, all of a sudden we're gonna
double production in a year and a half.

Brian Searl (48:51):
Yeah.

Rafael Correa (48:52):
Yeah.

Phil Ingrassia (48:52):
That's very difficult.
And especially with a unit,it is as complicated as RV,
basically a house on wheels.

Brian Searl (48:59):
So you're saying, Phil, if somebody came to you and said,
I'll give you another pandemic, butnobody has to die, you'd say No.

Phil Ingrassia (49:05):
If you knew, even if you knew manufacturers, and that was very
stressful on the whole supply chain.
From everybody to the thecomponent parts suppliers, to the
manufacturers, to the dealers.
It was a lucrative time.
We sold a lot, but itwas also very stressful.

Brian Searl (49:23):
Yeah.

Phil Ingrassia (49:23):
And in talking to the manufacturers and that everybody wants to
sell more, but sure everybody would likea little bit more, what do they call it?
Predictability?
Business certainty?
But that's not the RV business really.
And it's not life.
But we can work towards that, smoothout the rough edges, certainly.

Rafael Correa (49:43):
And I think to reflect on pre COVID, growth in the Camping
and outdoor hospitality world.
I don't remember the exact number,Scott, but the number of 12% rings a
bell to me of camper households waslike the growth trajectory we were
on compounded annual growth rate.
And that's in any industry, wouldlove to see something like that.
And I think that, and we felt ittoo on the end user side is that, we

(50:06):
were pulling our hair out trying toaccommodate an unbelievable amount of
demand that we had never seen before.
Really and for us, without necessarily thelabor, then we needed to support it too.
You ask a lot of my GMs, ifthey want to go back to a COVID
era, they'd be like, hell no.
That really tested 'em, backin day with that surge demand.
There's an argument to be madethat, what goes up comes down.

(50:29):
And we might've been better off juststaying on the growth trajectory
that we were on to start with.

Scott Bahr (50:33):
I've actually looked at that, Rafael, I have a graphic that
shows had COVID never happened, the RVindustry would be ahead of where we're
at right now based on that trend line.

Rafael Correa (50:43):
Yeah, that's what I thought.
That's glad you were able to confirm thatfor me based on where we were pre COVID.

Scott Bahr (50:49):
Nope.
I had that graphic.
If anybody wants to see it.

Brian Searl (50:51):
I want to see it, but we don't have time today.
We'll show it on Outwired.

Scott Bahr (50:53):
Alright.

Brian Searl (50:54):
Yeah, that's definitely interesting to me.
It would be interesting to know thesame stats about campgrounds too.
Obviously we haven't seenas much of a drop off there.

Simon Neal (51:01):
Yeah.

Scott Bahr (51:02):
No, but we'd be a little bit ahead.
We'd still be a little bitahead with campgrounds too.

Susan Brenton (51:06):
Yes.

Brian Searl (51:07):
Interesting.
And I think it'll be interesting tosee where, like the overall, the RV
industry and the campaign industry goesas we had, I mean I think the answer
you're talking about factual ownership.
I think the answer, it might take 20years for us to get there is the same
thing that Elon's doing with Robotaxis.
Like I think when there's enough ofthose on the road, when the RVs can
self-drive themselves, maybe not thehuge rigs but the middle-sized ones.

(51:28):
Seriously, Rafael you wait 20 years, theworld's gonna change quite a bit again.

Rafael Correa (51:31):
No, I just love your futurist.

Brian Searl (51:34):
But imagine when you could order an RV and it
just comes up to your house.
There's no commitment, there'sno anything else and you just get
in the RV with all your gear andit drives you to a Campground.
I think that's gonna allow a wholelot more people to be able to
experiment with the RV lifestylefor the first, second, third time.

Rafael Correa (51:50):
Totally.

Brian Searl (51:50):
Than otherwise wouldn't and it's probably gonna be a whole lot
cheaper than renting an RV at $300 anight too, because they're just waiting
there and because by that time we'regonna have robots building them, so.

Rafael Correa (52:01):
Well, and I think what you're bringing up is really the issue
that we're hyper-focused here at BlueWater is removing friction, right?
We wanna remove any frictionthat we can possibly remove from
people making a reservation.
And we have been actively doing that.
And I think as an industry,that's what we need to focus on
is promoting it and creating theleast amount of friction possible to
get somebody in an RV and Camping.

Brian Searl (52:24):
For sure.
All right final thoughts, everybody.
Simon, I know you didn't have toomuch of a chance to talk today.
I'm sorry about that, but finalthoughts and then share where they
can learn more about Camp Map.

Simon Neal (52:34):
No, it's all right.
Gone on with my smallstats, so that's fine.
Yeah, not much else to share really.
We're just pretty happy so far.
Still pretty busy, but getting intothat quiet spot when the campgrounds are
getting super full and stop talking to us.
But yeah, you can find moreabout what we do at campmap.com.
You can find a contactinformation, everything there.

Brian Searl (52:55):
Awesome.
Thanks for being here as always, Simon.
Phil, final thoughts?

Phil Ingrassia (52:59):
It was good talking everybody.
I always learn something in this group.
It's fantastic.

Brian Searl (53:04):
Thanks for being here, Phil, as always, and RVDA.
If they wanna learn more about theorganization, what you guys are doing.

Phil Ingrassia (53:09):
rvda.org.

Brian Searl (53:12):
Thank you, Phil.
Rafael, Blue Water?

Rafael Correa (53:15):
No, just appreciate the time with everybody.
Really great to get to meet Phil inperson for the first time here and
hear from his side of the story.
I know that we're allin this boat together.
But appreciate everybody and ifanybody wants to learn more about Blue
Water, you can look us up at bwdc.com.
That's Bravo-Whiskey-Delta-Charlie.com.

Brian Searl (53:34):
Awesome.
Thanks Rafael, for being here as always.
Susan, I know we didn't get toour future outlook for the Outdoor
Hospitality Association in Arizona,but I feel like it's bright, like
everything's gonna be great, right?

Susan Brenton (53:44):
Yeah, I believe so.
But with all politics going onright now, it's hard to say.
But I also believe that younger RVers isdefinitely an emerging market in Arizona.
A lot of our parks are age 55+.
They only accept, if youhave one person over.
So I think that's something that alot of our parks are going to have

(54:05):
to look at fairly quickly here.
And thank you for having us today.

Brian Searl (54:10):
Okay.
I'd love to have you back so we'llfind time to get you back on the show.
I would appreciate you being here.
And if they're in Arizona orthey wanna learn more about your
association, where do they go?

Susan Brenton (54:18):
gocampinginarizona.com.

Brian Searl (54:21):
Thank you Susan.
I appreciate it.
Scott, last but not least.

Scott Bahr (54:24):
Yeah, keep an eye on those booking windows . I'm hanging my head
on it and you can hold me to it, butwe have a resource library on our
website, carinconsultinggroup.com.
Go there, there's tons of reports,there's reports I've done with Brian.
There's the KOA reports there,there's other reports on articles.
There's a lot of information there.
It's all free.
So please if anyone you know,has questions let me know.

(54:45):
But go there.
The information is available.

Rafael Correa (54:48):
Send me that chart, Scott.

Scott Bahr (54:50):
I will.

Rafael Correa (54:50):
I appreciate it.

Brian Searl (54:52):
Awesome.
Thank you guys for anotherepisode of MC Fireside Chats.
If you're not sick and tired of hearing ofme and Scott yet, we will be on Outwired
in about 47, 57 minutes from now Ish.
We're gonna be talking, what arewe talking about, Scott, besides
the influencers and traffic?

Scott Bahr (55:05):
The holiday this weekend.

Brian Searl (55:06):
Ah, yes, the holidays and whether you're putting too much
emphasis on your season, on holidaysthroughout the year and how you
diversify and attract people and don'tmaybe hang your hat on those holidays.
As well as SEO traffic, how the world'schanging, all kinds of good things.
So join us in Outwired.
We'll be there.
Otherwise, thank you guys.
Appreciate you joiningus for another episode.
We'll see you next week for anotherepisode of MC Fireside Chats.

Everyone (55:27):
Thank you