Hosted by Brian Searl, this edition of MC Fireside Chats delved into the nuances of outdoor hospitality with a focus on point-of-sale (POS) systems and group camping dynamics. Guests included Scott Bahr, Casey Cochran, Jeff Hoffman, Sandy Ellingson, Mike Harrison, and Amir Harpaz, each bringing their expertise from various corners of the RV and camping industry. The episode kicked off with introductions from the recurring guests who outlined their roles and current projects. Sandy Ellingson highlighted a new app launch, aimed at enhancing RV and campground interactions. The guests briefly touched on their experiences with booking and managing group camping, an ongoing challenge in the industry that demands innovative solutions. Amir Harpaz initiated the conversation on POS systems, emphasizing the need for integration with property management systems (PMS) to streamline operations within campgrounds. This led to a broader discussion on the best practices for implementing POS systems that cater to both small snack bars and full-scale restaurant operations within campgrounds. Scott Bahr shared insights from recent research focusing on the dynamics of group camping. He noted that group campers are particularly loyal and enjoy the social aspect of camping with friends or family. The discussion then shifted to the logistical challenges of accommodating groups, including booking processes and site management. Casey Cochran from Campspot shared how their software aids in managing group bookings more efficiently. Mike Harrison discussed the luxury RV resort perspective, emphasizing the importance of upscale amenities and seamless service integration. He also touched on how technology, like NFC wristbands, although not universally popular, can enhance the guest experience by facilitating easy access and payments. Guests discussed operational challenges associated with POS systems, like integration complexities and the balance between tech-enhanced guest service and traditional camping experiences. Jeff Hoffman and Sandy Ellingson highlighted the need for campground owners to stay abreast of technological advancements to remain competitive and meet guest expectations. The conversation concluded with a look at future trends in the industry, including the growing demand for integrated technology solutions and enhanced group facilities. The experts agreed that the ability to adapt to guest needs and technological advancements will be crucial for the continued success of campground operations. Brian Searl wrapped up the episode by encouraging listeners to stay connected with MC Fireside Chats for more insights and discussions on evolving trends in the outdoor hospitality industry. The episode underscored the importance of community, technology, and innovation in shaping the future of camping and RV experiences.

This is MC Fireside Chats, a weekly show featuring conversations with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and outdoor hospitality experts who share their insights to help your business succeed. Hosted by Brian Searle, the founder and CEO of Insider Perks, empowered by insights from Modern Campground, the most innovative news source in the industry.

Brian Searl: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name's Brian Searle with Insider Brooks. And yes, I did switch the background on you, Sandy. I noticed. Tamara posted an image in our Slack channel. It was like the fire was here in the background. It was all weird with the faces, and it wasn't clear. But welcome to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Excited to be here for our first week episode with our regular recurring guests. We've got Scott Baer from Karen Consulting, Mike Harrison from Sierra Hospitality, Jeff Hoffman from 97 different places, including Team Strategy. Sandy and Casey from Camp Spot. Guys, you just want to go around and introduce yourselves real quick. And just for a highlight, we'll start with Sandy. She's in the top left corner of my screen.

Sandy Ellingson: Yes, I'm Sandy Ellingson. I serve as an advocate between the RV industry and campgrounds. And we just launched a new application on the Hub yesterday that I'm really excited about.

Brian Searl: It's awesome. It says, welcome to my stream on the bottom. I have no idea why that's there. I'm in a new studio experience. So we'll figure out how to get rid of that. But Jeff, go ahead.

Jeff Hoffman: Hi, I'm Jeff Hoffman, and I am the principal in Camp Strategy, and we offer help to… Awesome.

Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, Jeff. Appreciate it. You're a little bit laggy, but we'll make it work. Mike Harrison.

Mike Harrison: Hi, good afternoon. Mike Harrison. I am with CRR Hospitality. And we own, develop, and manage upscale luxury RV and glamping resorts, as well as other businesses such as storage, and offer consulting and third-party management services as well.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, Mike, as always. Casey?

Casey Cochran: Casey Cochran with Camp Spot Reservation Software and Marketplace. And I help out on the sales side once in a while.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Scott Baer? Bar? Is it Bar? Did we discuss this?

Scott Bahr: Yeah, we did. I typically pronounce it bar, but I never correct anyone because the family is split on it. So if my family is split, everybody else can be split. All right.

Brian Searl: I'll just alternate month to month then.

Scott Bahr: Let's fucking do it. I think it will keep everybody on their toes. I'm the president of Caring Consulting Group. We do market research, work in hospitality, outdoor hospitality, produce a lot of information and a report that just came out today. with Brian.

Brian Searl: Yeah, you remember how you told me that you would never expect it when KOA's reports would come out, and then I do the same thing to you now? Surprise.

Scott Bahr: You know, it's just my lot in life, I guess.

Brian Searl: We'll figure it out. We'll make a better structure. Now we got a special guest here. Amir, you want to introduce yourself ?

Amir Harpaz: Yeah, Amir Harpaz, Vice President at Harp Development. We're a real estate development company in the hospitality space based in Fort Myers, Florida.

Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, Amir. So I think today we have two focuses. We're going to do a little bit of a topical-based thing. And so I'm going to leave, I think, most of you, I'm going to leave it to most of you, I think, who are more experts in this than I am. We're going to talk about point of sale systems and things like that. It was a topic that Amir brought up and kind of pitched to all you guys in advance. So do we want to start there, or do we want to briefly touch on the report first and then spend the rest of the show on POS, which sounds a little bit better to me from a structure standpoint? Is that agreeable to all of you? All right, so Scott, you want to talk about your latest research that we have that we released out today and what some of your findings were?

Scott Bahr: The group camping, as any operator knows, it can be a challenge. And just because of the group dynamics, how people show up or don't show up. And one of the things we did is just kind of dug into kind of the why it's a good thing to be able to accommodate you know, larger groups and how, in a few suggestions, just based on feedback on what operators can do to help enhance that experience. Because some of the things we know is that the group camper is a very loyal group of campers. If they like your park, your campground, they'll come back. They have the pressure of the group behind that. They're also just a much more engaged group of campers overall. We've been measuring this for years, and we did some specific work with this to address some of these different areas in particular. So the fact that for many, camping as a group, it's easier for them. They like the fact that they have their people with them. They're stronger. They have stronger connections. The family, the friends, the relationships is all, it's all stronger among, you know, we know that everybody says that going camping and being outdoors helps with those relationships and helps them reconnect with other people and so on. But the group campers, it's even stronger. Doesn't, you know, maybe that's not super surprising, but, um, and there's one of those things that drives an emotional connection. Um, if they say that they can't more often on the campus, and they like sharing with the next generation. So it's, from the camper perspective, it's the, it's very, very attractive. And then, you know, for them, some of the challenges that they see, and I won't, I won't get into the weeds, because everybody knows if I start talking, I can really talk all day. But some of the challenges that they mention are things like they want to be able to stay together with their group. probably anyone who's booked a group knows that, just being able to book as a group as well. So not just stay as group, but be able to book the different, all the people in their party, having the different activities and the fact that they wanna have a facility that helps them enhance their group experience. And some people do mention that they have difficulty finding campgrounds who can accommodate their groups. And I should mention here, when I say a large group, typically this is a group of like eight or nine plus. I think that's important to consider here as well.

Brian Searl: So let me ask, I have two questions here. I'm curious to get your thoughts. So Casey, how does, we talk about booking all groups at the same time, right? How does software help them either do that from the beginning or from the operator's perspective once they're already booked? And then Mike, as you look, and maybe Amir too, you can touch on this and certainly Jeff with your consulting and Sandy too. I'm just trying to think of something that group-wise that you would, I mean, you know, a lot of Cape Grounds. But, you know, Mike, how do you think about this from a resort development standpoint and a third party management standpoint? Casey, you want to go first?

Casey Cochran: Yeah, I can start. I mean, from our standpoint, the groups has always been an interesting, I won't say dilemma, but in general, because even if someone calls, like Scott mentioned, and say, hey, we want eight sites, right, and we have a group and we want to be able to you know, grab and book these sites. There's still a lot of information that's, you know, needed at that point to make sure that it's the eight right sites, it's the eight sites that's going to fit all of those rigs, it's going to have the right 50 amp versus 30 amp In some parks like Amir's, like a lot of his parks, a lot of the sites are similar or the same length and things of that sort, so it's not as relevant. But for a lot of campgrounds out there, they have so much uniqueness in the different sites or even within the site types as far as the accommodations and do they allow slide outs on both sides, things of that sort. So for us, it's essentially trying to say we split it up into two different versions. One would be a multi-site reservation. meaning one person is going to kind of control, you know, multiple sites and pay for them. Then there's the group option where it separates that out still under one category of a group. But, you know, each person is going to claim those sites. So one thing that we're working on that we're still refining and thinking through is, you know, having the ability for the guests to be able to claim those, not only just claim the sites online, but then have the right guests claim th on their rig, right? Becau a booking for them to gra and one person has a 45 f has a 23 footer and the p footer grabs the only sit availability to it, that ends up being a problem, ends up being more of a headache than, you know, maybe if they just called and said, hey this is the information we have and that the admin essentially takes care of it. So those are just some of the intricacies that we're thinking through, you know, along with things like if someone's booking for a group, typically because that's automatically going to lock those sites. You're not going to do any type of optimization on a site if someone's booking for sites two or more or three or more sites. But it's something that we're still looking to continue to refine. You can book multiple sites online. You have two different versions of the way to book groups. But essentially, I think there's some more unlocks that we can do still to keep pushing forward in terms of making that process completely done online, removing any of the admin from the park. But at this point, like a lot of the successful parks that have a lot of bookings, because of how much data and information typically needs to get collected on each of those guests, or each of them getting their own signatures, or each of them agreeing to terms and conditions, or getting a credit card on file, there can be some significant more information that goes into a group reservation outside of just grabbing eight sites.

Brian Searl: I mean, maybe we're overthinking it a little bit, like just once I want to see an RV park do like Southwest boarding, where you hold everybody till four o'clock, and then you just open the gate and they rush and you get whatever site you want. I think that'd be entertaining to see.

Sandy Ellingson: We have parks doing rallies that way, pretty much.

Brian Searl: I'm not saying it's the best way.

Sandy Ellingson: It's really not the software that inhibits that, it's our parks. Because our parks won't control over those groups, who's coming in when and where they're going to put them. They also like to take into consideration if it's a group and it's only 15 people and they've got 400 sites, they want to make sure they put those 15 people in a place where they're going to be the least, they're going to infringe the least on the other guests. So there's a lot of decisions go into creating where you want to put those groups from a park owner standpoint. Mike?

Mike Harrison: Yeah, I mean, I guess we take that into consideration, but I'd like to flip it on its side a little bit. We say we'd like to make sure we're putting those group sites where it's attractive for groups, you know, where they're close to the amenities and we can activate it. So, you know, when we're consulting and we're reviewing site plans, one of the first things we ask is, do you have buddy sites? Do you have group sites? Do you have a group campfire? Do you have a gathering area? Do you have a communal area? Depending on the market, you know, do you have a rally house or a group house somewhere they can have a dinner? because what you're talking about is anywhere from eight or nine sites to 125, we just booked one this morning for 150 sites for five nights, right? A big, big, big group. And so what does that do to your property and the operational demands? Do you have storage? So there's a lot of things that you need to consider in the developmental phase to make sure that you are group friendly. And then the second part is to your PMS point, as Casey mentioned, You know, rarely are they going to book online by themselves. You know, you got to think about it like a hotel, right? You know, hotel groups, they rarely go on and book 10 rooms, right? They're going to call and talk. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. To Casey's point, there's a lot of information. Hey, well, we want to make sure that we're close to the river and the pool, but you know, what are the best sites? And somebody has a, you know, a fifth wheel and this other person's got a class A and this one's got a class B and you know, blah, blah, blah. you know, how you set that up so that the booking process is easy and so that it's all coordinated. So there's the design part, but then there's the operational part on the backside, you know, to make sure that the experience is clean, you know, as well. But many, many people miss it. And I would say in the older campgrounds, They've done a good job of trying to enable what they have, and a lot of the developments, people are including it as part of the design upfront.

Brian Searl: Scott, I'm curious, and I want to go to Jeff and Amir for your thoughts too, but Scott, do you have any data on what are the reasons that groups would return to a campground? There's many, right? But are there a couple that stick out at the top, like customer service, ease of making bookings, amenities, Is everybody together? Is there any data on that?

Scott Bahr: If it relates to the group itself, it is essentially that the group being able to stay together, you know, even with mixed use accommodations, you know, some people in RVs, some people in tents, they want the group to stay together. That is one of the biggest drivers of return visits. And the other is kind of the activities what they're able to do while they're there, and how well that is set up for the group. You know, it's like, do they have stuff to do? One of the biggest fears is having kids without a lot to do, that they really wanna have on-site, I should say on-site activities. Because in my experiences, and park operators may have a very, have a different view on it, just in the work I've done, that it feels to me like a lot of these group folks are less likely to leave the park or the campground to do things, to do activities. So they're much more focused, internally focused on the park itself.

Brian Searl: I want the people who know this to answer that, but on a surface level, that makes sense to me because if I'm planning a huge group and I've already worked out the campground and the logistics and got everybody where I want, the last thing I want to do is leave and then plan like a golf cart outing and have to go through that whole process with especially 150 people, but let alone 20, 30, to say, do you have space for me? And then you have to ask, so I get that. Does that make sense from a somebody who knows standpoint, whoever wants to talk?

Sandy Ellingson: Well, I think it depends on the kind of group, too. If you're doing a rally, that's one thing. They're looking for things to do. If you've got a big group that's a family or a family reunion or a Boy Scout group or something like that, they tend to bring their own excitement and their own activities. And so they're not as picky as some of the rally groups are about having extra things to do or on site.

Brian Searl: Jeff, Amir, any thoughts?

Amir Harpaz: Yeah, actually I want to touch on a point that Mike brought up. Buddy sites, I think, and the points that we've introduced them, I think they were probably the number one reason guests came coming back over and over again. Buddy sites, for those who don't know, are sites that you can either be utilized as traditional sites or they can be utilized in a way where the doors of the RVs face each other and kind of create a compound and have a shared amenity like a communal fire pit, a common seating area, and we've built them up to quad so you can have actually two RVs like that, two RVs like that, and they create Literally a compound where all the doors face each other and create a courtyard Incredibly popular and I would actually Would love to hear from Scott. Do you have any data to show if buddy sites and hands their return bookings?

Scott Bahr: I Miss part of what you said there Sorry, oh I missed I missed part of what you said

Amir Harpaz: Is there any data available to show if buddy sites increased return bookings?

Scott Bahr: Buddy sites? I don't have that directly. I can say anecdotally from talking to people and indirectly from our data that absolutely. Absolutely, it does. Whatever you can do to accommodate the group, and if they feel like it was smooth and painless for them in general, they're going to come back. Because they don't have to try to do that again someplace else. If they're comfortable with the system you have and you accommodated them, they will come back.

Amir Harpaz: The other thing we found with buddy sites is that if each site on its own sells for $100 a night, throwing a number out there, combined as a buddy site, you can sell it for $250. People will pay more for the convenience of having to be able to be facing each other.

Brian Searl: What if you're a buddy when you come and then you get into a fight and you're not a buddy when you leave?

Jeff Hoffman: They can back it out and pull it back in the other way and use connections.

Brian Searl: But then only one person has the shared event. Anyway, we won't get into it. Jeff, thoughts?

Jeff Hoffman: Group business is a good business to get into. As you know, I still have the one campground. We experiment a lot with the campground. So we have put in group park model sites with park models, buddy sites for RVs. One of the things that I've been building into my designs for other people is if you have water access, like you're facing a pond, I do double utilities. So those sites can, one, if it's class A, they can pull in and then have the view of the water out of the window of their class A. But because you have the reversed plumbing, They can also be used as buddy sites. And you could have a whole row of these all along the lake. The initial cost would be a little bit more than an average site, but as I believe it was Amir said, you can get a higher rate on these buddy sites. So eventually they will ROI a little bit better. And I still like having the drive-in sites for Class A RVs because it's psychological. They can pull in and back out, but they can't back in and pull out. I admit, but it's easy for them to back out of a site and not crush everything. But group business is one of the things I think that's going to grow because it just seems like there's more and more people that want to make it a social experience. So I do think we need to convert.

Mike Harrison: Yeah, I think really where the trend is heading is, you know, so many of the resorts now are adding glamping options along with their RV spots. And, you know, what it is, is it's RV friends, RV who have friends who don't have RVs and they're traveling with them, you know, and they're staying in glamping options. And so, We've seen that at all of our parks. And so how you leverage that experience, you have an example of Verde Ranch. You know, we had somebody who stayed with us, you know, first couple of months we were open right through COVID, came back again, brought another friend, came back again, brought another friend in an RV. And now he's on his fifth year in a row, his 10th visit, and he's up to five RV sites and seven cabins. And so, you know, he's been able to amoeba into other parts of the resort, but he's bringing friends with him that don't have RVs. that's the other part of buddy sites, you know, being able to leverage that experience of it's not just RV, but it's RV plus glamping for buddy and groups, you know, that you can do it. The other part is, you know, what hasn't really been spoken about in the industry yet, but is starting to leverage your property for corporate retreats. And especially from the glamping, you know, or if, you know, working with RV share or one of those, you know, in terms of being able to provide that experience. But, you know, we've had a couple opportunities where, you know, a corporation has rented out 12 cabins for a weekend and done a meeting up there. And so creating those experiences where, you know, it's not just, you know, if you want to call it leisure transient, but it's also corporate transient. you know, as well. It's something I think that we're going to continue to see, you know, people moving away from hotel and moving into our industry from a corporate side as well.

Brian Searl: So I want to make sure we have time to pivot to POS and talk about that for the chunk of the show. So I have one last question if anybody wants to kind of chime in and give their thoughts on it. So if I'm a park owner watching this and I'm hearing that Groups is a good idea and maybe I have some of these sites, I, you know, I've got a campground with buddy sites or I developed one or I have the amenities necessary or the space, You know, and I'm looking at an economy that's kind of down right now, right? So I want to start focusing a little bit more on these groups. How do I do that? Where do I start?

Sandy Ellingson: Well, I've had two parks that I've worked with since the Florida Show, because that was one of the breakout sessions at the Florida Show, where we've gone in and been able to help them create very basic, simple weekend events. And we're actually going to have a white paper out that I'll send to you, Brian, that you can give to anybody. But it literally tells them how to create these short-term events, these really quick events over the weekends. and who to call, what they need, how to price it differently. Everything is included in there. It's even broken up by region of the country. So it'll be a really good step-by-step guide. And that's just a free resource we can provide.

Casey Cochran: Yeah, I mean, my suggestion, which I've probably said to my sales and our account management team, and they're probably to the point where they're definitely sick of me saying it, but my suggestion is you pick up the phone, right? I mean, any business that's in that area, you know, whether it's 45 minutes or within an hour, things of that sort. It's awareness, right? I mean, how many how many businesses within an hour and a half or two hours know that you accommodate that, that you provide a great setting and experience for a reason to do a corporate retreat? And a lot of times businesses are just looking for an excuse or a reason to do something that's a little bit unique. And what there's not not a better setting than a campground to do to get together, sit around a campfire at night. You can accommodate people that have rigs and people that don't. If you have, like Mike said, glamping or park models. We do all of our quarterlies typically at a campground, a camp spot naturally. But even if we weren't here, moving forward in some capacity, it's just a phenomenal setting to have types of events or meetings and things of that sort. And so to me, You pick up a phone, right? Make sure enough businesses know that that's something you guys that you offer and get it set up.

Amir Harpaz: I agree, Brian. I'll add to that. In Tennessee, we have cabins on a lake and, you know, we're surrounded by all the boat manufacturing companies in America and they, Sea Ray, Mastercraft, HCB, Yamaha, and they all come to use the lake for their photo shoots and use our cabins. we've taken it to the next level. So, you know, when your dealers from all over the country come to your headquarters, when you have training, instead of going to the Hilton, we'll match their rate with the corporate rates. And they're sending a ton of dealers at a heavily discounted rate to us during our slow season.

Jeff Hoffman: Brian, one of the One of the things that I suggest to people that are trying to get group business is to have a great relationship with caterers and event planners within a 25 mile area, because when corporate business is starting to come, they're going to hire those people first and then they can dole out the lodging. So we've always worked with event planners and caterers.

Brian Searl: So you're saying, yeah, you could almost just infiltrate them, right? I don't know if this is what you're saying, but you could just have a wedding to get a cake, right? You could just have your kid just become a Boy Scout for a week and get an in, right? I'm not saying you should maybe pretend to go to church to get the church people, but that's probably crossing the line.

Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, you went too far, Brian, as you said. Yeah, I went too far.

Brian Searl: I mean, I did. To be clear, like I said, don't do it before I said it. But anyway, all right.

Sandy Ellingson: I think you should bring in a Christian band. Now you will all show up.

Brian Searl: Why not a Jewish band? Why not a band war where the Christian and Jewish band battle each out and get a prize like American Idol or something? That would be perhaps controversial and something a press release media outlet might pay attention to. Anyway, OK, we got to talk about POS. But one thing before we lose, Scott, do you want to talk about our new report that's going to come out here? We've got a new series. We're doing MC Hospitality Highlights once a month. The first week of every month is we push this up a little bit. And then the third week of each month, we're going to do a new series called MC Camper Compass. Can you talk a little bit about how that's different and why they want to look at that data briefly?

Scott Bahr: One of the things we're going to try to do with that is to dig into some topics that don't always get covered in some of the other research and try to fill some of the gaps. And our goal there is to make this a resource for people. You know, again, you know, make it. We're always looking for feedback, by the way. I always like to throw that in if people have ideas and thoughts. But that's our goal, is to provide more information, to provide another tool for people in the industry to understand what's happening out there and, you know, dig into topics at a level that, you know, to get maybe a little more granular on what topic, you know, a little bit more, you know, more general on a bunch of topics.

Brian Searl: But it's flipped to like where hospitality highlights the intention, and tell me if I have this wrong even, but I think the intention of hospitality highlights that we discussed was that this is more actionable items that a campground owner can implement from a group perspective, like the report we released today. Whereas the camper compass is more research on the camper itself, him or herself. Correct. Yes. Okay. So that'll be kind of the difference there. So looking forward to working on that. We'll talk about that in the show. Okay. Point of sale. Amir, talk us through your idea. for the show topic and what you'd like these gentlemen to discuss. And ladies, sorry, Sandy. I wasn't looking at you. You weren't in my eyesight. I apologize.

Amir Harpaz: Yeah, I thought to bring that up, I think over the past probably year, year and a half, I've been talking to a lot of campgrounds that are starting to implement some type of food and beverage operation, whether it's a small snack bar, a full bar, bars that are open to the public as well as to their guests. And, you know, the discussion always ends up, what point of sale should I be using? Should I integrate it with my PMS? Should I allow guests to charge to the site? What other considerations do I need when implementing a point of sale? Do I choose that first? PMS first so there's a lot to unpack and you know I always tell people that a lot of the PMS is another question sorry is like should we have wristband integration and my point of sales and you know all these fancy words and supercharged POS's if you unpack what they're really trying to achieve most of the campgrounds can probably get away with POS's that are built in into their PMS's or even start with a very basic POS like Square or Clover before you go in and spend the money and time on Implementation and integrating with your PMS and you find out that almost nobody charges to their site as you had originally thought.

Brian Searl: All right. I'm going to step back and let you guys take it wherever you want. So, cause I definitely am not an expert in POS. So wherever somebody wants to jump in and start.

Amir Harpaz: Mike, you have a ton of experience in that.

Mike Harrison: So your question, I'm not sure I understand your question. You're looking to

Amir Harpaz: No, just create a discussion. You know, it's like, what are you seeing with the clients that you work with in your own campgrounds? Are you guys implementing full-blown POSs where you allow people to charge through their site? Are they separate of the PMS? Are they more basic POSs? Are they more full-blown? Go ahead.

Mike Harrison: Yeah, so I agree with everything you said, right? What's ideal? The ideal is, again, I always hate to, I know I sound like a broken record when I refer back to the hotel industry, but everybody goes to a hotel, you don't know that it's a different experience. You go into the restaurant, you charge to your room, and ta-da, I have room service, ta-da, everything just ends up in your bill. And so the goal of the RV industry and glamping industry is to get to that same point. You know, depending on the integrations that your current PMS has or does not have definitely limits those choices. The goal is to make sure that you can have those options for you so that you're able to make sure that you deliver on that seamless experience for both yourself, for the customer, and for your accounting department. So yes, ideally, seamless experience. They check in, they can go to the restaurant, they can charge to their site, they can have a glass of wine, if you have a attraction that uses wristbands or something like that, that you can load some money under the wristband and same kind of thing, integrates with your PMS so that you get seamless experience, that kids can load more money. If your PMS does not allow you to do that, you can still do it, but it obviously just takes a different set of accounting systems in order to be able to track that. So yes, Amir, I guess is the answer. and picking the right POS that aligns with the PMS system that you currently have, or you change your PMS, or if you're in development, making sure that the PMSs and POSs are going to talk, ideally.

Amir Harpaz: I personally struggle with wristbands. You know, I'm not a fan of them. If I go to hotels, I can count on Less than one hand, the number of hotels that have given me a wristband. Actually, I would love to hear your all's view on it. What's wrong with, sir, what's your site number and what's your last name? Why do we have to revert to a wristband?

Casey Cochran: Oh, no, I was going to I mean, I didn't agree. I mean, we're looking at adding a wristband option right now just because there's been enough parks that have kind of requested it. We haven't had too many that have implemented it and stuck with it. That's kind of been one of those things where we've kind of been, you know, is this worth its weight, you know, in terms of development costs to get to that point? Because, you know, like Amir said, as long as you have charge to site functionality, you know, And I get the argument. The argument is like, hey, I want my kids to be walking around and ding, ding, ding, running up the total. Yeah, convenience less friction. I want people to not understand.

Mike Harrison: It's also out of house customers, right? The more properties that build these larger attractions and restaurants, for example, we're speaking with a client right now who, and I don't like the wristbands either. However, if you're going to have more than half your business that's going to be using your attraction, whether it's a restaurant, or whether it's for things that are strictly entertainment, you can pre-sell wristbands. It certainly makes it a lot easier for tracking. So I've been going back and forth, Amir, like you. In general, I don't like the wristband concept. And I've been having discussions with my team about wristbands as well. Operationally, the team likes it. Theoretically and philosophically, I don't like it.

Brian Searl: and so finding the balance. Here's my thing, like from a tech standpoint, right? Casey, tell me this, like when you're building in the wristbands, you're basically building an NFC, right? Yep. So like, my thing is, is the NFC, even if you don't like wristbands, could be used on a phone app to scan their phone or like in dozens of different ways that aren't wristbands. So I feel like having that technology available just gives you the flexibility for the future to do all kinds of different things.

Casey Cochran: I agree. I mean, the argument comes in, Hey, if I'm floating down the lazy river and I just want to get a beer quick and I don't have my phone or things of that sort. But again, if you're floating on a lazy river, do you know your last name? Do you know what room number you are? I mean, we, you know, we talked about this before. It's like, well, I don't want the kids, you know, I want the kids to be able to get something and they don't need to have a bunch of information. I mean, since my kids were three, anytime we've gone to a hotel, they know that they know our last name, and then they know what room number we are, because they know that's how they're going to get Andy, or they're going to get a pop, or they're going to get something from the convenience store, or from the snack bar, is by knowing those two things. So it's not like it's a difficult thing for kids to be able to buy stuff if you enable that at the park in terms of the charge to site functionality. So yeah, I mean, I get the convenience of it. I think Amir's touched on this in previous conversations. It's kind of the Disney effect, right? It's like, you know, they kind of set this gold standard of hospitality. And Amir knows this. He just got off a Disney cruise, so he knows it better than anybody. But that concept kind of came in where it's like, OK, I want to I want to be able to people to be able to consume more easily. Right. And I want them to be, you know, what's going to cause them to spend more because of convenience in Disney. I understand it and I get it with Disney because it's just such a there's so much that can lines and so many options but you know, a standard if you have an arcade, ev bar, even if you have a r How inconvenient is it to say your last name? I don't know. I don't think it's that easy.

Brian Searl: It's not, right? But the idea is not to force wristbands on everybody or force a phone on everybody, but to give them a choice. Sure. And then to say, well, we're going to do it by default without wristbands because, duh, what you just said. It's not hard, right? Yeah. But also, if you want a wristband and that causes you to spend more money, then I have one for you. Sure. Right.

Casey Cochran: And there's data there that says, right?

Mike Harrison: Raise your wrist. How many of you have a watch? None. I don't. I do. My entire leadership team, everybody has a watch. Part of this is convenience. I think that's the other part here. A lot of the resources are starting to look at kiosks that are not even manned. Forget your name and your site number. There's nobody there to ask. You want another beverage or you want to order it. It is just like your watch. I have a watch and I have a phone.

Brian Searl: But your watch, NFC, Apple Pay, Google Pay, right?

Mike Harrison: The PMSs are not there yet from an NFC standpoint. So the wristband, you know, getting the PMSs just to integrate the wristbands is a conversation in itself. We shouldn't go down the rabbit hole of wristbands. There's a lot more to discuss than just wristbands.

Casey Cochran: Yeah, I was gonna say, I was gonna say, I think, take a step back on point of sale in general. And I think I'll let you guys take it from there. I mean, I think there's a misconception in terms of what integration is one, right? What does integration mean? And then what is an in-house system, right? So an in-house point of sale is something that the PMS most likely built within its system to provide, you know, basic point of sale functionality, right? Camp Spot, we specifically kind of drew a line in the sand of like, we're probably never going to be a full food and beverage point of sale. We have lots of snack bars, chicken fingers, ice cream, things of that sort. But we're like, wow, we're probably never going to build a point of sale to track. how many jars of pickles we need to order based on how many burgers sold that day. We weren't going to get that granular. But could you sell a burger? Yes. Could you create a point of sale item and move it that way? Yes. But then there's different layers to that in terms of the demand of the storefronts or the demand of, like I said, the food and beverage. And so when you say integration, I think it's just important. So integration essentially means that those two softwares aren't going to be within the same window. Essentially what it means is that you're allowing to charge to site. So you have a PMS, and that person checks in. You have a card on file. An integration to a point of sale means that that guest can say, hey, I want to put this teddy bear on site number 43. And then that item can come from a separate point of sale system or an internal point of sale system, and it's going to go on their bill. And you can either charge them right then and there, or it can go on their bill and when they check out, you know, they run their bill then. I think that's an important first step to at least just set the bar in terms of what does integration mean. It doesn't mean that Square is going to just merge into Camp Spot and then you're on one screen. Square is still Square. Square has its entire hardware. Clover has its own hardware. Toast has its own hardware. and you're using that as a point of sale, what an integration allows is that when you go to check out that item within that point of sale, an option instead of Visa, MasterCard, American Express, cash or check, it would say charge to site, and then that item would transfer over to the camp spot billing side of things in our case, or whatever that internal PMS is, and that item shows up on their reservation number. So I think maybe just to start there, I'm going to let you guys kind of take some of this.

Jeff Hoffman: Casey, I think that we're heading in a direction that you kind of hit on. We have so many suppliers right now that are in the market, that not only is there going to be somewhat of a shakeout, but they're going to draw their own lines in the sand of how they want to develop software, what's going to work for their systems and their clients. The amount of huge campgrounds in the industry right now is so limited, it's not worth your time or effort to develop the software to get them. You know, if something comes along that cuts that cost, I think that would be great. And then there's still a big, you know, a lot of the market for POS systems is still mom and pop, because they haven't converted at all. So simple systems are going to work for them. But when you get to Mike and Amir, where they have big parks, it And especially they both came over from hospitality, where you can take it down to the last napkin in far, you know, as far as tracking for accounting and operations. There is going to be a need for that as we get more and more resorts coming into the industry. And it's going to be who in the other side on POS is going to want to take that challenge. because that's going to be a costly jump to have that fully integrated in your own system. But I think the best thing is to make sure that you have a seamless integration from one of the already existing platforms into your system.

Brian Searl: Why do we do something that's already very, like almost perfect, right, is the idea. And that's the integration piece of it is, I already do POS really well. I already do campground reservations and property management very well. Let's hook up and we can do both things. Well, just the same thing as the old TV, VCR combos. They worked, but a standalone VCR and a standalone TV still work better.

Casey Cochran: I've seen two issues over the last five years with the point of sales. One is it seems like they change hands. all the time, right? And so one minute it's a great point of sale and then also the next thing it gets bought out or gobbled up by someone else and they decommission it or they change functionality with it or they stop investing. So I've seen a lot of parks go through that struggle where they haven't been able to stick with a reliable point of sale for some time that's keeping up with the technology and keeping the user interface good and keeping the cleanliness of the devices. So that's been a challenge because it seems like there's just a lot of roll-ups within the point-of-sale space. And I think the other big thing to consider is, depending on the volume of your operations, some of them make them seem really inexpensive, but typically you're paying something in credit card fees, so that's the other kind of downside to a separate point-of-sale, is you're going to have two separate processors to some extent, because all point-of-sales are going to have something else, they're going to have that built in. But again, if the operation is large enough and it causes for that detail and it causes for that expanded functionality, yeah, I think that's what we recognize, maybe even a little bit later than we should have. We're never going to be able to build what Toast has built in terms of having over $3 billion or something for a restaurant point of sale. For us as Camp Spot, to try to match that would just be such an impossible task. Do little small tweaks to our internal point of sale to try to get closer to that? Or do you just integrate, right? You integrate and allow people to choose whatever point of sale system they want. But I think what a lot of campgrounds just the average campground would think about is are those benefits, which there certainly are, are those benefits worth the actual cost, right? Because it is going to cost more than a free native system that's built into the PMS. And for a certain size of volume of transactions and revenue that comes through, it's absolutely a no-brainer. I think that's just what each park needs to kind of determine, right? Is it worth that, you know, investment in hardware? Is it worth that investment of whatever the monthly cost is? And, you know, make the decision from there.

Sandy Ellingson: So I've implemented quite a few of these over the last four years in mostly larger parks where they are looking to expand on their food and beverage. Some of them as a brand already had it. And so it was very interesting to watch. The one thing with the bands is the bracelets is they really need to be multi-purpose, not just to be able to charge, but they need to be able to open gates and open your room and all those kinds of things, which is not very, it's not really complicated. It's just different APIs, and I've seen that happen with several. There's a new property management software that's now being created. They're not there yet. They're not even out on the market, but their bands are going to do all these things. They're mimicking Disney, but the issue becomes more not about the bands, but why should you have the bands and what are the operational procedures? So I actually had a part that ended up losing about $3,000 on a holiday weekend because a guy was sitting next to another guy at the bar on a Friday night and he saw them and then he saw them give their name and their site number and so on Saturday he and all his buddies were charging to that site and then guess what they left Saturday night and the park was left on Sunday morning with the guests it was still there saying I'm I was never at your bar, and I never charged that. And they actually had cameras. They were able to look and see, and sure enough, they knew who it was, but they couldn't go back on it because he'd already left. So there is a liability, and it's not like a hotel. People in a hotel don't get together and sit and buddy up and talk about what you're doing. At a campground, we naturally do that. So it is very easy for somebody to obtain your site number and your last name and then use it if you're just doing a verbal, hey, charge it to my site.

Casey Cochran: That's still theft, Sandy. I mean, in any scenario, just to play devil's advocate, I mean, it's still illegal.

Sandy Ellingson: You've still got that problem of going back on that person. So it's just depends on how you want to handle that.

Mike Harrison: But I'm so sorry to your point. You know, everything we talk about the evolution of this industry. Right. And, you know, we can choose to live in how it used to be. or how it's going to be in the future, right? And, you know, Amir and I are not the exceptions, right? The properties that continue to be built, they all want technology and they all want integration. And, you know, the regulators and the lawsuits and the people that are coming after the parks are becoming more and more prevalent. So the controls and processes need to be in place. And so, you know, the technology that's available has to be easy and it has to be accessible. And so, right, I don't think, you know, CampSpot or Newbook, I don't think any of them should be a POS system, but it has to be easy to do business with the POS systems because the owners and the managers are going to demand that they need to be for their own accounting. Also, because a lot of these are going to become remote managed as well, and you want to be able to see and look at reports and data and statistics and information. And so, you know, how we've been doing things for the last five, four, seven, nine years is not and shouldn't be the same as what we're going to do business for the next four, one, two, three years. And so I think the technology enhancements, both from a evolution standpoint, but also from a control standpoint, it's imperative. And it's just, it's got to be easy.

Sandy Ellingson: Yeah, the second thing we found just operationally was every if you're allowing them to charge to your site, it is good to run that card either at the end of every night or absolutely the night before they left. Don't wait till the next morning. Because if the card declines, and now they've already left, because like our beers, we get on the road early in the morning, so your staff isn't in doing everything. And now you've got to chase them down to get a different credit card. So operationally, those were just two things that we found with using either the bracelet, you know, it did cut down on over, you know, somebody hearing that your name and site, but and then charging at night just to prevent them from leaving your property. So

Brian Searl: But the technology piece is important, right? Because people like there are a lot of owners who will go to like a camp spot, and they'll say, build me this integration. But if you're a camp spot, and you have an API, if you're a new book, and you have an API, then other people can build an integration with you, too. And so then there's kind of that, like, you can go to either party and see, is there an interest. So I think that's important to flexibility in the future.

Amir Harpaz: Yeah, there's also a level.

Sandy Ellingson: I was just going to say, to go back with what Amir started with was, I do think it's extremely important for parks to start considering ancillary revenue streams, and F&B is a strong one. People like to get to their park and stay. They don't necessarily want to get out and go, especially if they're in big groups. And we can provide food and beverage in a lot of different ways that does not involve a lot of big costs. You don't have to build a restaurant. It's like Casey was saying, certain basic things. You don't really need that full-blown restaurant software until you're trying to take care of your supplies that actually make the hamburger, right? If you've got to track the mustard, the ketchup, and the lettuce, I don't care if we ever do that as an industry, but being able just to sell a burger, right, or being able to have a food truck come and what I encourage my parks to do is get your food trucks to use your software. Most of them don't have it. And so if they will use that basic software that the same park is using, then it makes those revenue splits easier because most of them are using Stripe and Stripe will split the revenue for you. So take advantage of the software you've got in front of you and make it work for you.

Brian Searl: All right, Amir.

Amir Harpaz: Yeah, you know, another thing people need to consider is that once you have a POS integration with your PMS, there's also a slight burden on your accounting side, because you have sales from one system, but the transaction settles in a different system. So there's also accounting implications. At one of my parks, Torrey Trails, where we have a bar, it's such a small bar that we felt that an integration wasn't necessary because we didn't want that accounting burden. We wanted to settle the bar separately and the PMS separately. At my Tennessee place, where the restaurant serves 1,500 people a day, We certainly have that integration because of the warrants.

Sandy Ellingson: Yep. Totally agree, Amir. You're right on track with how to decide.

Brian Searl: Any other thoughts from anybody?

Jeff Hoffman: You're all going to be quiet now. Just you know me, Beren. I would track everything if I could. So if I have to, you know, I would enjoy tracking the tomatoes and the mustard because I want to know my costs because Food is a hard place to make money. When you get volume, you make money, but otherwise it's really tough.

Amir Harpaz: That's right. You have inventory control systems like extra chef and craftables that you build in the recipes of what you're serving. So you know exactly that a hamburger is made out of two bones, a slice of tomato, slice of lettuce, and a four ounce beef patty.

Jeff Hoffman: Right. But I also have waste and other issues. And I know it's all, and that's the problem with… But you have other issues with your POS or you have other issues in general, Jeff, just to clarify. I'm sorry, Brian, you broke up.

Brian Searl: Oh, that's okay. Never mind. It wasn't important anyway. Go ahead.

Sandy Ellingson: I was just going to say, if you're building the burger, you need the full-blown system. If you're just selling the burger, which with a lot of restaurant supply companies, you can buy them and warm them, not necessarily maybe a burger, but let's say a sausage biscuit, right? Something that is already a single unit. That doesn't require a full-blown restaurant software. But where you've got to pull together all those components and know your cost, I would lean more towards a more sophisticated platform with an integration.

Brian Searl: Well, so let's spend the last couple of minutes, like, and again, we could arguably talk about this for quite a number of extra minutes and have a really good discussion. But so let's spend the last few minutes talking about like, if I'm an owner watching this, the same question as we, as we talked about with the groups, right? If I'm an owner watching this, how do I know when I'm ready for a POS system? How do I know whether my software system like Campspot Newbook is the right fit for me? How do I know when I graduate? How do I know what to look for?

Amir Harpaz: I would say start talking with your PMS vendor, you know, ask them about what built-in functionality they have. They should know well enough to say what we have is good enough to support you or here's a list of our integrations if you want to take it to the next level when you graduate.

Brian Searl: So I want to push back on that on one thing, not against anything you said, right? But when you go talk to your PMS, whoever they are, your PMS is almost never going to be like, oh, no, we don't have that. We're not a good fit for you anymore.

Casey Cochran: They're all going to say like, this is great. Let me push back on that. No, I mean, it's one of the first things that we quality. I mean, we have a point of sale that's included, right? But honestly, it's not good business for us to push someone to use our point of sale if it isn't meeting their needs. It doesn't make any sense. It's going to be unhappy. So, I mean, we're trying to figure out as many a point of sales that are with. And we're asking ou who are using that? Prob industry with more knowl systems than literally tha he's tried all of them. H out. He goes deep, deep, And so especially restaurant point of sales. And so for us, I would push back on that because that's the last thing we want to do is sell a part of our product that isn't going to meet the needs of the campground. And so we would definitely vapid out to say, hey, if you have a big food and beverage operation, our point of sale is not sufficient. You're going to want to use a food and beverage one.

Brian Searl: But again, and to be clear, I'm not criticizing you and saying you'll do that. I'm just saying like, but then you can say, but we integrate with. Oh yeah, for sure. Some of the smaller reservation systems are not going to be able to say that, and they're going to have no option, like to say. Right.

Amir Harpaz: That's right. Yeah. I would make a general statement and say, if you're doing anything with retail or food and beverage at an entry level, if you go with something like Square or Clover, you're, much guaranteed to do well.

Casey Cochran: And then what do you what do you use it on your bigger operations Amir? Toast.

Amir Harpaz: In Torrey Trails we use Clover and we use New Book and even though they can integrate we do not integrate we like to keep them separate because the bar is just really it's there obviously to make revenue but more for the ambience of the place and once people finish a round of golf, they come and have a few drinks. It's only open a few hours a day. It doesn't justify full blown POS even from the cost standpoint.

Brian Searl: Mike, how do you look at this? Because obviously you own a lot of luxury RV resorts and you work with your in-house, but then you're going to third party management. So how do you determine what advice you give to people?

Mike Harrison: I think it depends if you're talking about development or you're talking about an existing campground. So they're two very different discussions, right? If it's a development, it's a discussion up front about, you know, what's the scale, size and scope of the, you know, reserve of the property. And then, you know, you start with your PMS and then you go to your POS. You know, to me, there's really, you know, Camp Spot is not a POS for food and beverage, right? Or retail. Neither is New Book and neither is Firefly. They're just not designed to do that. Um, if it's an existing, you know, if you're like, you'd ask the question earlier, Hey, if you're a campground owner, when are you ready? I think it depends on the size of your revenue and the complexity of your operation determines that, right? If you're doing less than. Let's call it $50,000 a year in revenue. You probably don't need a POS system. If you're doing more than 50, clearly more than a hundred than a, as Amir mentioned, you know, justify the cost, but also the accounting and the tracking. Well, then you start getting into the need for complexity. You know, if you have remote ownership that needs data and statistics and reporting, then POS might, you know, be an important decision factor for you. If you're a smaller campground, you probably can do it all on your own and, you know, the cost of that mustard and ketchup probably isn't as important. So I think complexity and scale really determine the answer to that question and your need to understand, you know, how to analyze the business.

Brian Searl: If I'm on the edge of going into complexity, who do I seek out for answers to determine whether I'm there or not? Because a lot of you voters don't know the questions that you know.

Mike Harrison: Yeah, call Amir. I'll give you his phone number.

Amir Harpaz: Honestly, a couple of years ago, I didn't know much about it until I owned a restaurant that serves 1,500 people a day. Call the POS vendors. Do detailed demos. Ask them for a list of big customers or customers your size. Call them up. Talk. Go and see them in person. It took me eight months to vet the right POS.

Mike Harrison: Talk to other properties of similar size and scope. Use your association. Get connected and hooked up. Talk to Jeff Hoffman. Talk to Sandy. Talk to me. bend somebody's ear just to use that experience so that you can understand the challenges and benefits.

Brian Searl: Cool. I think that was a good conversation. Jeff, I have one question. You're on the trustees for Ojai, right? Yes. OK. Is there a budget for wristbands at the Ojai conference? Because I would really love to sit next to Casey at the bar.

Sandy Ellingson: Now all you need is last name and room number.

Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, just stay with him when he's checking in and listen, and you'll get his room number and his name. So that's how I do it.

Amir Harpaz: You already know his name. You just need to find out his room number, Brian.

Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, I charge it to your room all the time, Brian. You haven't noticed?

Brian Searl: No.

Jeff Hoffman: No. Yeah. Why do you think I always ask you what room you're in?

Casey Cochran: It is interesting because hotels, they don't even ask for a room number. They just ask for your last name, right? So I mean, again, if you're out to steal from someone. I think you're always able to do that.

Brian Searl: But I think that speaks to like how little, like this is visible and it sticks out in our mind as a story. And remember like that guy, remember the one time the guy stole, but like the amount of that happening has to be low because otherwise the hotels would change their system. Correct. So, okay. Any final thoughts, Mike? Nope. Happy 4th. Sandy?

Sandy Ellingson: Nope. Happy 4th.

Brian Searl: All right. Casey, Jeff, any final thoughts?

Casey Cochran: Nothing, good conversation. Everyone enjoy their holiday.

Brian Searl: Amir?

Amir Harpaz: Happy 4th, and thanks for having me.

Brian Searl: Cool. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. Thanks for joining us on another episode of MC Fireside Chats. We'll see you next week. Happy 4th of July for those of you guys in the States. I already have my candy today. Enjoy your fireworks and everything else. We'll see you next week for another show. Take care, guys. See you.

Sandy Ellingson: Bye.

Jeff Hoffman: Bye.

This episode of MC Fireside Chats with your host, Brian Searle. Have a suggestion for a show idea? Want your campground or company in a future episode? Email us at hello at moderncampground.com. Get your daily dose of news from moderncampground.com. And be sure to join us next week for more insights into the fascinating world of outdoor hospitality.