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SERVING CANADA’S RV INDUSTRY SINCE 1971 VOL 53 NO 2 268 - 44 Crawford Cres., Campbellville, ON L0P 1B0 Publications Mail Agreement #40010957 RVRV DealerNEWS CANADA’S FOREMOST RV INDUSTRY MAGAZINE TM TM TM TM www.rvldealernews.com CRVA Update: Paving the Way for a Thriving RV Industry Nick Farnell: Using the Power of Data to Understand RV Sales Stats PLUS:PLUS: RVDA of Canada – Update CRVA Reports 2nd Quarter and YTD Wholesale Shipments into Canada Go RVing Canada Update Insurance for RV Park Owners and Managers CLASS OF ‘24 TERRY TERRY ELIASELIAS RV/MH RV/MH HALL OF FAMEHALL OF FAME OIA 2024 Outdoor Brand Benchmarking Report RVDN 53-2.indd 1RVDN 53-2.indd 12024-09-30 3:20 PM2024-09-30 3:20 PMProtect your investment with one of our comprehensive plans TITANIUM Platinum Titanium coach only Contact us to find your local rep! YOUR RV PROGRAM NON-MOTORIZED PARK modelsMOTORIZED YEARS 25 25 YEARS Honoring our Commitment as Your Trusted Provider. 3 Volume 53 Number 2 | RV Lifestyle Dealer News contents 34 22 44 COVER STORY: 22 Terry Elias – RV Hall of Fame - Class of 2024 Insights into Terry’s career, the industry, and the families who make up Triple E RV. IN THIS ISSUE: 6 Marketing – A Special Report from Nick Farnell How will Artificial intelligence impact RV Dealers? 10 Insurance for RV Park Owners and Managers A Special Feature by Peter Lovering, Business Development Specialist, Signature Risk Partners Inc. 15 OIA 2024 Outdoor Brand Benchmarking Report New report offers key finance and business operations benchmarks. 19 CRVA Update - Paving The Way For A Thriving RV Industry Spearheading several key initiatives and engaging in activities that promise to enhance the RV and Camping industry across Canada. INDUSTRY UPDATES: 28 CADA Reports Economic Trends of Canadian Auto Retail Market 30 RVDA of Canada Update 32 CRVA Reports 34 ORVDA Update 36 RVDA of Manitoba Update 37 RVDA of Alberta website features refreshed design! 38 Go RVing Canada Update 40 Winners of the 2023-2024 NTP-Stag Canada RV Technician and Fixed Operations Personnel Bursaries 42 RVWA Educational Symposium 42 NRVTA Acquires RVSA 44 Leisure Travel Vans 2024 Triple Diamond Dealer Awards REPORTS: 46 RV Shows and Events – Canada and USA Looking for late-breaking news of interest to the Canadian RV industry? Check out the RV Dealer News website – www.rvldealernews.com Contentspub page.indd 3Contentspub page.indd 32024-09-25 3:58 PM2024-09-25 3:58 PM4 RV Lifestyle Dealer News | Volume 53 Number 2 TM TM TM TM RV Dealer NEWS CANADA’S FOREMOST RV INDUSTRY MAGAZINE AD PUBLISHERS MESSAGE Celebrating Canadian Accomplishments This issue of RV Dealer News Magazine celebrates the recent induction of Terry Elias into the RV/MH Hall of Fame. For decades, Terry has been a leader in the Canadian RV industry, through his executive role at Triple E RV in Winkler, Manitoba, and Leisure Travel Vans, which became a division of Triple E in 2008. The Enns, Ens, and Elias families have been role models for the industry since 1965 – Terry’s induction into the RV/ MH Hall of Fame reflects the contribution that he and the Triple E team have made to the recreational lifestyle of millions of North American families. A SEASON OF INNOVATIONS As the RV industry continues to recover from the doldrums of the past two years, a surge of technological innovations promises to bring new safety and convenience features to a wide range of RV models. Leading the way are two companies – LCI – Lippert Components, whose divisions produce many of the components used across the industry. From ABS systems that enhance control in a wide range of road conditions, to suspension components that improve ride and diminish road wear, the Lippert engineers have re-invented the RV experience. Also paving the way for a new wave of RV innovations is the team at Gen Y Hitch. Their novel approach to towing technology has brought the most significant change to the trailer hitch segment in decades, providing alternatives to the fifth wheel and travel trailer towing experience that smooth out the ride, reducing stress and wear to improve control and enhance ride characteristics in many RV towing situations. As we begin to see the 2025 models revealed to dealers, there are dozens of new models that embody creative innovations and open the market for a wide range of families looking for something above and beyond the traditional RV concepts. From the “Bar V” sidewall concept to the split-level park model floorplans shown by several manufacturers, it is refreshing to see the RV industry adapting to the needs of a new generation of RV consumers. Watch the website at www.rvldealernews.com as we present a full array of RV design and technology innovations that will stimulate sales and inspire a new generation of RV customers to discover the “good life” on the RV roads to adventure! Bill Taylor, Publisher VOLUME 53 NUMBER 2 Publisher William E. Taylor Associate Publisher Melanie Taylor-Wallis V.P. Special Projects/Editorial Director Norm Rosen Technical Director Garth Cane Production Coordinator Giselle Bansal ADVERTISING SALES Norm Rosen Melanie Taylor-Wallis Todd Taylor ADMINISTRATION William E. Taylor President Melanie Taylor-Wallis Group Publisher Norman Rosen VP/Special Projects Nancy Mueller Accounting EXECUTIVE OFFICES Toronto: 268 - 44 Crawford Crescent., Campbellville, ON L0P 1B0 Tel: 905-844-8218 Montreal: Tel: 514-856-0788 Vancouver: 1745 Rufus Drive North Vancouver, BC V7J 3L8 Camping Canada’s RV Lifestyle Dealer News is published by Camping Canada Magazine Ltd. Reproduction of any mate- rial appearing in this magazine in any form is forbidden without prior consent of the publisher. Advertising rates available on request. Camping Canada Magazine reserves the right to refuse any and all advertising and disclaims all responsibilities for claims or statements of facts made by its advertisers or independent columnists. PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT #43638025 Undeliverables to: 268 - 44 Crawford Crescent., Campbellville, ON L0P 1B0 MONTREAL, QUEBEC © 2024 CAMPING CANADA MAGAZINE PRINTED IN CANADA aaaa Contentspub page.indd 4Contentspub page.indd 42024-09-30 3:31 PM2024-09-30 3:31 PM• Creditor Life, Disability & Critical Illness Insurance • Mechanical Breakdown Plans • Appearance Protection Products WE PROVIDE PROTECTION TO CANADIAN FAMILIES FOR WHEN “WHAT IF?” BECOMES “WHAT NOW?”. 320 Sioux Rd, Sherwood Park, AB T8A 3X6 F inancial G r oup Phone: 780.467.9575 • Fax: 780.467.4016 • Toll Free: 1-800.561.3242 Trevor Smolski Director - Business Development 780-819-3271 tsmolski@firstcanadian.ca RV Lifestyles publication - 2024.indd 1RV Lifestyles publication - 2024.indd 12024-09-27 10:55 AM2024-09-27 10:55 AM6 It seems like the biggest buzzword in the last two years is “Artificial Intelligence”. Tools like Chat GPT promise to write real estate listings, customize your resume, debug computer code or even create a recipe based on what items you have in your fridge. Now with tools like Midjourney and Leonardo AI you can generate images just by giving the system some specific text prompts. These tools are called Generative AI since they create new text or images - with varying degrees of success and ethical issues. Generative AI has made a lot of headlines lately but quietly in the background, more traditional methods of AI have been changing the way we do business, consume content, plan, and go about our day. These more traditional AI approaches are trained to understand rules, find patterns, and predict what will happen next but do not necessarily generate new content. A common example of this is autocorrect. Try this experiment - if you type “Qestion” into your phone it will automatically correct to “Question” since the system has leaned the rule that english words starting with “Q” are almost always followed by “u” and that since “Qestion” is not a word, you likely meant to type “Question”. There are cases where AI gets this wrong, and MARKETING HOW WILL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IMPACT RV DEALERS? RV Lifestyle Dealer News | Volume 53 Number 2 you are still able to override the system - think Canadian vs American spelling of “behaviour”. This example is just one illustration of how AI has slowly made its way into our daily lives. Even simple examples of AI follow the pattern of • Learn the rules • Find patterns • Predict what is likely to happen next Common but more complex examples in our daily lives include directions from Waze or Google Maps suggesting which route will be quickest because of traffic, your credit card company predicting whether you made a legitimate purchase or if your card has been stolen, and Amazon recommending what you might be interested in based on your previous purchases. These examples all follow the same pattern of learn the rules, find patterns, predict what is likely to happen next in that specific scenario. An RV Dealer News Exclusive Report by Nick Farnell RV MarketingREV.indd 6RV MarketingREV.indd 62024-09-19 4:11 PM2024-09-19 4:11 PMsoaring eagle.indd 1soaring eagle.indd 12024-09-19 2:56 PM2024-09-19 2:56 PM8 RV Lifestyle Dealer News | Volume 53 Number 2 MARKETING YOU CAN THINK OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AS A PREDICTION MACHINE. So what? What does this mean for RV dealerships? AI, or more broadly Machine Learning and Analytics have already had an impact on almost every industry. When combining these concepts with a specific business objective, you have the ability to get better predictions, and better predictions mean more confidence in the goals you are trying to achieve. Some examples of predictions could include how long it will take to sell a specific model, or whether overall sales will rise or fall next week, month or year, and even longer term predictions like whether smaller, lighter units will sell better or worse two years from now. This does not discount the gut instinct and intuition that RV dealers have built up over their years of experience. Instead it adds to that intuition by processing an unbelievable amount of data and distilling it down to a few key insights. Hundreds of thousands of data points can be processed in a fraction of a second allowing people to focus on the strategy and let machines crunch the numbers. For these systems to work well they first need to learn the rules. More specifically they need to be trained on historic data such as years of sales history including characteristics of specific units. Once these systems have been trained, the next step is to find patterns - an obvious example would be that newer RVs sell for a higher price than older RVs all else being equal. This leads to the final step of predicting the selling price of one specific RV based on characteristics like age, manufacturer, model, and weight. It doesn’t stop there - AI and predictive analytics can be used to understand consumer behavior at a much deeper level by finding those same patterns. When a first time buyer purchases a bunkhouse travel trailer, what other accessories do they typically buy within the first three months? Being able to accurately predict the answer to that question, then targeting your marketing campaigns means that person is more likely to come back into the dealership and buy from you rather than looking elsewhere. Nick Farnell, MBA Nick Farnell is a pro- fessor of business analytics and runs the consulting firm wtrfll, focusing primarily on competitive intelligence and data driven insights. When not in front of a computer, he is spending as much time as possible in one of Ontario’s provincial parks with his young family. Please vist https://wtrfll.ca/ to see how Nick and his team have helped orga- nizations use data and analytics to better understand their customers and competitors. RV MarketingREV.indd 8RV MarketingREV.indd 82024-09-19 4:11 PM2024-09-19 4:11 PMCRVA ad.indd 1CRVA ad.indd 12024-09-25 9:24 AM2024-09-25 9:24 AMNext >