Camping Trade World – Issue 06

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STUART LAMONT INDUSTRY VIEWS ▲ Campgrounds in Australia have been busy for a long period with international travel restricted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are seeing a lot of new, young, migrant individuals coming into caravanning that have never thought about it in the past – it’s a whole new wave of consumers that have never been exposed to our industry... CEO OF CARAVAN INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA – STUART LAMONT those stop-off places haven’t had the custom with people staying closer to home. We’ve also got labour issues – the government offered some very generous incentives to help keep employees connected and to help people out through the pandemic, which was almost a disincentive to work. Most companies had plenty of orders in the booking systems but didn’t physically have the labour to allow that to get into the marketplace. More broadly, COVID has created welldocumented parts and supply issues, which have of course affected us, on top of surging demand. And more generally, just navigating the myriad of different health orders that have come in and changed over the last 18 months. Do you see the boost that the caravanning industry is experiencing continuing in Australia? We’ve traditionally outperformed the automotive industry and other vehicle industries over the last 10 years, so we have a fantastic foundation already. Yes, we have a huge sugar hit at the moment, but we expect that subject to customers experiencing Want to enjoy this interview in-full and in real-time? Scan the QR code to listen to the Camping Trade World podcast, also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. a fantastic experience when they go camping, we’ll get a fair amount of stickability and we’ll see a new foundation. We expect to see very strong mid and long-term results out of new people coming in. We are seeing a lot of new, young, migrant individuals coming into caravanning that have never thought about it in the past – it’s a whole new wave of consumers that have never been exposed to our industry in the past and we believe that will continue, moving forward. International travel and cruises will have a long tail when it comes to nervousness 46 | www.campingtradeworld.com
INDUSTRY VIEWS STUART LAMONT from people to return to them, which will mean that domestic tourism should stay strong for some time to come. Our marketing has been aimed towards that recently too – cheekily, we’ve communicated the message that when you come back from a holiday abroad, all you come back with is some photos and credit card debt. With an RV, you have an asset sitting on your front lawn that you can use multiple times, you can share with your family and friends, and when the time is right, you can sell or trade-in. Have you noticed a trend of people expecting more from campsites when they stay, driven by newcomers? Are expected standards higher? I think it’s two-fold on that. On the one hand, you have the traditional caravanner and camper who doesn’t want a lot of facilities, they just want clean amenities and a place to park up. But then you have families who are maybe expecting a creche for the kids, or a standard of living that they have at home. As general standards of living continue to increase, so too will what people expect on their vacations as well. One trend we are seeing very strongly here in Europe is that of campervans – the ‘van life’ movement has really taken off here. Is that something you’re seeing in Australia as well? We don’t see it the same – traditionally about 90 per cent of our market is in caravans and towed products. We certainly have a lot of new families coming in and we have a lot of Chinese campervan imports coming in at the low end of the market that are very affordable for a young family. However, this hasn’t really changed ▲ Caravans and towables are the biggest part of the market. the market share despite campervans getting a lot more profile than they used to. I guess social media has had an effect of glorifying life on the road in a campervan, and certainly what COVID has taught us is that you don’t need to work in an office anymore. We set-up a number of videos and towing courses to take away the fear factor for new people when it comes to caravans. Technology is improving to make those products safer and less intimidating. But we are generally an outdoors type of culture and we do like to play with our toys, and so by and large, a caravan probably holds less fear to an Australian as opposed to some other global markets that we deal with. One thing you seem to do really well as an association is compile strong data – is that something you rely on for the work you do? If we look back maybe five or six years, we didn’t really have any data on the industry at all. So, it was a deliberate decision by us to gather some, to make sure that the internal decisions we made were evidence based and also so that we can run good PR and government advocacy. To tell a really good story, we needed to base that on research and insight. As we’ve WHO ARE YOU? Company: Caravan Industry Association of Australia Founded: 1992 Location: Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Its vision: To lead and champion a robust, compliant, and sustainable caravanning and camping industry in Australia Other: Caravan Industry Association of Australia operates as a not-forprofit organisation with a membership base comprising the individual state caravanning and camping associations, who it works collaboratively with on matters concerning the caravanning and camping industry in Australia. developed that we have found that the industry has demanded more and more and we’ve found that the more we look, the more we find. Our research and insights team has grown to quite a size and a very good tool for us – arguably we have more research than we know what to do with, which is a good thing. One thing we are looking at is RV deaths, once we have good data on that we can make strong recommendations and lobbying around safety issues to the government. Is it a need for improved education or improved road infrastructure? We can help to answer these questions with strong insights. www.campingtradeworld.com | 47
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Page 5 and 6: CONTENTS 16 22 26 48 58 BASECAMP 06
Page 7 and 8: BASE CAMP grow and I wanted to make
Page 9 and 10: BASE CAMP MOVERS AND SHAKERS The wh
Page 11 and 12: BASE CAMP CRUEL COVID BLOW FOR CMT
Page 13 and 14: AROUND THE WORLD 03 FINLAND The mar
Page 16 and 17: GERMAN STUDY THE DETAIL Study shows
Page 18 and 19: EHCT - 10 YEARS THE DETAIL A decade
Page 20 and 21: SOG ANNIVERSARY THE DETAIL Scandina
Page 22 and 23: TENT TECH ARMS RACE THE DETAIL Phot
Page 24 and 25: TOURISTIK & CARAVANING THE DETAIL P
Page 26 and 27: AUSTRALIA DOING BUSINESS WITH... DO
Page 28 and 29: AUSTRALIA DOING BUSINESS WITH... Ph
Page 30 and 31: AUSTRALIA DOING BUSINESS WITH... A
Page 32 and 33: SUPERSPRINGS INTERNATIONAL COMPANY
Page 34 and 35: e-RV WINNEBAGO Photos © Winnebago
Page 36 and 37: AL-KO COMPANY PROFILE The growth of
Page 38 and 39: AL-KO COMPANY PROFILE ▲ More than
Page 40 and 41: GROW YOUR BUSINESS Grow your busine
Page 42 and 43: LIONTRON COMPANY PROFILE Give your
Page 44 and 45: STUART LAMONT INDUSTRY VIEWS Stuart
Page 48 and 49: AWNINGS SECTOR SPOTLIGHT Photo: Isa
Page 50 and 51: AWNINGS SECTOR SPOTLIGHT Photo: Out
Page 52 and 53: AWNINGS SECTOR SPOTLIGHT BUSINESS C
Page 54 and 55: SEO BECOME A BETTER BUSINESS BECOME
Page 56 and 57: SEO BECOME A BETTER BUSINESS quick
Page 58 and 59: MAKING CONTACT PRIMUS FIRESTICK Swe
Page 60 and 61: MAKING CONTACT MERCEDES-BENZ EVITO
Page 62 and 63: MAKING CONTACT SAWIKO TRIGO-VAN CAR
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Camping Trade World – Issue 06

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