Chief Franchise Officer Of KOA Campgrounds Discusses Growth & Evolution In Advance Of 2016 Expo In Chattanooga,Tennessee
Keeping perspective across a brand is always a delicate balance. While still maintaining consistent identity, members of a franchise need to maintain certain standards while still diversifying enough to highlight what makes their destination, or in this case, campground great. Toby O’Rourke, Chief Franchise Operations Officer for KOA, understands the texture of this tone which is equal parts technology, marketing, design and customer service. O’Rourke spoke with The Buzz in advance of the KOA Conference & Expo in Chattanooga, Tennessee to discuss diversity, growth and evolution.
The Buzz: As Chief Franchise Operations Officer, how do you have to look at all your properties from an overall view to do what you need to do?
Toby O’Rourke: I think what has been the most surprising for me...I joined KOA about 6 years ago....is the wide variety. We have a lot of diversity…everything from small campgrounds to very large operations...from overnight campgrounds to what may be more like a resort style campground. They are [all] different and are coming to the brand for different reasons. Some people are coming to the brand because they like the power of the marketing machine behind [KOA] and we are definitely trying to look at [the] ways we are promoting all of our campgrounds. We are tracking local businesses and providing tools for them to also do outreach on their own. People are also coming to the brand for operating systems. A part of my job is also overseeing our technology. We are in the middle of a rewrite of our back-end management system we called Kampsite so we definitely have to keep in mind the variety of campgrounds we have out there because they all manage their businesses a little differently. We want to make sure we have features in our operating system that meet their needs whether it be reports that can serve, for example, multi-owners [so] they can have a nice snapshot view of all of their properties to individual nuances for someone that handles groups or discounts. We also look at training programs. Everybody has different training needs from desk staff training to perhaps more advanced training on a marketing initiative or site design. So we look at different ways we can deliver training whether that is in person training or the workshops we have at convention…plus we also bring people here to the home office [in Montana] several times a year. This year we had graduate school classes where we went deep on a couple topics. We also have a really robust online curriculum. Everybody consumes information in different ways. Everybody comes to the brand for different needs. It’s just trying to keep a pulse on what may serve us and the campground as best as we can. We've got advisory committees made up of different franchisees across operations, technology and marketing. We've got steering committees for our three brands: our KOA Journey, KOA Holiday and KOA Resort. We rely on that feedback from those franchise steering committees quite a bit to help drive our programs.
The Buzz: Your background in marketing as well as your exceptional education at Notre Dame and graduate work at Northwestern pushed that from the get go as far as how things need to get done and the challenges that need to be met.
TOR: What’s definitely interesting about a franchise company is that you have two customers. The guest is our customer obviously and coming in as a marketer to the organization, that was my primary focus in thinking about how we reach guests. That is something that can be very different based on the [different] kind of campground. We have a lot of different types of campers…a very diverse system…everything from retirees and baby boomers to young millennials who are starting to camp out. We’ve got tenters and cabin campers and RV campers [going to ]different areas of the country. We then go from that to different styles of camping if you will. It has always been a challenge to make sure we’re reaching everybody with the right message at the right time. But then also being a franchiser, our customers are also the franchisees so we are always trying to develop our key programs that are reaching that end consumer. [So it becomes about] internal marketing programs if you will…reaching out to our franchisees about our programs, increasing adoptions of those programs. We can, in the end, all reach the customers the same way. I think we are definitely making a lot of great progress here. This is our 5th year of year over year growth. We will have another record year here so something must be clicking.
The Buzz: Can you speak on best practices? What makes a great franchise KOA?
TOR: We do have a program right now where we are actually segmenting our brand across 3 different types: KOA Journey, KOA Holiday and KOA Resort. KOA Journey is essentially a great overnight park. They’re usually located near the highways. They are all built around convenience. Easy in…Easy out…Convenience for that traveling camper. What makes a great KOA Journey also is pull-through sites. We [always] look for really spacious pull through sites. We have length requirements and how many KOA Journeys have to have but [it has to be easy] for that camper to pull in off the highway. They might come in late at night. They don’t have to unhook. They can drive out the next day. The KOA Holiday is built around…it is more of your standard getaway…probably a lot closer to home. We know a lot of campers camp within 200 miles of home. If you are camping at a KOA Holiday if you are [probably] going for a weekend trip. We start to see things in our KOA Holiday [campgrounds] that are more about recreation…it could be passive recreation such as basketball courts or jumping pillows. A lot of our campgrounds do a lot of activities on the weekends whether it is tie-dying, scavenger hunts, etc. Deluxe cabins are required at the KOA Holiday level. When we are evaluating a campground we think has great potential to become a KOA Holiday, we are [also] really looking at the type of market we’re serving and are they providing some recreation level? Again it all comes down to site quality for KOA. We really want to invest in site quality and obviously level sites and access. That is a no brainer for campgrounds but those are things that are important for us as we look at a KOA property. [Lastly] we have KOA Resort which is, to a point, a destination. Again it has all the types of sites we talked about whether that is an RV site or a cabin but it also has food service on site so you can never leave the campground if you don’t want to. A KOA Resort [also] has a little bit more robust recreation [program]. Some of our KOA Resort properties have things like zip lines. They also all have what we call a resort style pool. It is a variety of things which I think is nice for us because we are attracting a lot of different types of properties. We are not just a one size fits all or just have one approach to our campgrounds. We’re actually seeing a lot of people come to us because of our segmentation, particularly on the resort side. They want to be part of that designation so there is a lot of different things we look at. But, for us, what is really important is guest service and quality. So with people [who] are coming in…[if] their park can meet our quality criteria and deliver great guest service then they will probably be a good KOA.
The Buzz: With the increasing luxury element in this sector of the outdoor hospitality industry, there is probably a heavy learning curve at times. Can you talk about your journey so far?
TOR: [When I came in], I was actually the head of digital marketing I guess. I came out of the food marketing world with a pretty heavy ink in digital marketing. When I came to KOA, I was hired to advance our digital marketing platforms, particularly a revamp of our website [plus] introduce us to digital advertising and build a social media presence… all of which I think are real cornerstones of KOA’s success. Something I hadn’t really thought much about coming out of the food marketing world was outdoor hospitality in general. Obviously I am a camper. I am from Montana but I hadn’t really thought much about it…about the digital aspects that you could bring to camping…so that is something that was really a fun challenge and is something that KOA has done very well in. Another thing that I am very proud of is that we launched our “What’s Behind The Yellow Sign” advertising campaign some years ago. It was the first real integrated campaign with [use of] marketing across the company that we have ever had. [It was also] our first television commercial which we’ve now sent across to more subsequent advertising and combined that with digital advertising which has paid off in really strong returns on investment in that area. Those are definitely things [where] we have advanced our marketing and really brought it up to a very professional level to represent our brand. It was different learning the operation side of the business and understanding the day-in and day-out of a campground. It is hard to really truly successfully represent and market a business unless you understand that. I work with our franchise partners to really try to connect and understand what they are doing on a daily basis, understand the guest experience on site and just [help find] ways we can try to deliver that in a marketing campaign. [That] is probably the thing that I have been focused on the most over the past 5-6 years. I [recently just moved into my new role as our Chief Franchise Operations Officer in January so my role has broadened off beyond marketing to our operations side of the business as well as our technology side
The Buzz: The great aspect of that is you can take what you are thinking and immediately put it into action as needed.
TOR: It has been great to obviously bridge things together in this position because there are truly so many overlaps between operations and marketing and technology in our business side that I think before maybe we weren’t fully truly realizing. But in the past 2 years we have really created a lot of synergy between all of our departments I think for the benefit of the company.
The Buzz: The brand of KOA is very strong. Now looking to the future, could you talk about any new initiatives and where KOA is looking to go?
TOR: We’re trying to put a little more focus on accommodations. We know that the deluxe cabin area is very important. We see that as a way to really bring in a lot of new people to camping. So getting more deluxe cabins on our properties, increasing our consistency in delivery of that product and also advancing these unique accommodations people are exploring such as the campus tents or yurts or teepees.
The Buzz: Do you find campers are jumping more from tents to cabins than to RVs or is there a balance?
TOR: That is a really good question. We do know that the majority of people that camp…there are 46 million households that camp…a majority of those are tenters. We’ve tried to put a lot more emphasis in more recent years on our tent sites because we know that is a great way to introduce people to the brand. People can go a couple ways from there. We see some people simply upgrade if you will from tenting to cabins because it is an easy transition. They don’t have to buy equipment. But we also know that continual cabin camping can be expensive. People who might want to camp more frequently are buying an RV. So there are different paths I would say. I don’t think they bypass the RV. I think they try…we [do our] research…and it shows that 50% of
campers, even if they RV, want to try a cabin. I think there is an interest there in that product. Some people I would say who are “cabin camping” probably didn’t even start as tenters. They’re just “leisure camping”…and what I mean by that is that it is a new segment where we can try to get more people…more families particularly…who haven’t really thought of it as a family vacation option…w get them into our cabins. But we are definitely seeing people buying RVs. RV sales are the highest they have ever been.
[In terms] of other things we are looking at…we’re keeping an eye on the millennials and the Gen Xers. We do a lot of research and we definitely know that that [sector] (and diversity) is going to change. The face of camping is changing. 40% of all new campers last year were millennials…and 40% were multi-cultural. That is a very big change from what we see when we look at the overall camping market…so we try to understand what is important to those groups. We try to envision our campgrounds to be ready for that…so say group camping as I mentioned…particularly for example Hispanics…is a population of multi-gen camping. We also see millennials more than any other age group always camp with other people. So whether that changes the way sites are designed through personal group camping or adding to those group facilities, indoor or outdoor…accommodating that is I think is a big thing.
Tim Wassberg
A graduate of New York University's Tisch School Of The Arts with degrees in Film/TV Production & Film Criticism, Tim has written for magazines such as Moviemaker, Moving Pictures, Conde Nast Traveler UK and Casino Player. He enjoys traveling and distinct craft beers among other things.
Make Sure To Check Out:
KOA Expo, being held this year in Chattanooga, Tennessee, hosting training sessions, exhibits and panels for the franchise owners and those interested in becoming part of the KOA family of campgrounds through their park.