10 Honest Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Glamping Project

BY TODD WYNNE-PARRY

The glamping sector of the hospitality industry is experiencing a rush of new players. These include many who have never worked in hospitality, but now have a vision for an experiential accommodation development. Much of my time these days is spent working with these visionaries and entrepreneurs during the formative stages of their projects. This article touches on the key questions I ask early in these engagements, but some of these are still relevant post-opening or even at the stabilization phase of a project or a brand portfolio.

I am using the plural form here (we) because the visionary will not be able to achieve their dream without a support team or at least a few employees. At some point they will have to persuade someone to assist, invest or work with you. Having a credible “why” will be an essential foundation for this discussion. Your “why” can be anywhere on the spectrum from “just want to make money” to “creating a better world and an amazing lifestyle in the process”. Either way, “Why are we doing this?” is a great place to start. The answer then should be an on-going guiding principle for all stakeholders.

The visionary or visionaries need to be very clear about the general and the specifics of the vision. The general vision could be “to create a sustainable oasis for adventure travelers near state parks”. The specific or the “how” of this vision could be that “each guest will be accommodated in a safari tent with ensuite bathrooms and have access to a 3-course gourmet meal”. The vision must be in line with the “why” and strike the balance of being economically viable (of course) and deliverable at each location. The vision also needs to be achieved in each season and across all guest profiles. That is, each property should be able to stand alone financially, the guest experience should fulfill the vision in each season and for each guest segment whether it is a couple, a family or a group participant.

It goes without saying this is a key question and one that can be difficult to answer. Currently, there is limited data in the marketplace on what people are willing to pay to stay at comparable glamping or eco-hotel property. In addition, state of-the-art revenue management technology with dynamic pricing models keep rates fluctuating throughout the seasons and between weekends and mid-weeks. It is advisable to invest in an independent market feasibility study to confirm your room rate expectations. Positive results of such a study can then be used in the process of securing both equity and debt for your project. Our work on such studies is growing due to both the excitement around the industry and the need for institutional investors to have sophisticated analysis and supportable projections.

This is a foundational question that many visionaries struggle to answer. Yet this answer will literally guide your facilities and programming direction. It needs to be answered in the context of both demographics and psychographics. An equally important follow-on question is: Who will be staying at your property in the off-season, mid-week or during slower demand periods? Will it be small social or corporate groups? If it is, you may need to consider meeting space, clustered accommodation units or separate communal fire pits. Will it be digital nomads? If so, you will need to include co-working space and great wi-fi into your facilities program.

As most small businesses fail due to a lack of cash reserves, this question could also be: Do you have enough cash to weather the ramp-up period? Having a financial cushion in this sector of the industry is critical as the properties are subject to the irregularities of nature. Fires, floods, and severe weather systems are the norm, not the exception. So having both practical and financial back up plans are essential in the world of outdoor experiential accommodation. This is the one question where brutal honesty is required. Do you have enough money?

I have seen hotels in tough markets located in “C” sites with “B” level properties and “A+” General Managers that consistently outperform their competitive set of hotels. It is an understatement to say the GM is a key position. This person should be a brand ambassador (meaning they live and breathe the company vision), with the ability to attract, develop, and retain an effective team while maintaining a positive work culture.

This is a perplexing question for some of my current projects. In many cases the answer is quite clear that the property will only be open seasonally. In this case, all plans, logistics and employees will be aligned with this abbreviated opening schedule. In other locales, the question is not that easily determined and the cost/benefit of staying open through the off-season needs to be carefully analyzed. Currently, in several US destination markets the high or shoulder seasons are extending annually. I believe this trend will continue as domestic guests are seeking more local adventures. Additionally, international guests chose to visit based on when they can travel regardless of the destination’s prime season.

This was a major topic at the recent Eco Hotel Restart Summit. This challenging question is aimed at pushing developers to work with the land, its topography, precipitation patterns and micro-climates. Ideally, your act of developing the site will not be a negative to the local environment or community. That is, the goal is to design your property to have as light an impact on the land as possible. As a developer in this sector, it should be taken further than that. Have you re-introduced native flora or fauna to the site or enhanced any of its micro eco-systems? This is a challenging question you can ask annually to make sure you are being the best custodian of your section of this Earth.

Are you reading the guest survey comments and acting upon them to actively improve the guest experience? What about the employees? Are you keeping tabs on the pulse of the team’s esprit de corps and rectifying consistently raised issues? Are you listening to the local community? Are they pleased you have entered the market and are providing patrons to their shops and other services? Listening is very difficult, but it is essential to on-going and sustainable success.

Seriously. Are you having fun with this project? Are you and your team members keeping realistic work/life balances? Are you eliminating toxic employees or toxic relationships in the workplace? Is the culture of the property light, supportive and quality driven? Your team culture will directly affect the guest experience and therefore determine if you are realizing the vision.

Sometimes when I ask the above questions, there is a blank stare from my clients. This indicates that the question I have asked has not been contemplated or has been ignored. These questions are raw and honest. But the industry sector needs a robust and sustainable pipeline of new successful properties. So please drop the ego, be real with yourself and ask these tough questions. Your noble and altruistic vision depends on it.

The founder and CEO of Montare Hospitality Advisors (an M&A and advisory group dedicated to the Glamping and boutique lodging sectors), Todd has more than 30 years of hotel development and acquisitions experience, having held senior leadership positions at several major hotel brands and most recently as Chief Growth Officer at AutoCamp. A dual-citizen of Australia and the United States, Wynne-Parry has lived and worked in the U.S., Asia, Australia and the United Kingdom. He was instrumental in the development efforts for IHG, Starwood and Marriott in the Asia Pacific region and for Commune and Two Roads Hospitality globally. Todd earned an MBA from Thunderbird Graduate School of International Management and his BA from Alma College. He is the treasurer of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Development Trust for Scotland’s University of Aberdeen and is an advisor to the American Glamping Association. As a devout outdoorsman and fly fisherman, he resides on the Deschutes River in Bend, Oregon, but prefers the open road towing his vintage Airstream Flying Cloud.