The recreational vehicle industry, like the marine industry, saw all-time-high sales during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now leaders in both realms are working on ways to keep those newcomers in the fold, then apply the lessons learned to expand the customer base for years to come.
“We have our existing consumers who have returned to the lifestyle, as well as new segments that we know can significantly expand the market,” says Frank Hugelmeyer, president and CEO of the National Marine Manufacturers Association. “We’ve had a million first-time boat buyers [join the sport] since the beginning of the pandemic.”
Generally speaking, both the RV and marine industries are focused on two areas: tapping into a younger, more diverse pool of buyers than the historically older, white, male customer base for boats and RVs; and educating newcomers so they’ll have a better overall experience in the great outdoors. In some ways, the industries are doing similar outreach in these two areas, while in other ways, they’re testing alternative ideas to see what works best.
A More Diverse Audience
Data that the RV Industry Association collects shows a huge shift in the type of person buying recreational vehicles since the start of the pandemic in 2020. Some 11.2 million households own an RV. Prior to the pandemic, the average age of those owners was 53. In 2020, the average age dropped to 41. In 2021, it was down to 33, according to RVIA spokesperson Monika Geraci.
Traditionally, about 85% of RV buyers have been white. That also changed in the past few years. “When we look at the people who bought RVs for the first time, it looks more like census data,” Geraci says. “It’s gotten significantly more diverse.”
The marine industry also saw a drop in the age of boat buyers: By mid-2020, the number of buyers younger than 40 surpassed the number of buyers older than 60, according to Info-Link, which provides market intelligence about outdoor recreation. But unlike the RV industry, the marine industry’s diversity share stayed about the same, even with the influx of first-time buyers, Hugelmeyer says. “We went into the pandemic with a 16% diversity share. We came out with a 16% diversity share,” he says. “America is 40% diverse.”
The two industries are now taking different approaches to targeting that younger, more diverse audience. In the RV industry, a key effort of the Go RVing campaign is what Geraci calls experiential events — having RVs on display in locations where younger, more diverse people tend to be. “Last year, there was a music festival in Memphis, for example,” she says. “Places people aren’t necessarily expecting to see an RV, where you’re going for something else, but the RV is there and set up in a campground style, and people can see the inside of an RV. A lot of people say, ‘Wow, it’s all of the things you could want while camping.’ That’s one of the things we do with audiences we know would have an interest but who don’t know they’re going to check out an RV.”
By contrast, the Discover Boating campaign is targeting the younger, more diverse crowd in a way that invites them to attend major events such as boat shows. “We’re strategically targeting groups to bring in more diversity at all of our boat shows,” Hugelmeyer says. “That’s a strategic advantage that the marine industry has, that RVIA doesn’t have. They don’t own their RV shows. We can leverage and reinvent our assets to align with our strategy, and we’re going to learn a lot more about those consumers. Along with bringing them into our events and working with the strategic partners in those communities, we’re getting a lot more data.”
The results of this approach have been clear at boat shows so far this year, Hugelmeyer adds. “You’re seeing that diversity walking the docks,” he says. “We saw it in New York. The boat dealers and exhibitors said they saw more new boaters and more diverse boat buyers than ever before.”
Entry-Level Options
Another thing that leaders in both industries are looking at is points of entry for newcomers, and what can be learned from the ways that so many people entered both activities during the pandemic. Hugelmeyer says the RV industry has an advantage when it comes to inexpensive, easily accessible entry points for first-time enthusiasts, but the boating business is catching up. Two examples of these entry points include lower-cost products and peer-to-peer rentals.
Geraci says the entry-level price for an RV is $20,000 to $30,000 — an amount that can be financed for 10 to 15 years, sometimes longer. “So the monthly payment has a wide range, but you can get an entry-level travel trailer for $200 or $300 [a month],” she says. “A little over 90% of RVs last year were those towables.”
By contrast, Hugelmeyer says, the marine industry sees entry-level consumers trying out lower-priced personal watercraft and pontoon boats but also turning to the preowned market when lower-priced options simply aren’t available to purchase new. “Our selection is not as expansive as the RV space, and so what we’ve seen in the last several years is millions of consumers buying boats that are used,” Hugelmeyer says. “There’s not always a guarantee that they’re going to have a good experience, particularly if they’re a first-time boat buyer.”
Creating more entry-level boats is one key to solving this problem, he says. So are such initiatives as the Certified Pre-Owned Boat program that the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas launched at the end of 2021. Its goal is to have newcomers buy used, certified boats from
dealerships, instead of from other boaters, to ensure that the boats are in good working order and that the customer has a place to go with questions and potential problems.
“If you’ve got a driveway-to-driveway sale going on, you have no way of knowing if the consumer is getting a boat that’s going to require a lot of work,” Hugelmeyer says. “We’ve seen a high turnover, historically, in the marine industry because of how many consumers are coming in through the used-product category.”
In the peer-to-peer rental space, the RV and marine industries are more aligned. Historically, the RV industry had more rentals available than the marine industry did, but that has changed the past few years with the widespread growth of boat clubs and peer-to-peer rental companies. Hugelmeyer points to Brunswick Corp.’s Freedom Boat Club, which more than doubled its number of locations between 2019 and 2022. “It’s been massively built out over the last several years,” he says.
Hygelmeyer sees a combination of things driving newcomers to rent or share boats, including marina infrastructure that’s too small to satisfy the level of consumer demand for owned boats. “In many markets, the marinas are sold out,” he says. “That drives people to rentals, too. If they can’t buy a boat and find a place to put it, they still want to go boating.”
Geraci says the RV industry is dealing with a different dynamic among newcomers who choose peer-to-peer rentals. “We don’t have data on this, but observationally, it was people who would’ve gone on a cruise but didn’t,” she says. “They were more likely to rent an RV and try it out.”
Data the RVIA does have, she says, indicates that most people who bought RVs for the first time since 2020 were more like traditional buyers than one-time renters. That data bodes well for first-time RV buyers sticking with the activity. “Among the people who bought them for the first time, they had the same reasons — a love of road trips, using it as a base camp and discovering the great outdoors,” she says. “Restrictions due to the pandemic was an option that people could choose, but it was two or three from the bottom.”
Educating the Beginners
One area where the RV and marine industries are in complete alignment is the need to educate new owners about how to use their products. Both the Discover Boating and Go RVing campaigns have made intentional shifts toward providing more educational content online since the start of the pandemic.
“Previously, we focused on inspirational — the very top of the sales funnel. While that is still a major focus for Go RVing, the educational aspect is bigger now,” Geraci says. “It’s about making sure that they have the educational resources and support, and know how to use the RV, know when to get it serviced to keep it in good shape.”
A lot of the lessons seem basic, she adds, but they get good traction in terms of online hits. New RV owners seem to be looking for every last tip that they can find to make their experience easier. “Maybe you want to go to a campground that’s six hours away,” Geraci says. “Well, you’re not going to be driving as fast, so you need to give yourself more time, and you want to give yourself a few hours to arrive before dark, so you aren’t setting up your campground for the first time in the dark. These are little things that people wouldn’t think about if they’re used to driving to a hotel, but when you explain it, it makes sense.”
Marine industry leaders are now producing similar types of educational content. The Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation, for instance, recently partnered with retailer West Marine to create female-led fishing seminars, after seeing so many women enter, then leave, the sport of fishing.
Discover Boating has a whole section of its website devoted to owning and operating a boat, with content about trailering, maintenance, etiquette and more. “We have had significant increases in terms of activity on Discover Boating related to our educational products,” Hugelmeyer says. “We’re looking to build that out, those education platforms and services. It’s one of the most important values that Discover Boating provides for the industry.”
Overall, he adds, the teams at Discover Boating and Go RVing know each other well, and are watching both campaigns to see what works best and what can be adapted from one industry to another. If one industry hits on a type of messaging that breaks through, the other industry will know it almost immediately.
“We’re obviously watching each other and sharing information,” Hugelmeyer says. “We’re all going to learn. You’ll see more similarities going forward because we’re all targeting next-generation consumers. We’re all working on next-generation propulsion. We’re all working on how to leverage the work-from-anywhere trends that are going on. Whether you’re in an RV or in a boat, you can work, live and play.”
This article was originally published in the March 2023 issue.
