Industry Unity At Heart Of RV Sales Success

The RV industry has experienced unprecedented growth over the past two years, an accomplishment made possible in large part due to the industry’s demonstrated ability to unify in the face of adversity.

That’s the word from Craig Kirby, president of the RV Industry Association, who spoke on the state of the RV industry during the 9th Annual RV Industry Power Breakfast held Thursday morning at the Northern Indiana Event Center, part of the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart.

According to Kirby, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changed how people see and interact with the world, causing many to reevaluate their lives and what they feel is truly important. Getting back to nature, and spending time outdoors, has become a priority for many — a priority which aligns perfectly with the RV lifestyle.

“RVing has experienced a never-before-seen level of interest, and our industry has risen to the challenging, meeting demand by producing record numbers of shipments,” Kirby told the crowd of about 1,000 RV industry officials and allies early Thursday morning. “As I look back on the past two years, and how much we’ve accomplished, especially considering the industry was shut down for about two months, I quickly realized what I wanted to talk about this morning: industry unity.”

According to Kirby, that unity was never more exemplified than at the very beginning of the pandemic when the new Industry Relaunch Task Force was created.

“Industry leaders from manufacturers, suppliers, after market, finance firms, dealers, campgrounds, and U.S. and Canadian associations, were instrumental in providing real-time data and information as to what was happening in each segment of the industry, which enabled us together to target specific industry obstacles, especially focusing on having the industry members declared essential businesses by the government,” Kirby said. “The Industry Relaunch Task Force exhibited the best industry collaboration I’ve ever witnessed, and that is saying a lot, considering how industry unity is responsible for some of our biggest successes.”

Also pointed to as a great example of unity within the industry is the long-running national marketing campaign Go RVing. The campaign, which is a joint venture of the RV Industry Association and the RV Dealers Association, is now in its 25th year.

“In the over 20 years that it’s been in existence, no other industry has been able to launch a campaign of the same size, scope, and with comparable success,” Kirby said. “Another such area is our coordinated industry advocacy efforts, which played a critical role recently in the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act, the largest funding of federal and state parks in over 60 years. Another is the RV Technical Institute. Manufacturers, suppliers and dealers all recognized that more needed to be done to recruit and train RV service technicians, leading to a multi-million dollar investment, and now we have a full-time staff at RVTI focused on this crucial area.”

Read the full article from The Goshen News here.