RVIA Members Connect, See Progress in Committee Meetings – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
WASHINGTON, D.C. – While the first full day of RVs Move America Week was highlighted by several industry awards (see related coverage in today’s news feed), RV Industry Association (RVIA) committee meetings also began in earnest. The meetings continue today at The Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C., before giving way to Advocacy Day on Wednesday, during which participants will lobby members of Congress on matters of importance to the RV industry.
RVBusiness was on hand for several of Monday’s committee meetings, and spoke with the respective chairmen and women for a summary of their group’s activities.
• Kip Ellis, president of Patrick Industries and the chairman of the Market Information Committee, said committee members and guests heard from and discussed the latest report from ITR Economics, which provides wholesale shipment forecasts for the industry.
“There are question marks with regard to (interest) rates and the impact on floor plan for dealers –and that continues – and how do consumers think about getting acclimated to the new rate standards over time? But we’re still encouraged by continued lifestyle use of the product.”
“There was generally an optimistic tone in the room. That data seems to be feeding an optimistic view towards growth as we get into 2025,” Ellis told RVBusiness. “We’ve released the new forecast for ‘25 just today, so there’s some positive sentiments about the industry having done a good job of maintaining some discipline and sorting inventory out.
• Following a realistic overview of the state of the industry – which centered on the short-term challenges and the decidedly positive long-term outlook – members and guests of the Aftermarket Committee discussed that group’s key initiatives and activities as well as a preview of the upcoming Aftermarket Conference, which will be Aug. 12-15 in Orlando, Fla.
John Tinghitella, president of RV Designer and chairman of the Aftermarket Committee, said the group reviewed some of the aftermarket research and surveys conducted last year that was designed to better understand consumer satisfaction with RVing in general.
“We also reviewed the activity of both the Events Committee and the Consumer Outreach Committee,” he added. “(RVBusiness Chief Sales Officer) Chris Cieto is the events chair, and he laid out the upcoming conference in Orlando in August, and the why’s and where-fors associated with that, some registration information, and certainly some goals in terms of including a speaker, and tightening up how we do everything.
“We’re going to include dealers as guests again this year, with an emphasis on some of the local Florida dealers – of which there are many,” Tinghitella contimued. “We reviewed the consumer outreach activity, and actually saw a seven-minute video of our latest activity, which was how to set up a fifth-wheel. This is an initiative that that committee is involved in, simply because we do believe that all the new RVs that have entered our marketplace in the last few years need all the help they can get in terms of becoming RVs.”
Lastly, the committee discussed a federal program known as “de minimus” that is having a “tremendous impact” on the aftermarket.
“De minimus is a loophole in the tariff laws that allows overseas countries – China, in particular – to target particular products in the RV aftermarket, and shoot them directly across the pond into a consumer’s house. Because it is a consumer purchase, there’s a threshold of $800 value. Anything up to $800 value gets to avoid the 25% tariff that we’ve all been paying for importing products from China since 2018,” Tinghitella explained.
“This is having a disproportionate impact on the aftermarket and a handful of suppliers whose products fall directly into it,” he continued, then added that the several committee members and others will be part of a “de minimus team” that’s going to talk to elected officials specifically on that subject as part of the Advocacy Day lobbying efforts on Wednesday.
• One of the newest RVIA committees is Sustainability, and its chairwoman, Sandy Rynalski, vice president of ESG (Environmental, Social, & Governance) at THOR Industries, said the group has been busy trying to bring awareness to a topic that will have far-reaching implications across all members of the industry.
“We just started in March of 2023 because we found that there was a need for education of the RV industry. People are asking, what is sustainability? How is it different than ESG? What is ESG? How is it different than climate change? We saw a real need for people to get resources and provide education,” Rynalski told RVBusiness. “So, the committee was formed, was approved at the March Leadership Conference and we have a number of committee members who are either fully engaged in sustainability on a day-to-day basis, or those committee members who said, ‘I know nothing about sustainability and I’m joining specifically to learn and educate myself.’”
To date, the committee has hosted two webinars – both available on the RVIA website – designed to shed some light on explaining what sustainability is and how companies can incorporate sustainability practices. Going forward, the committee intends to continue to educate the rest of the industry on this topic, and all agreed that a concerted effort to share information will be valuable – especially considering the myriad reporting agencies, regulations and requirements that can be overwhelming if tackled alone.
“That’s a big part of what this committee is doing because so many people think about it as being an issue only public companies have to deal with. But that’s not the case. All companies are affected,” she said. “So, using this as a platform to get that information out is something that we as an industry need to be working toward – and that it is both upstream and downstream. We need to all be working together on how we can not only be more sustainable for our consumers – if there’s no great outdoors, there’s no RV industry – but then also from business processes, how is that going to impact how businesses operate? So, really, education and information sharing is the bedrock.”
• John Soard, vice president of sales at Woodand Park RV, said the Park Model RV Committee is more or less in “maintenance mode” after it was incorporated into the RVIA several years ago.
“The heavy lifting was done when we originally came back to RVA in 2012. A lot of the issues have been resolved. The codes have been changed and updated to the point where really this meeting is just a maintenance meeting,” he said.
“But some of the discussion today centered around some of the code changes that are coming out in the 2025, 109.5 edition,” he continued. “Porches were discussed. We had a little bit of a lengthy discussion about Add-a-Rooms which is just a room that would go onto the side of a park model. We build a park model 400 square feet, so an Add-a-Room is nothing that we as RVIA would approve, because obviously it would take something over 400 square feet and out of the code parameters.”
• Chad Reece, vice president of government and industry relations at Winnebago Industries Inc., said the Public Relations Committee, of which he is the chairman, had a “great time with great discussions.”
“We’ve got a great group, and some of the things coming out of this is to look for a wider approach to what the industry needs to make sure that we’re on top of that, the changing demographics around media and what that means for us and how we can best serve the needs of the industry,” Reece told RVBusiness. “I think we got a lot of good initiative and feedback. The committee’s active and engaged, and we also were able to engage the guests that were with us, too. So, we got a lot of great perspective from across, I think, the whole industry, and we’re going to use that now and staff will go back and share with the board, and then we’ll move forward with strategic planning for next year.”
