Harvest Hosts Boosts RV/MH Hall of Fame, Northern Indiana – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News
NORTHERN INDIANA – After selling his first proper business, Story Blocks, Joel Holland and his wife, Mary Ashley, bought an RV and started their journey from Washington, D.C. through all the lower 48 states over the course of two years, according to a report by Inside INdiana Business.
Enjoying the freedom, flexibility and community, the couple was pleasantly surprised to learn that over 11 million Americans own RVs—a lot more people than they ever imagined. This got Holland curious about the business possibilities in the industry.
“We’d stay in these campgrounds, and campgrounds are fine but they’re like Holiday Inn Express; they all look the same. They provide a quality service but I don’t go telling my friends about how awesome my Holiday Inn Express was,” Holland said. “Meanwhile, we’re driving by all these incredible farms, vineyards, museums and I’m like, ‘Why can’t we stay there?’ They have room to park there, we support the business, everybody wins.”
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Drawing from his experience doing the legwork for Story Blocks and expanding on the critical mass the couple had built over the first nine years of growing the company, Holland and his team have transformed Harvest Hosts into a vital resource for RVers with 9,000 locations and 250,000 members. The company has almost 200 Indiana hosts on its roster.
“I basically came in and invested a lot of money in technology. We built an app, a booking system, a brand new website and invested in marketing,” Holland said. “We built an entire team dedicated to host recruitment and we started spending millions of dollars on advertising.”
Travelers can park and visit the RV Hall of Fame in Elkhart, enjoy the outdoor air museum at Grissom Air Museum in Peru or relax at the Zen-like Ninja Golf in Granger. Other locations across the state include Chateau de Pique Winery and Brewery in Seymour, Heritage Farm Alpacas & Events in Flora and Cedar Creek Winery, Distillery and Brewing in Martinsville.
Click here to read the full report by Inside INdiana Business.
