To R.V. or Not To R.V.?

Brad Seal-- NCC News
March 21, 2008

Syracuse, NY--Recreational Vehicles constitute a $15 billion a year business in America, but recently national R.V. sales have slowed considerably.

The Bad News
A slowing economy coupled with high fuel costs are forcing customers to stay away from the once thriving industry. Google finance reports that R.V. giant Winnebago had profits drop by 67% over the past quarter. Meanwhile another major R.V. company, National R.V. Holdings Inc,
recently declared for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

The Good News
Yet here in Central New York, not all the news in the R.V. industry is gloom and doom. Local R.V. companies say that people are still buying vehicles; they are just changing what they do on their vacations. Darin Mai of Forrest River R.V. says that people have simply decided to not travel as far during the holidays in order to save money at the gas pump.

Ed Forget of Camping World says that simply avoiding the use of gas stations doesn’t completely solve the problem because people must use fuel to do other things like heat their homes. He agrees, however, that this market is in much better shape than other parts of the country where fast growing cities have been crippled economically by the recent mortgage crises.

Syracuse economic professor Don Dutkowsky says that often places like Central New York and rust belt cities like Cleveland and Buffalo can buck national economic trends because they are what he calls “static cites”---cities that don’t have large fluctuations in population size.

Even with the high fuel costs, R.V. owners can attest that traveling by R.V. is still much less expensive--and much less of a hassle--than booking airfare and hotel rooms. (Plus, no one has to worry about checking bags and what constitutes carry-on luggage when they take an R.V. trip.)

The Future
For R.V. companies, the future looks rosy. Baby-boomers are reaching retirement age which theoretically means that more and more people will look to buy a nice R.V. and see this beautiful country.

For consumers, the future doesn’t quite look as nice—at least not in the near future. Don Dutkowsky says that with the economy still slow and a possible recession in the future, it’s only a matter of time before R.V. owners in Central New York become more affected. That could lead to many people simply deciding to just vacation in their own homes.