Business View Magazine | January 2021

130 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JANUARY 2021 newsletter. We also increased our webinars and trainings, including a workplace safety seminar during the spring lockdowns. The point of that seminar was to get our manufacturers and suppliers together to develop a back-to-work playbook to ensure a safe environment when the employees came back to the job. We did not want safety to be a competitive issue so, to the credit of our members, the group got together online and talked about the measures they were instituting to comply and go beyond CDC guidelines. I’m proud of how our industry stepped up to do its part during COVID.” Looking ahead, industry forecasts show that interest in the RV experience will continue to grow. RV shipments in 2021 are forecasted to top 500,000 units for only the second time in history. Consumer research has found that more than 61 million people plan on taking an RV vacation in the next 12 months. Kirby admits, “That’s a really high number. The other thing people don’t realize is that you can get into the RV industry for as little as $6,000 for a folding camping trailer, and it goes up from there. Many of this year’s most popular travel trailers have been in the very affordable $25,000 range. There really is a product for every consumer price point and that diversity is a major reason for the industry’s tremendous growth.” Currently, the inventory levels on dealer lots is low. According to Kirby, “It’s going to take quite some time to get them back up to their pre-pandemic level. With all the new buyers embracing the RV experience, that bodes well for the industry for many years to come. The RV Industry Association will continue to be the voice of the members, to promote and protect the members. One of the things we’ve strived to do is to listen to members and place them first. As long as we’re doing that, we’ll be providing the value that’s important to our members and that’s really the RV Industry Association focus.” With the multiple delivery methods and training over 300 RV techs in 2020 despite the pandemic, RVTI is on track to be self-supporting a year ahead of time. That’s a huge achievement for the industry. The RV Industry Association has always been great at communicating with members, but when the pandemic hit, they turned it up several notches. “Our team, in the last several months, reached out to every single member twice,” says Kirby, “just to see how they’re doing, make sure they understand all the resources we have available –to let them know, ‘Hey, we’re your Washington, D.C. office, we’re part of your team.’ And that communication was very helpful. The weekly newsletter became a twice-weekly