Just got back from a brilliant NCC (National Caravan Council) Forum in soggy Scunthorpe. This is an opportunity for everybody in the caravan industry to get together and network and discuss many of the issues surrounding caravanning in all its forms.

I sat in a morning session on the state of the park home (residential) and luxury lodge sector. This has been one of the most seriously damaged sectors in the current recession.

Park home production is down 55% since 2003 and the experts present felt that the market would polarise into budget units to act as alternative housing to bricks and mortar structures, or aspirational up-market units as retirement homes.

Leisure lodges – primarily for rental – are a different beast altogether and production is up 70% in the last 2 years. These represent excellent investment opportunities to provide buyers with a holiday lodge that can realise a rental income too. The manufacturers say that a 30% premium is possible for income from a lodge over a caravan holiday home.

Want to find out more? Take a look at www.discoverleisurelodges.com or pop along to the Ideal Home Show at Earls Court from 20th March to 5th April. Tickets at www.idealhomeshow.co.uk

A little snippet I picked up from a legal eagle was that any of you with caravan holiday homes (or statics as we like to call them, but really mustn’t!), should ensure they don’t fall into disrepair especially in the area of remaining ‘mobile’. Should the site owner need to move your unit to another pitch and it falls apart, you will probably end up meeting the cost. Looking after the chassis and wheels is an often overlooked area of general maintenance.

In the afternoon we listened to a chap from the Office of Fair Trading (yawn!) Not the best antidote to a good lunch. Got an excellent insight into the economic outlook from KPMG too – a potentially dry subject made very interesting by an extremely knowledgeable speaker. Then came the highlight of the event for me:

Richard Coon is the president of the RVIA (Recreational Vehicle Industry Assoc) – the NCC’s counterparts in the USA. In true American fashion he dazzled with acronyms, statistics, movies and laser pointers to bring home the scale of the RV industry across the pond.

You can’t fail to be impressed. There are 9.6million RVs in the States. That’s one for every 12 households! These consist of RVs (motorhomes) and Travel Trailers (caravans) and a myriad of other wierd and wonderful contraptions. The American passion for RVs knows no bounds and Richard is a great ambassador for it. The concept of affordable holidays is very much alive and well over there and made me long for a similar national initiative in the UK. Instead there is too much politics, and self interest in our market to have a real good go at exploring the potential of our brilliant caravanning products.

But I don’t have to tell you that. You know how good your LAVS are (apprarently RV is not likely to be acceptable by the British public so some wag suggests we call them Leisure Accommodation Vehicles instead!). Thoughts please?

Richard made a big impression and my favourite quote was about the banks in respect of how difficult it has been for manufacturers to manage their debt. He claims that banks operate on a scale between Greed and Horseshit! Where Greed is good and the alternative is what they say to you after you have been customers for years and turn you away in your hour of need. Pretty fair statement if you ask me.

I left the conference buoyed by the optimism in the industry and proudly clutching my 25-yr service award. Thank you very much NCC it is sincerely appreciated. I love caravanning and everything about it, but I hope the industry uses some of the excellent marketing brains within it to push the joys of caravanning to the unconverted masses and ride this wave out of recession.

If you want to see how it’s done, check out www.gorving.com