Harvest Hosts providing path to increased cashflow for northern Indiana businesses
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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.
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.”
Holland eventually discovered a mom-and-pop shop out of Arizona called Harvest Hosts that was executing his idea on a smaller scale. He reached out to share his vision and asked if the owners would consider selling the business. They agreed.
“They had a great concept, the bones of a great business. I wanted to make it bigger, get more RVers involved and more small businesses,” Holland said. “We bought the business in May 2018, so we’re now six years in and it’s been an awesome ride.”
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.
“We also have amazing wineries and breweries, churches, museums, there’s a lot of variety and we only keep hosts if they have really high reviews,” Holland continued. “South Grove Golf Course in Indianapolis is big rig friendly and one of our highly rated hosts. You can park on the golf course and watch people struggle to play while you have wine. It’s very nice.”
Holland speaks about the economic impact RVers bring to local communities.
After customers told him about Harvest Hosts, Michael DeCola, owner of Elkhart-based Southgate, signed up to become a host in fall 2023. He said during peak period from May through early October, the establishment gets between 10 to 20 Harvest Hosts members a month. With about 90% of guests coming in to shop.
“We’re one of the largest Amish built peg and bean buildings in the country. The building itself is just incredible,” DeCola said. “We have a variety of small businesses inside. We’ve got antiques, crafts, handmade, local artisan items, craft beer supply. We have Mexican food, Thai food, ice cream, and barbecue. So it’s kind of a one-stop shop.”
Located just South of US 20, Southgate hosts the Nappanee Artisan Market, local boutiques and offers office and event space.
Holland said Harvest Hosts members are on track to spend over $50 million across business in the company’s network this year, money that goes directly to hosts. Since the company usually onboards businesses as hosts, they typically have products to sell to RVers. However, working with a ton of farms like Heavenly Acres Farm and learning center in Thorntown, the company sometimes has to do some hand-holding to ensure the farms get value out of the partnership.
“A lot of times we’ll go to the farm and give suggestions like charging for farm tours, for horseback rides or for a petting zoo. They begin to act more like agritourism destinations at that point,” Holland said. “It ends up being an average of about $13,000 in extra revenue to these small business owners, which is meaningful. It helps cover the cost of inflation, wages, etc.”
Hosts don’t pay a fee to come on the platform but the company sells three different membership levels costing between $85/year to $159/year for RV owners looking for a break from the norm. More than the financial benefit, Holland said hosts regularly tell him one aspect of being a part of Harvest Hosts excites them the most.
“The hosts enjoy sharing their lifestyle with travelers. They’re working so hard to make these products that they care about, and it feels good to share them with these enthusiastic travelers,” Holland recounted. “They’re meeting people from Canada, from California, from Virginia that never would have known about their business if it hadn’t been for Harvest Hosts.”
Growing up in Virginia and now living in Vail, Colorado, Holland said he had always been an entrepreneur at heart. From selling goods to his sister and classmates, selling used golf balls to golfers where they lived, his possibilities were endless when his family got a computer and internet for the first time.
“It was truly magnificent because no one knew how old I was and I could sell stuff to anybody, anywhere because of eBay,” he said. “That really got me hooked on this concept of selling something, making a profit and everyone’s happy.”
With Elkhart being the RV Capital of the world, Holland said his company partners with RV manufacturers and dealerships regularly. Since there are no contracts and no obligation to provide hookups of any kind, Holland encouraged businesses with RV parking space, looking to share their work and make some extra cash to apply to become Harvest Hosts.
“I would love more people to try the lifestyle. We have these 9,000 locations but I’d love to see 50,000,” Holland said. “There are so many small businesses in this country that have space for an RVer to park and would benefit from the economics of travelers spending money with them.”