Camping Pros
Employees:
One full-time, four on-call
Business:
Setting up, supplying and supporting group camping trips.
Sales in 2000:
$40,000
Projections for 2001:
$80,000
Even though camping has long been one of his favorite hobbies, Troy Hemingway knows it’s not the easiest thing to organize.
“It is a hassle,” Hemingway said. “I admit it even when I go personally .”
Among the details are buying and cooking food, buying or renting equipment and, once the trip begins, set-up, more cooking, cleaning, and taking everything down at the end, he said.
“Just from talking to people, I know that there are a lot of people out there who never go camping, ever, because they don’t even know where to start,” he said.
Over the last seven years, Hemingway, 32, has slowly developed Camping Pros, a business that
runs group camping trips. Its services include cooking meals, providing equipment and setting up the campsite. Using tactics from the event-planning industry, he’s whittling a somewhat unexplored niche.
In 1999, Camping Pros’ sales were close to $15,000, Hemingway said. Last year, sales totaled $40,000. With the trips already booked and the ones he’s already done, the business is on track to double that figure this year.
So far, Hemingway has operated the business out of his Rancho Pe & #324;asquitos home, using a storage area a couple miles away. The company’s sole full-time employee for now, he keeps three or four workers on call.
By next spring, he expects to have an office and other full-time staff.
Mike McFedries, district manager for the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation Department, has worked with Camping Pros since 1996 when he launched a camping program for at-risk youth in 1996.
Although McFedries said he considers the relationship a partnership, the Camping Pros staff makes the distinction of treating him like a customer, and sometimes takes it further than that.
“Although we’re contracting with them to provide certain aspects of service, they usually go above and beyond it,” he said. “There’s been times when we’ve done trail rehab with these kids and Troy and his group, if they have a little bit of downtime, they’ll go out and do it with us. So that’s a whole other element.”
Andi Burgis, who owns Carlsbad-based team-building firm Challenge U, Inc., often uses Hemingway’s company when she has an overnight program.
“He’s phenomenal,” she said. “He’s very, very detail oriented, he’s very customer oriented, he’s got a great personality to work with people. No matter what’s going on, his focus is always for the clients and the customers’ best interest.”
One overnight group wanted to have a shower on the site, when it wasn’t originally requested, Burgis said.
“He figured out a way to rig up something that would support what they needed,” Burgis recalled of Hemingway. “He made it happen, instead of saying ‘No, it can’t happen.'”
Hemingway’s first taste of the industry came from a summer job with a local event-planning company. He watched the company, started in its owner’s garage, succeed and flourish. After graduating with a business management degree, he worked at the company full-time as a supervisor in various departments.
He always knew he wanted a business of his own, though.
Camping Pros began in 1994 as a side income for Hemingway, who set up the camping trips for friends and family.
He quickly saw a larger market for groups like churches and companies.
Four years ago, he began nurturing the business in earnest.
Along with general marketing and sales activities, Hemingway networks with companies whose activities could involve overnight stays, such as team-building consultants like Burgis.
A Regular Customer
One of his larger accounts is with Amor Ministries, which coordinates building houses in Tijuana for the poor. When a group asks Amor for accommodations, the nonprofit has Camping Pros set up the sites.
This year, 25 percent of his bookings has been return business, Hemingway said.
Several issues within the business continue to challenge Hemingway. He had problems with cancellations, and now plans to institute a nonrefundable deposit.
Another obstacle is the change in seasons. While trips during the summer are easy to solicit, it’s just the opposite in winter. He’s trying to develop more trips to the desert during the November-through-February months.
Also, Hemingway’s had to adjust his prices over the years to find a balance between what was affordable and what was profitable.
“I started out charging way too little and figured out I was losing money,” he recalled. “Then, I overcompensated too much and charged a lot and learned people were not going to spend so much to go camping.”
Rates Based On Numbers
The company’s current rate structure is based on how many people are in the party, and is $30 higher for the first night.
If there are 15 to 25 people in the group, the charge is $79 per person and $49 for additional nights. With 60 or more people, the charge is $49 per person the first night, and $19 for additional nights.
To rent sleeping bags, Hemingway charges $15 per trip. It covers his dry-cleaning costs, he said.
An average day sees him wearing several hats, Hemingway noted. He cleans equipment, orders food for future trips, creates and executes marketing plans, manages the business itself and talks to potential clients.
So far, those clients have proven surprising. At first, he thought the business would develop more of a corporate bent, but instead an equal amount of business, if not more, has come from church groups and similar social organizations.
When Hemingway talks about his plans for the future, however, attracting corporate work is a major focus.
His plans include establishing permanent offices in San Jose and Phoenix, as well as San Diego.
“You need to go where the people are, and Phoenix is a very large market there’s money there,” Hemingway said. “San Jose there’s a lot of companies out there I’d like to target.”
He had start-up costs of about $10,000, which covered his original equipment, and considered a riskier business plan to have set up a separate office earlier.
“I could get a business loan, and do that, but I don’t know why, I just chose to go the other route and wait until I have the money to do it.”
Hemingway, whose wife is expecting their first child this summer, is understandably cautious about how he develops the business.
Along with running the business, which is a full-time job, he’s been working 20 hours a week as a FedEx courier, to bring in extra money.
Now, with indications that Camping Pros’ sales are taking off, Hemingway is pleased.
“It’s involved a lot of patience,” he said. “I think a lot of people would have quit it by now, but I don’t know. I still have a long way to go, but I know that it can be a profitable business if you do it right.”
