Is The Road Trip Dead?

Clickbait. It was on the homepage of one of Canada’s national papers.

Is the road trip dead?

I had to know.

Click.

The link took me to Driving and an op-ed piece under the column heading of Lorraine Complains. Not my Lorraine. Some other Lorraine. My Lorraine rarely complains.

Has COVID-19 killed the road trip?

Surprisingly, this was included in the column:

The RV industry is seeing “a significant increase in consumer demand as RV dealers across Canada have told us that they’ve seen an uptick in both website traffic and sales,” says Chris Mahony, president of GoRVing Canada. “RV travel is particularly appealing right now because it allows you to safely adhere to social distancing guidelines, which will likely stay in place for the foreseeable future.”

I had posted about Two Truths and an RV. One truth is that RV sales are booming. The other truth is that RV sales are tanking. One of these truths is not true.

The RVIA updated their shipment data for the month of April.

The bottom line for the RV industry in the month of April:

As expected, due to nationwide retail and manufacturing shutdowns during the month related to the COVID-19 pandemic response, the RV Industry Association’s April 2020 survey of manufacturers found that total RV shipments were reduced significantly, ending the month with 7,197 units.

The plummet in monthly shipments represents an 82 percent decline year over year. A fall from over 40,000 units shipped last April to just over 7,000 units shipped this April.

Perhaps May was the month that realized a significant increase in consumer demand. Monthly shipment data for last month should be out in another few weeks.

I suspect that there will not be a dead cat bounce on the manufacturing side. It is possible that RVs in inventory on dealership lots are flying off the shelves.

Possible.