Airstream is trying to make the most of unprecedented boom times today while continuing to overhaul the king of upscale recreational-vehicle brands for the long term, by strengthening and broadening its product line, its brand and its related services.
Sales of the silver-bullet-shaped travel trailers have reached wall-busting levels at dealerships this year – as for most of the rest of the RV industry – as a new cohort of customers has entered the market beginning amid the depths of COVID-19. Restrictions on mass travel, and lockdown loopholes favoring the outdoors, combined with continued strength in employment and income by upper-level consumers during the pandemic to give Airstream and its expensive trailers a boost that took CEO Bob Wheeler by surprise.
“We expected a big drop in business initially,” the chief of the Jackson Center, Ohio-based unit of RV-brand holding company THOR Industries told Chief Executive. “Instead, we’ve been delivered an enormous group of new customers that we might not have seen without the pandemic. That’s true across the industry. So how do we make sure we don’t squander this opportunity?”
Click here to read the full article from Dale Buss.