Farmers are always on the lookout for another way to take their farm and find another source of revenue whether its value added agriculture, a tiling business, or for some, hosting. Wes Clark is CEO of Harvest Hosts RV membership program connecting travelers with over 2000 farms across the country. He says the RV can stay for free overnight on the farm.
In exchange for patronizing the local business and it’s it’s really a win win for both sides. RVers get amazing places to stay, and our small business and farm hosts get a chance to market their location bring in new business, share their experiences and make a little extra revenue.
The program has around 1000 wineries and a big agriculture network, which Clark says have great experiences as an example in a Midwest location like Des Moines, Iowa. There’s around 30 farms within two hours
and all sorts of farm sites we’ve got everything from a bison ranch, equestrian center, a dairy farm, flower farms, aviaries raising bees and in harvesting honey, so really, really cool diversity in Iowa there. Our members love traveling through the state. They can check out all the different locations there.
Clark says farmers who want to be involved can sign up for free with Harvest Hosts.
We don’t take a penny of those incremental sales. So it’s a great program for the farmers. Our average member spending, you know $50 For every visit, and we were looking for farms of all types and excited to get more farms on the network and start driving business there.
Clark wants farms to host how they like but he has a few tips for farms involved in hosting traveling RVs.
A lot of them are traveling all day, they want to grab something to eat, maybe have a beverage, so if you can provide a little bit of food on site that goes a long ways. They’re also looking to restock their fridge with fresh produce, fresh eggs, fresh meat we’ve seen huge success for farms selling that isn’t farm tours. You know, I think our viewers are out there. They’re looking for an experience. This is part of how they’re traveling. What harvest shows does is enable those off the beaten path experiences and we’ve heard from our host too, that that they enjoy that they enjoy sharing their craft, having folks come out and see their operations. It’s a source of pride.