Look out, roadtrippers: a new RV rental company is coming to Montana, according to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
Designed to cater to younger adults, Blacksford founder Jonathan Distad said he came to his business model for the company from a tech background, with customer service in mind.
The idea for the company came to Distad when he was having trouble finding an RV to rent for a family vacation. He’d have to travel all the way to a place like Seattle or Denver to get what he wanted, he said.
He started looking into the rental RV market, calling renters across the country. They told him that many of their RVs ended up in Montana and in Yellowstone National Park. Data shows heavy RV usage in the area.
The University of Montana’s Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research estimated visitors spent $22 million on RV rentals and campgrounds and $42 million on auto rentals in Yellowstone and the Southwest regions.
In one day alone, Distad said he counted more than 120 RVs in Yellowstone, not counting the ones in private RV parks.
Seeing the need for an RV rental company, Distad contacted Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport Director Brian Sprenger to see if the airport would be a good home for the business. Disted already owns two other companies in town, Zinovo and Big Sky CoWork, and he knew Bozeman was a good startup environment.
It ended up being a good fit and Distad said the company will start renting out RVs around Memorial Day weekend.
“Everything people don’t like about the RV rental industry, we’re fixing from a customer service perspective,” he said.
This means digitizing RV tutorials to get people out of the door and into their RVs in 30 to 40 minutes, rather than three or four hours, he said. They’ll also offer an all-inclusive fee for the RVs, with amenities like unlimited mileage, free Wi-Fi, a parks pass and more.
To read more click here.
