Official: RV industry could begin to rebound in 2009

By JIM MEENAN, Tribune Staff Writer

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RV industry

(WSBT file photo)

By Beth Boehne

Story Created: Jul 18, 2008 at 10:59 AM EST

Story Updated: Jul 18, 2008 at 10:59 AM EST

Despite Thursday’s announcement that Monaco Coach was closing facilities in three Elkhart County cities, resulting in the loss of 1,400 jobs, Mark Bowersox, director of recreational vehicles of Recreation Vehicle Indiana Council, believes the industry’s long-term future is still good.

"The future long-term is bright," Bowersox said Friday morning, "because the economic climate and conditions that are affecting the business right now appear to be short term."

Bowersox cited the stock market, volatility of fuel prices, housing foreclosures and the shake-up in the banking industry.

"Fuel prices are a part of the equation," he said. "But a lot of people around this industry a whole lot longer than me will tell you the volatility is just as big an issue as the cost per gallon."

Stabilizing fuel prices would benefit the industry, Bowersox said, while adding, "All the other issues are a factor in what is negatively affecting the business right now."

Layoffs in the RV industry total more than 2,900 in Indiana so far this year.

And Bowersox said, as he understands it, the industry’s problems could bottom out in the first quarter of 2009, before growth takes place in the second quarter.

The current prediction of Richard Curtain, an economist at the University of Michigan who studies the industry, is that the industry’s problems will bottom out in the first quarter of 2009 and begin to see growth in the second quarter.

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