With a summer season on the line, fast-thinking entrepreneurs find solace in ‘vanlife’ trend
COURTESY / SCENIC ROUTE MAINE TOURS
A camper van owned by Scenic Route Maine Tours at Cadillac Mountain.
Like most entrepreneurs with seasonal tourism-related businesses, Khaled and Jen Habash struggled to find customers this summer.
Between pandemic travel restrictions, quarantine requirements and the resulting cancellation of cruise ship visits and bus tours, the owners of two Blue Lobster gift shops, Scenic Route Maine Tours and Maine Duck Tours had a rough three months.
“It was not good,” Khaled Habash told Mainebiz. “June was a joke. July was OK. August was much, much better. We were able to pay some bills.”
Cruise ships are a critical source of customers. With three buses, the Scenic Route Maine Tours normally takes visitors to see lighthouses, Portland’s sights, Kennebunkport and Freeport’s shopping area — which includes one of their Blue Lobster stores. (The other is on Commercial Street in Portland.)
Tours are normally conducted in vans, which for the most part sat idle early in the summer, though monthly payments were still due. That gave the couple an idea.
Social distancing ignited a frenzy for people wanting to get away from cities and go camping. Well before the pandemic, people were outfitting vans and posting their camping pictures on social media. The hashtag #vanlife has 8.2 million posts on Instagram.
The Habashes took note of the trend.
“We owe money on the buses,” Khaled said, “so we converted one of the vans to a camper van. We built it out ourselves.”
They took the seats out of the 15-passenger Sprinter van, outfitted it with a bed, cooking gear and a Yeti cooler.
“We were able to go live the first week of July,” Khaled said.
It turned out to be a hot ticket and was sold out for the rest of the summer.
“Khaled is one of, if not the top tour operators on Portland’s waterfront. Most of his business comes from cruise ships and of course this year has hurt,” said Ben Davis, a friend and fellow entrepreneur, owner of OpBox and Portland Container Co. “Does he lay down and complain? Nope. He converts his tour vans into vanlife camper vans and books them all out for the summer.”
By the time the Habashes realized how much demand there was, it was too late to convert the company’s other two vans.
“There’s no saturation of this market,” Khaled says.
Having said that, he says with three businesses and two young kids, he doesn’t envision the company adding camper vans to its permanent lineup.
“I don’t know if I have the bandwidth for that, with three businesses and two young kids,” he said. “Hopefully, next summer we’ll be back to regular business.”
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