ELKHART — The RV industry has boasted some of its best shipment numbers this year, with totals climbing back to pre-recession highs.
Even with the winter months approaching, it’s a growth industry experts don’t expect to slow down, bringing high hopes for an even better 2016. With about 80 percent of the country’s RVs being produced in Elkhart County, it also means a continued boost to the RV capital of the world.
In September alone, wholesale shipments for RVs were the highest for that month than they had been in nine years, according to the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association. And through the third quarter of 2015, total shipments were 5 percent ahead of the same period last year.
Topping the previous year has been an ongoing trend for some time now, said Kevin Broom with RVIA. Yearly totals have been increasing since 2009, and so far only two months in 2015 haven’t beat 2014 numbers. With more than 356,700 units shipped in 2014 — an 11 percent increase from the previous year — it was the fifth-consecutive annual increase.
Like most industries, RV production took a devastating hit during the recession. Consumer confidence was all but nonexistent and there was no financing available for luxury items like RVs, leading to a more than 30 percent drop in shipment numbers each year from 2007 to 2009.
But in 2010, the industry gained traction again with shipments increasing almost 50 percent that year. Since then it has been a steady climb back to the industry’s former glory.
The surge in RV production — and manufacturing as a whole — since the recession is helping put the Elkhart area on track to being the region’s largest economy, according to most recent Bureau of Economic Analysis report on gross domestic product in metropolitan areas.