Most fishing lodges run on a good lake and a busy owner.
This one runs on a system.
I recently completed a going-concern appraisal on one of the best-run lodges I've seen in more than a decade of appraising Canadian hospitality properties. Eight guest cabins. About $2 million in stabilized revenue. An EBITDA margin near 40%. And an advertising budget smaller than what most owners spend on a new boat motor.
I can't tell you which lodge it is. The details belong to my client, so I've changed the location details, the cabin count, the rates and every financial figure in this article, including the final value. The comparable ranges from my files are real, and the method is exactly the one I used. What I can share is the formula, because every part of it is learnable.
- Eight guest cabins, all-inclusive, priced in US dollars. About $2.0 million in stabilized revenue.
- Stabilized EBITDA of about $780,000, a margin near 39%. My comparable set averages 36%.
- Advertising runs under 1% of revenue. Comparable lodges average about 1.4%.
- Billing in USD against a Canadian cost base adds hundreds of thousands of dollars in real margin.
- Capitalized at 13.5%, the final value came in at $5.75 million, about 2.9 times stabilized revenue.
The Setup
The lodge sits on private land reachable only by a short boat ride from a road-access landing, an easy drive from the US border. That access matters. Guests drive in with their own gear, and nobody waits on a float plane.
The compound:
- A main lodge with a vaulted dining room, commercial kitchen and full bar
- Eight guest cabins with two or three bedrooms each, most built or renovated in the last decade
- Staff housing and extensive docks
- Generator power, septic and treated lake water
The operation is fully all-inclusive. Three meals a day, an open bar, a guided day, all fuel and bait, shore lunch, dock service and fish cleaning. Peak-season rates run roughly USD $350 to $425 per adult per night, with lower shoulder rates and tiered pricing for kids. The average paying guest bills about USD $1,600 over a stay of about five nights. Deposits are non-refundable.
This is not a rustic fishing camp. It's a premium product, priced like one.
The Revenue Story
I've left out the border-closure years. They tell you nothing about the business. The real story starts with the first full season after the border reopened.
View the data
| Year | Gross revenue | EBITDA | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $1.15M | $380K | 33% |
| Year 2 | $1.75M | $700K | 40% |
| Year 3 | $1.90M | $570K | 30%* |
| Stabilized | $2.00M | $780K | 39% |
Revenue grew about 50% from Year 1 to Year 2, and grew again in Year 3. The margin dip in Year 3 comes down to a one-time infrastructure repair of roughly $210,000, expensed rather than capitalized. Add it back and the margin lands right where it was in Year 2.
The owners have more capacity planned, including an additional guest building. The business they already have is strong enough to stand on its own.
What They're Doing Right: Seven Observations
None of these are accidents. Every one is a deliberate operating choice, and every one is learnable.
01 OF 07They started with the right resource.
Not every lake is created equal. This one holds multiple trophy species and a reputation that brings serious anglers back year after year. Management didn't build that. They bought into it.
The resource is the foundation. Without it, nothing else in this article applies. When I evaluate a lodge for a buyer, the quality and reputation of the fishery is the first filter. Everything else is operational.
02 OF 07They price for the guest they want.
Peak rates of USD $350 to $425 per adult per night, all-inclusive. Lower shoulder rates. Tiered pricing for kids. Non-refundable deposits at booking.
They aren't competing on price. They're filtering for guests who value the experience over the rate, the kind who rebook before they leave. Non-refundable deposits cut no-shows and give management a credible seasonal forecast to staff and supply against.
Average billing per paying guest: about USD $1,600. Average stay: about five nights.
03 OF 07All-inclusive is a value strategy, not just a pricing model.
Open bar. All the fuel you can burn. All bait. Shore lunch. A guided day. Dock service. Fish cleaning. Three meals a day. The owners' stated goal is simple: every guest should leave feeling they got more than they paid for.
That isn't marketing copy. It's how they operate. Guests who feel that way rebook, and when enough of them do, the season is sold before it opens.
All-inclusive also simplifies the P&L. No fuel surcharges, no per-item disputes, no upsell friction. The unit of sale is the guest night. Clean to manage, and clean to model in an appraisal.
04 OF 07Their marketing spend is almost nothing.
In the most recent year, this lodge spent a low five-figure sum on advertising and promotion, under 1% of revenue. The comparable average in my files is about 1.4%, and many lodges I work with spend 2% to 4%, often chasing guests they haven't earned yet.
This operation earns its coverage instead. Fishing media and regional tourism marketing feature it without being paid to. That kind of reach can't be bought. It comes from a product worth writing about.
The lesson: if your marketing budget is high, you may be compensating for something your product isn't delivering.
05 OF 07They run it like a company, not a camp.
The ownership group keeps a formal business plan with multi-year projections. They track paying guests, nights per stay, billing per guest, EBITDA margin and liquidity. A general manager runs the operation on a performance bonus.
Most lodge owners I appraise have QuickBooks and a gut feeling. This group has an operating model. That shows up directly in the appraisal. Clean, organized financials are easier to stabilize and easier to defend to a lender. They also tell a buyer they're getting a professionally run business, not a lifestyle project that happens to make money.
06 OF 07They reinvest constantly, and on purpose.
The capital plan runs well into six figures a year. New boats and motors on a schedule. Ongoing cabin upgrades. Dock rebuilds. Lodge improvements. And another guest building planned that, at current rates, could add six figures of annual revenue.
There are two kinds of capital spending: maintenance, which protects what you have, and growth, which expands what's possible. They're doing both, tracked against a multi-year plan.
When I value a lodge, condition and remaining economic life matter. Lodges that reinvest consistently carry an effective age well below their chronological age. Some of these buildings are more than a decade old, but the effective age I assigned was well below that. That supports value directly.
07 OF 07They bill in US dollars and pay in Canadian.
Every guest rate is in US dollars. Almost every expense is paid in Canadian dollars: wages, supplies, fuel, maintenance and insurance.
At $1.36 CAD per USD, every US dollar of guest revenue buys $1.36 against the cost base. For a lodge billing well over $1 million USD a year, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars in real margin before a single expense is cut. It flows straight into EBITDA and through to the income approach.
Not every lodge can do this. It takes an American guest base willing to pay in USD. Lodges that have built one hold a real structural advantage, and it shows up in stabilized income.
The lodges that underperform on EBITDA almost always fail on one of these seven points, usually pricing, marketing or capital allocation. This one isn't failing on any of them.
The Valuation
Cap rates for comparable Canadian fishing lodge transactions in my files ranged from 10.00% to 15.00% at the time of this appraisal. I applied 13.5%.
Not because this is a below-average lodge. Above $5 million, the pool of qualified buyers thins out. Lodge buyers are owner-operators, not institutions. As value climbs past a certain point, the cap rate moves up because fewer buyers can finance the deal. The most recent comparable, a pending sale of a similar boat-in all-inclusive lodge, supported a rate in this range, and higher interest rates added pressure.
I then checked the implied gross revenue multiplier, about 2.9 times, against comparable lodge sales, which ranged from 2.00 to 6.00 with a mean of 3.60. It landed in the lower middle of that range. A high margin normally pushes a lodge's GRM up. The price level pulls it back down, for the same buyer-pool reason that lifted the cap rate.
| Valuation input | Figure |
|---|---|
| Stabilized revenue | ~$2.0M CAD |
| Stabilized EBITDA | ~$780K (39%) |
| Cap rate applied | 13.5% |
| Implied GRM | 2.88× |
Both income approaches, direct capitalization and the gross revenue multiplier, were reliable. When two methods agree, the conclusion is defensible. I also ran the sales comparison approach, but it was inconclusive. Lodges at this level rarely trade publicly, and when they do, it's usually a share sale with no accessible price. The income approach carried the weight in reconciliation, as it should for a going concern of this calibre.
What You Can Take From This
You can't buy a better lake. Almost everything else on this list, you can copy.
- Know your resource. Be honest about what your fishery is and isn't. It sets the ceiling on everything else.
- Price for the guest you want. Raise rates until the right guests stay and the wrong ones leave, and take non-refundable deposits.
- Bundle everything. All-inclusive turns a rate into a value story, and value stories rebook.
- Track what a buyer will ask about. Paying guests, nights per stay, billing per guest and EBITDA margin, every season.
- Reinvest on a plan. Effective age is value. A lodge that looks ten years younger than it is appraises like one.
The best lodges don't get lucky. They make the same good decisions, year after year.
Want to know where your lodge sits in these ranges? I complete CUSPAP-compliant going-concern appraisals across BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Northwestern Ontario, the NWT, Nunavut and Yukon. Request a fee quote for your appraisal.
Frequently Asked Questions
What EBITDA margin should a well-run Canadian fishing lodge achieve?
In the comparable lodge operating statements in my files, EBITDA margins range from 26% to 50% of gross revenue, with an average around 36%. All-inclusive operations with strong management and high revenue tend to sit toward the upper end, because fixed costs shrink as a share of revenue. The best-run properties I've appraised consistently operate above 40%. A CUSPAP-compliant AACI appraisal is the defensible way to establish stabilized EBITDA for financing, CRA or sale purposes.
What cap rate applies when valuing a Canadian fishing lodge?
Recent transactions in my files show cap rates for Canadian fishing lodges from about 10.00% to 15.00%, depending on location, revenue level, access and management quality. Higher-revenue properties often sit toward the upper end because the pool of qualified buyers thins above $4 to $5 million. Cap rates must be derived from comparable arm's-length transactions, not assumed.
How does billing in US dollars affect a Canadian lodge's appraised value?
Lodges that bill guests in US dollars while paying most expenses in Canadian dollars carry a structural currency advantage. At $1.36 CAD per USD, a lodge earning $1 million USD has $1.36 million CAD to spend against its cost base. That flows into stabilized EBITDA and through to the income approach.
How does capital spending affect a lodge's appraised value?
Reinvestment affects both income, through added capacity and better rates, and effective age. Lodges that reinvest consistently carry an effective age well below their chronological age, which extends remaining economic life and supports value. It is one of the most controllable drivers of long-term lodge value.