Worked Example: USDA Business and Industry Loan Glamping Resort Feasibility Study in Ohio

This is a worked example, not a client engagement. It shows how a feasibility consultant would test a ground-up glamping resort of an assumed 16 hard-sided cabins, 16 insulated domes and 8 seasonal canvas tents, sited in a rural-eligible area of Ohio and financed with a USDA Business and Industry (B&I) guaranteed loan in the $5 million to $25 million tier, and what the arithmetic says when its rates, occupancy and costs come from the public, republishable figures that could be sourced. Every project number not taken from a named public source is an assumption and is labelled as one; every market, program and rate figure is sourced to the publisher named in the sentence.

At a glance. A 40-unit glamping resort costing $11,065,886 in the model and carrying an $8,152,666 USDA B&I guaranteed loan with an 80 percent guarantee reaches a stabilized debt service coverage of 0.23x, or 0.22x if the annual retention fee is passed through to the borrower, against an assumed lender minimum of 1.25x (the debt service table). At the public survey rates the base case is far from the minimum, and the only restructure that passes needs equity of 86.2 percent of cost.

• Total project cost: $11,065,886
• USDA B&I guaranteed loan (80% guaranteed): $8,152,666
• Borrower equity: $2,913,219
• Stabilized net operating income after replacement reserve: $181,691
• Stabilized debt service coverage: 0.23x
• Break-even blended occupancy at 1.00x: 88.8%
• Blended occupancy needed for 1.25x: 99.4%

The Lender's Question: What a Feasibility Consultant Tests First

The lender's question is narrow and the rule frames it. For a B&I guaranteed loan greater than $1,000,000 to a new business, the Agency requires a feasibility study, written by an independent, qualified consultant it accepts, and the Agency sets the study's scope by how complex the project and the borrower are ^[1]. The regulation defines the study as a consultant's written opinion or finding on whether the proposed project is feasible on five counts: economic, market, technical, financial and management ^[2]. A resort not yet built is a new business: 7 CFR 5001.3 treats a business in operation for less than one full year as new ^[3].

The first thing a consultant would test is coverage, measured the way the rule measures it. 7 CFR 5001.3 defines the debt service coverage ratio as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization less reasonably expected replacement capital expenditures, divided by annual principal and interest ^[4]. Canvas, decking and hot tubs wear out faster than hotel furniture, so the model deducts a replacement reserve of 5.5 percent of revenue before coverage is struck, the top of the 3.0 to 5.5 percent of annual revenue that Sunstone Hotel Investors' 2025 Form 10-K says its hotel agreements put into FF&E reserves ^[5].

The second thing is what the coverage is measured against. 7 CFR 5001 sets no numerical minimum coverage for a new loan; a coverage test enters the loan agreement only if the lender or the rule calls for it ^[6]. The 1.25x used throughout this example is therefore an assumed lender minimum, not a regulatory floor. Third, when the Agency judges whether a loan carries higher risk and needs more equity, the factors it weighs include the strength of the feasibility study and the experience of management ^[7].

Decision. The study would size the loan on coverage after reserve, not on loan-to-cost, because in this model coverage binds first, and it would report the base case as failing the assumed 1.25x minimum rather than adjusting rate or occupancy inputs until it passes.

The Site and Its Market in Ohio

The project is sited in a rural-eligible area of Ohio. Under the OneRD definitions, rural means everything in a state outside a city or town above 50,000 residents and outside the urbanized area that borders one ^[8]. No city, town, park or county is named as the project's location. The project is described by what it would sell: an assumed 45 acres of wooded, rolling land with road frontage and utility access, within a drive of the state's own population and of larger Midwestern metropolitan areas.

That resident base is large. Census Bureau estimates put Ohio's population at 11,900,510 as of July 1, 2025, against 11,799,445 at the April 2020 estimates base ^[9].

The state's visitor economy is measurable. TourismOhio reports 242 million visits to Ohio in 2024, 48 million of them overnight, and $57 billion of visitor spending plus indirect business sales ^[10]. The same TourismOhio report puts tourism-supported jobs at 443,000 in 2024 ^[11]. The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates Ohio outdoor recreation value added at $20.08 billion in 2024, or 2.2 percent of state value added, with 153,614 outdoor recreation jobs, 2.7 percent of wage and salary employment, and $8.63 billion of compensation ^[12]. None of these is a glamping figure; they size the visitor economy around the resort.

Several things a study would normally carry here could not be sourced for this example and are not stated: Ohio state park visitation, Ohio campground licensing rules, Ohio land values, Ohio wages and the current state sales tax rate. The land line in the model is therefore an assumed $450,000 for about 45 acres, to be replaced by a contract price or an appraisal.

Decision. The study would treat the state's population and visitor economy as the demand wrapper and the parcel's drive-time catchment as the market; and it would list the unsourced regulatory items as open conditions.

Demand: Who Books a Glamping Unit in Ohio

Kampgrounds of America's 2026 Camping and Outdoor Hospitality Report found that glamping accounted for 29 percent of all camping experiences in 2025 and that 31 percent of new campers chose glamping accommodations ^[13]. Kampgrounds of America also reports that more than 52 million North American households camped in 2025, above pre-pandemic levels ^[14].

No republishable public source found for this example says what those guests pay in Ohio. The nearest public figures come from the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's 2026 Industry Outlook, a national survey with a Midwest column, which classes modern cabins or cottages as units with bath and/or kitchen, rustic cabins as units without them, and glamping units as including glamping tents, safari tents, treehouses and yurts ^[15]. That split, and the premium its rate tables show for units with their own bath, shapes the unit mix.

The season is the second constraint. The Outdoor Hospitality Industry's 2026 Industry Outlook reports that a majority of surveyed parks in the Northeast and Midwest are closed January to March and November to December ^[16]. A canvas tent cannot be sold in an Ohio January at any rate, so the model gives the tents an assumed 184-night season from May 1 to October 31 and lets the insulated, heated cabins and domes sell year-round.

Occupancy evidence comes from the same survey, and it is not a glamping census. The Outdoor Hospitality Industry's 2026 Industry Outlook reports a typical (median) occupancy of 57 percent for the past twelve months, asked of RV park, campground and glamping park operators for their months of operation including main and shoulder seasons ^[17].

The model takes that 57.0 percent as the cabins' occupancy over 365 nights and the canvas tents' over their season, and assumes dome occupancy of 55.0 percent, which blends to 56.1 percent of available unit-nights in the revenue table. The assumed dome figure sits below the cabins because a dome is a newer and less proven product in an Ohio winter, and a median struck over months of operation probably overstates winter for both.

Decision. The study would lean the unit mix to hard-sided units with their own baths and treat the canvas tents as a seasonal add-on, because the Midwest closure pattern means a tent-heavy mix does not carry year-round fixed costs; it would also state that its only occupancy figure is a national survey median, not an Ohio glamping figure.

Competition and the Rate Benchmarks a Study Would Use

This example found no public, republishable Ohio glamping rate, supply count or current performance figure. The rates in the model come instead from the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's 2026 Industry Outlook, which prints mean main-season rates per night by site type and region. Read by column position, because the extracted table prints its Northeast and Midwest labels after the values, the third block is the Midwest column, and the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's Midwest mid-week means there are $196.32 for modern cabins or cottages, $171.50 for glamping units and $104.20 for rustic cabins, with the glamping row marked as based on fewer than 30 responses and statistically unstable ^[18]. The weekend table of the same Outdoor Hospitality Industry report, read the same way, gives Midwest means of $215.40 for modern cabins or cottages and $207.50 for glamping units ^[19].

The model weights each mid-week mean by five nights and each weekend mean by two, which the revenue table prints as $201.77 for the cabins and $181.79 for both the domes and the canvas tents. Holiday rates and the off-season, which the survey does not price, are left out, so the weighting is a judgment rather than a measurement. No public rate separates a private-bath dome from a shared-bath tent; both take the glamping mean, which probably understates the domes and overstates the tents. All three rates exclude the Ohio sales and local lodging taxes discussed under the revenue build. A study for an actual project would build its own competitor set from the catchment and the booking platforms, with a date on every row.

Decision. The study would underwrite rates from the public survey figures it can cite and say plainly that they are national survey means with a Midwest column, not Ohio glamping rates, so that the lender sees how thin the rate evidence is before reading the coverage.

Cost Basis: What the Resort Would Cost to Build

Every input to the model is listed below with its basis; the inputs not marked as sourced are assumptions.

Rounded to the dollar; lines may not foot by $1.

No public, republishable installed cost for a glamping unit or a park cabin was found for this example: the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's survey prints only the cost of a new full-hookup site ^[22], and the public filings of the RV resort operators searched print none. For each hard-sided unit the model therefore uses $170,000, the low end of the median per-room development costs HVS reports for limited-service and midscale extended-stay hotels ^[21], compiled by HVS from 2025 hotel budgets ^[20]. A hotel room carries corridors, a lobby, lifts and shared building systems that a stand-alone cabin or dome does not, so the figure is biased high, applying it here is an assumption, and no public figure separates a dome from a cabin. For site work it uses $13,800 per hard-sided unit, the mean cost per new full-hookup site that 25 existing parks reported to the Outdoor Hospitality Industry, a result marked statistically unstable ^[22]; an existing park already has its roads, utility mains and wastewater capacity, so this line probably understates what a raw parcel needs. The model escalates both 2025 anchors by one year of the Turner Building Cost Index, whose 2026 trailing-twelve-month change HVS puts at 4.8 percent ^[23], itself an assumption; the cost table shows $2,850,560 each for the cabins and the domes and $462,797 for the hard-sided site work.

The assumed canvas tent cost of $45,000 per unit covers the tent, platform, furnishings and a heater, and the assumed $25,000 per tent site covers a pad, path and electric only, because the tents share a bathhouse; that assumption sits above the hookup figure used for the hard-sided units, a measure of how far the survey figure falls short of work on raw land. The assumed bathhouse is $450,000 and the assumed lodge is $750,000. There are no owner living quarters on the site, so the pro rata deduction that 7 CFR 5001.105(b)(8) requires when a direct owner's living quarters are part of a tourist facility does not arise ^[27].

Soft costs and reserves follow: design, engineering, permits and environmental review at an assumed 8.0 percent of hard cost, a construction contingency at an assumed 10.0 percent, operating equipment at an assumed $240,000, and third-party reports, closing and financing costs at an assumed $200,000. Interest during construction is an assumed $380,000, roughly half the loan outstanding for twelve months at the note rate; it is an eligible use because B&I loan funds may pay interest, including interest on interim financing, during the period before the first principal payment is due or the facility becomes income producing, whichever is earlier ^[28]. Pre-opening costs and permanent working capital are an assumed $250,000, eligible because a permanent working capital term loan may fund startup costs, working capital, and stocks of inventory and supplies ^[29]. The land, buildings and infrastructure are eligible under 7 CFR 5001.121(c)(1), which lets loan funds acquire and improve land and buildings, along with the infrastructure serving them, on commercial properties ^[30].

The one-time guarantee fee is the total loan amount, multiplied by the guarantee percentage, multiplied by the rate the Federal Register sets for the fiscal year ^[31]. For fiscal 2026, a B&I guaranteed loan of $5 million to $25 million is charged 3.0 percent as the guarantee fee and 0.55 percent as the periodic retention fee, with an 80 percent guarantee, against 85 percent for loans under $5 million ^[25]. The cost table prints the fee as $195,664 on the $8,152,666 loan, and the total project cost of $11,065,886, or $276,647 per unit, includes it.

The capital stack is sized to the equity rule. The model sets the loan at an assumed 75 percent of cost before the guarantee fee, which leaves equity of $2,913,219, or 26.3 percent of total project cost, against the 25 percent minimum of $2,766,471 in the cost table: $146,748 above the line, and no more. A sponsor contributing land should know that equity cannot include appraisal surplus or bargain purchase gains ^[32], so land counts at what was paid for it.

Decision. The study would carry the HVS and Outdoor Hospitality Industry figures as the only public cost anchors, escalated and labelled, with their use for this project an assumption, and would make the sponsor's first task contractor bids on the units, which the hotel figure probably overstates, and on the site work, which the survey figure probably understates.

Revenue Build: Occupancy, Rate and Season

The table below prints every step of the revenue build.

The cabins and domes carry the resort. At the 57.0 percent median occupancy the Outdoor Hospitality Industry reports ^[17] and a $201.77 rate weighted from its Midwest mid-week and weekend means ^{[18] [19]}, the cabins produce $671,657 of lodging revenue on 3,329 occupied nights; at an assumed 55.0 percent and $181.79, the domes produce $583,896 on 3,212 nights. The canvas tents, open for an assumed 184 nights at 57.0 percent and $181.79, add $152,525 on 839 nights. Lodging revenue is $1,408,078, other revenue from the store, firewood, pet and cleaning fees and activities is an assumed 6.0 percent of lodging revenue, or $84,485, and total revenue is $1,492,563, or $37,314 per unit, at a blended average daily rate of $190.80.

Every rate in the model excludes the taxes an Ohio guest pays on top. The definitions that follow come from the Ohio Department of Taxation's presentation dated February 2016, and its definitions could not be confirmed as current for this example. That presentation explains that every transaction furnishing lodging by a hotel to transient guests is a sale for sales and use tax purposes ^[33], and the Department's Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Report confirms in substance that sales and use taxes apply to the rental of hotel rooms by transient guests ^[34]. The 2016 presentation defines a transient guest as a person occupying sleeping accommodations for less than thirty consecutive days ^[35]. On that 2016 wording, a glamping resort may be a hotel for this purpose whether or not it calls itself one: the definition reaches any establishment offering sleeping accommodations to the public in which five or more rooms are used for guests, whether the rooms are in one or several structures ^[36], and the same 2016 training example treats six rental cabins dispersed over 15 acres as a hotel because each cabin counts as a room ^[37]. The Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Report says local governments may levy a tax on lodging furnished to transient guests by hotels and motels ^[38] and counts approximately $286.0 million collected in calendar year 2024 ^[39]. Under that report, municipalities or townships may levy up to 3 percent, plus up to another 3 percent where the county has not levied a lodging tax ^[40], and counties may levy up to 3 percent except where a municipality or township already levies the additional tax ^[41]; the 2016 presentation said the same ^{[42] [43]}. The report puts the maximum combined rate permitted in most jurisdictions at 6 percent, and special lodging taxes in some jurisdictions can take it higher ^[44]; a 2013 summary carried the same maximum ^[45]. A study would confirm the local rates now in force, since the report gives no county list; every rate in this model is the operator's revenue, not the guest's posted price.

The ramp table below applies assumed Year 1 factors of 70 percent of stabilized occupancy and 95 percent of stabilized rates, and assumed Year 2 factors of 88 percent and 98 percent, to the same unit mix.

The rule allows interest to be paid from loan funds only until the first principal payment is due or the facility becomes income producing, whichever is earlier ^[28], so from the first paying guest the resort carries its own interest. The rule also requires the first full principal and interest payment to begin no more than 3 years from the date of the promissory note ^[46], the outer limit of any interest-only period. Even on interest-only debt service of $692,977, the ramp table shows a net operating loss of $172,958 in Year 1 and net operating income of only $35,497 in Year 2, and cash after interest-only debt service falls short by $865,935, $657,480 and, at stabilization, $511,286. The shortfall never closes, so no ramp reserve can bridge it.

Decision. The study would present the ramp table beside the stabilized table, not after it, and would state that at the public survey rates the resort never covers even interest-only debt service, so a reserve cannot stand in for a smaller loan.

Debt Service Coverage and Sensitivity

Coverage starts from the stabilized operating statement.

Operating expenses total $1,228,781, or 82.3 percent of revenue, and the replacement reserve of $82,091 takes net operating income to $181,691, or 12.2 percent of revenue. The variable lines are assumptions: housekeeping, linens and guest supplies at an assumed $22.00 per occupied night, booking commissions and card fees at an assumed 6.0 percent of revenue, a management fee at an assumed 5.0 percent of revenue, and the cost of other revenue at an assumed 50.0 percent of that revenue. The fixed lines, from payroll to insurance, are assumptions sized for a staffed 40-unit resort, and they do not fall with the rate.

This example found no republishable public operating benchmark for a glamping resort, so the expense lines stand as labelled assumptions with nothing to compare them against.

On a B&I guaranteed loan, lender and borrower settle the rate between them, and it may be fixed, variable or a blend ^[47]; a variable-rate note must name its base rate and interest factor, and the rule's own example is National Prime plus 1.0 percent ^[48]. The Federal Reserve's H.15 release of November 9, 2026 puts the bank prime loan rate at 7.00 percent at each daily reading from November 2 to 6, 2026 ^[26], and the model adds an assumed spread of 1.50 percent for a rate of 8.50 percent, amortized over an assumed 25 years. Annual debt service is $787,770 and coverage after reserve is 0.23x. The retention fee adds to the borrower's cost if the lender passes it through: under the fiscal 2026 notice the periodic retention fee works out as the outstanding principal balance at December 31 multiplied by the retention fee rate and then by the guarantee percentage ^[49], which the debt service table prints as $35,872 in the first year and which takes coverage to 0.22x.

Against the assumed 1.25x minimum, the base case is far short. The debt service table shows net operating income $803,021 below the minimum, the largest loan the base case supports at that minimum as $1,504,263, and $6,648,404 of the proposed loan that would have to be replaced with equity.

The sensitivity table shows there is no room at all. Revenue down 10% takes coverage to 0.08x; revenue down 20% turns net operating income negative; a rate up 2 points, which moves annual debt service to $923,712, takes coverage to 0.20x; expenses up 10% takes it to 0.07x; and occupancy down 5 points across every unit type takes it to 0.11x. On these numbers a lender would be relying entirely on the equity and the guarantee, not on the cash flow.

The break-even table states the same result as thresholds. With rates held, coverage reaches 1.00x only at a blended occupancy of 88.8 percent and the assumed 1.25x at 99.4 percent, against a base of 56.1 percent, which is close to every unit sold every night; scaling every unit type together, the cabin occupancy needed is 90.2 percent at 1.00x and 100.9 percent at 1.25x. With occupancy held, the blended average daily rate needed is $286.84 at 1.00x and $318.05 at the assumed 1.25x, against a base of $190.80; scaling every rate together, the cabin rate would need to be $303.34 at 1.00x and $336.34 at 1.25x, well above the $215.40 Midwest weekend mean the Outdoor Hospitality Industry reports for modern cabins or cottages ^[19].

Decision. The study would report coverage of 0.23x and 0.22x as failing the assumed 1.25x minimum by a wide margin, would print the break-even table rather than a revised base case, and would tell the lender that passing at these occupancies takes a blended rate of $318.05 against the $190.80 the public survey figures support.

What the USDA B&I Rule Requires and How the Study Would Meet It

A glamping resort is eligible on the face of the rule. 7 CFR 5001.105(b)(8) lists tourist and recreation facilities, including resort trailer parks and campgrounds operated as a public or private commercial enterprise, among eligible B&I projects ^[50]. The exclusions sit nearby and the study would address each. 7 CFR 5001.115(b) makes for-profit zoos or safaris, and publicly-owned or non-profit amusement parks, water parks and similar recreational facilities, ineligible ^[51]. 7 CFR 5001.115(g) makes ineligible properties used primarily for commercial rental when the borrower has no control over tenants and services offered ^[52]; the operator here runs the resort. The rule also bars residential housing whose primary purpose is independent housing ^[53], which a transient resort is not.

The feasibility study requirement then applies in full. A guaranteed loan greater than $1,000,000 to a new business requires a study from an independent consultant whom the Agency finds qualified and acceptable, with a scope the Agency sets according to the complexity of the project and the borrower ^[1], evaluating economic, market, technical, financial and management feasibility ^[2]. Feasibility studies and business plans are themselves an eligible use of loan funds ^[28].

The equity rule has two branches. A new business building a project, where the lender will ask the Agency to guarantee the note before construction is finished, must show one of three things: balance sheet equity of at least 25 percent, a debt-to-equity ratio of no more than 3 to 1, or its own investment reaching 25 percent of total eligible project cost. Any other new business may instead show balance sheet equity of at least 20 percent ^[54]. The investment branch is the one most ground-up sponsors use: the borrower putting in equity or other funds worth 25 percent or more of what the whole eligible project costs ^[24]. The model's equity of 26.3 percent satisfies both branches with a margin of $146,748 in the cost table.

The final maturity may not run past the project's or the collateral's justified useful life, and 40 years is the outer limit ^[55]; the model's assumed 25-year amortization is inside that cap for land, site work and cabins, but canvas tents have a far shorter useful life, and a lender could blend the term.

A guaranteed permanent loan that pays off a lender's interim construction loan after completion is not treated as debt refinancing, provided the lender submits a complete preliminary eligibility request or application proposing the interim financing before the interim loan closes ^[56]. Separately, the borrower must take no action that would have an adverse effect on the environment until the environmental review process concludes ^[57], so no clearing, grading or trenching for the $462,797 of site work can begin before that review ends.

The fees are the fiscal 2026 notice's rates. In the $5 million to $25 million tier the guarantee fee is 3.0 percent, the periodic retention fee is 0.55 percent and the guarantee is 80 percent, and a 0.50 percent fee applies in both tiers when the guarantee is issued ahead of construction completion ^[25]; that last fee applies only to loans that request the guarantee before project completion, not to all construction loans ^[58], and the base case assumes no early issuance. The guaranteed portion of the model's loan is $6,522,133 and the unguaranteed portion the lender holds is $1,630,533, per the cost table.

Decision. The study would document eligibility against each of the three exclusions by name, state the equity margin to the dollar, and sequence the preliminary eligibility request ahead of the interim loan and the environmental review ahead of any site work.

Risks a Lender Would Price

Seasonality is the first risk and it is structural. The Outdoor Hospitality Industry's 2026 Industry Outlook finds a majority of Northeast and Midwest parks closed January to March and November to December ^[16], yet the model applies a median struck over months of operation to cabins and domes that sell all 365 nights. If winter demand for domes proves weaker than assumed, the dome line is the first to miss.

Rate exposure is the second. A B&I note may be variable ^[47], and if it is, it floats off a named base such as National Prime ^[48], which stood at 7.00 percent in the first week of November 2026 per the H.15 release ^[26]. The sensitivity table shows a 2-point rise taking coverage to 0.20x, so a study would show coverage at a capped or fixed rate.

Rate evidence is the third. The only rates this example could cite are the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's national survey means with a Midwest column, the glamping row flagged as statistically unstable ^[18]; current booking data from the resort's own catchment would move this case more than any other input, in either direction.

Cost is the fourth. The unit costs rest on a hotel figure per room and the site work on an existing-park figure that probably understates a raw parcel, both escalated by a national index that HVS reports rose 3.9, 4.1 and 4.8 percent in 2024, 2025 and the 2026 trailing twelve months ^[23]; a rural Ohio bid could land above or below them, and every dollar of overrun beyond the assumed 10.0 percent contingency comes from equity, because coverage will not support more loan.

Asset life is the fifth. Coverage under the rule is struck after reasonably expected replacement capital expenditures ^[4], and the final maturity is capped at the justified life of the project or the collateral ^[55]. Canvas, decking and hot tubs are short-lived against a 25-year note, and a lender could shorten the term or carve the canvas out of the collateral.

Timing is the sixth. No ground-disturbing action may be taken before the environmental review concludes ^[57], and a review that runs long pushes the opening into the wrong season for a resort whose tents sell only from May to October.

Equity is the seventh. The Agency weighs the strength of the feasibility study and the experience of management in deciding whether a loan needs more equity ^[7], and the cost table shows equity only $146,748 above the 25 percent minimum. Tax compliance is the eighth: a resort with five or more rental rooms is a hotel for Ohio sales tax on the Department's February 2016 wording, which could not be confirmed as current for this example ^[36], and an operator who prices as if the sales and lodging taxes were revenue has a liability the lender did not underwrite.

Decision. The study would price rate evidence and seasonality as the two risks that move coverage, would treat the absence of any public Ohio glamping rate as the first gap to close, and would list the environmental review date and the tax registrations as conditions precedent.

What Would Decide the Outcome

The base case does not meet the assumed 1.25x minimum, and this example does not pretend otherwise. Coverage after reserve is 0.23x, or 0.22x with the retention fee passed through, per the debt service table. Five figures from the model would decide whether a lender proceeds, and in what form.

Occupancy. At these rates the break-even table needs blended occupancy of 88.8 percent for 1.00x and 99.4 percent for the assumed 1.25x, close to every unit sold every night, against a modelled 56.1 percent and the 57 percent median that the Outdoor Hospitality Industry reports for parks over their months of operation ^[17]. Occupancy cannot rescue this project.

Rate. With occupancy held, the break-even table puts the blended rate at $286.84 for 1.00x and $318.05 for the assumed 1.25x against a modelled $190.80, and the cabin rate needed at the assumed minimum is $336.34, above every Midwest mid-week and weekend mean the Outdoor Hospitality Industry prints for cabins and glamping units ^{[18] [19]}. Whether this catchment supports that rate is a question only current local booking data could answer.

Cost. The cost table carries $2,850,560 each for the cabins and the domes and $462,797 of hard-sided site work; lower bids would shrink the loan and the equity, but no plausible bid restores coverage, because the shortfall is in income.

The ramp reserve. The ramp table shows cash after interest-only debt service short by $865,935 in Year 1, $657,480 in Year 2 and $511,286 at stabilization, so at the base case loan no reserve bridges the ramp, and because interest after the facility earns income is not an eligible loan use ^[28], every shortfall would come from the sponsor.

The restructure. The model's restructure clears both tests this B&I loan faces, the assumed 1.25x binding minimum and the 25 percent borrower investment rule ^[24]: the loan drops to the $1,504,263 the base case supports, rounded down to $1,500,000, and the borrower adds equity. That loan falls in the tier below $5 million, where the guarantee is 85 percent ^[25], so the guarantee fee recomputed at the same 3.0 percent rate is $38,250 in the restructure table, total project cost is $10,908,472 and equity is $9,408,472, or 86.2 percent of cost, $6,495,252 more than the base case. Debt service falls to $144,941 and coverage reaches 1.25x, meeting the assumed minimum with $515 to spare; a retention fee passed through, recomputed at $7,013, takes coverage to 1.20x. No sponsor puts up 86.2 percent equity beside a loan this small, so the restructure shows what the income carries, not a deal a lender would see.

Decision. The study would recommend against proceeding on these figures: the only restructure that passes needs $6,495,252 of added equity, so the project goes forward only if current catchment evidence supports a blended rate near the $318.05 the break-even table prints, at occupancy the public survey supports.

Questions to Ask a Feasibility Study Company About a Glamping B&I Loan

Does a glamping resort qualify for a USDA B&I guaranteed loan at all?

On the face of the rule, yes. Tourist and recreation facilities, including campgrounds operated as a commercial enterprise, are an eligible project type ^[50]. The exclusions a reviewer would check are for-profit zoos or safaris and publicly-owned or non-profit amusement and water parks ^[51], commercial rental where the borrower has no control over tenants and services ^[52], and residential housing ^[53]. An owner-operated transient resort sits outside all three, and the project must be sited in a rural-eligible area under the 50,000-population test ^[8].

Where do the glamping rates in this example come from?

From the only public, republishable rate figures this example could find: the Outdoor Hospitality Industry's 2026 Industry Outlook, whose Midwest mid-week and weekend means, weighted five nights to two, give $201.77 for the cabins and $181.79 for the domes and tents, the glamping rows flagged as statistically unstable ^{[18] [19]}. They are national survey figures with a regional column, not Ohio glamping rates, and a study for an actual project would replace them with current rates from its own catchment.

What coverage does USDA require?

The regulation defines how coverage is measured, as EBITDA less reasonably expected replacement capital expenditures divided by annual principal and interest ^[4], but in the text read for this example it sets no numerical minimum for a new loan; the loan agreement carries a minimum when the lender or the rule requires one ^[6]. The 1.25x is an assumed lender minimum, which binds, and the base case at 0.23x does not meet it.

How should I choose a feasibility study company or consultant for a glamping project?

Ask three things. Whether the consultant is independent of the sponsor, the contractor and the lender, because the rule requires an independent qualified consultant acceptable to the Agency and lets the Agency set the scope ^[1]. Whether every market figure will carry its publisher, its period and its definition in the same sentence; a study that quotes a glamping rate without saying it is a survey mean, or an occupancy without saying it is a national median over months of operation, is not giving the lender what the lender needs. And whether the consultant will report a failing base case, as this example does at 0.23x against an assumed 1.25x, rather than raising the rate or the occupancy until the line clears.