Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

9/11 attacks changed Whistler's business

Decade of highs and lows mark the years in tourism since terrorist attacks
68123_l

Just before the terrorist attacks on 9/11Tourism Whistler was gearing up to launch an advertising campaign on the east coast of the U.S.

It was to be one of the first big investments targeting long-haul travellers in the New York area. At the time, the U.S. accounted for 38 per cent of Whistler's business in the winter and 35 per cent in the summer - a critical piece of the tourism pie.

But when the World Trade Towers fell ten years ago, Tourism Whistler's plans, like so many others, vanished in an instant.

Travel would never be the same again and tourism in Whistler was about to take off on a rollercoaster ride that has defined the past decade with incredible highs, the 2010 Olympic Games, and sorrowful lows.

"This has been an absolutely fascinating decade of experience," said Tourism Whistler's president and CEO Barrett Fisher.

"9/11 definitely changed travel forever but when you look at the ups and downs, it's a complex recipe. There are multiple factors that have influenced tourism over the last decade."

The year before the attacks was Whistler's best on record - a banner year for room nights and skier visits. There was strong growth coming from the U.S., specifically in Washington State and California, but also stretching east through the mid-west and down the east coast.

Fisher had been back at her desk as vice president of marketing and sales for just one day after her maternity leave before the attacks.

Once the shock and the horror of what happened had finally registered, TW went to work to try to counter the short-term impacts of heightened security, and genuine fears of flying.

It pulled the east coast advertising and launched a campaign into California and Washington State featuring an American and Canadian flag with ski tracks linking the two countries.

"I think for us it was less about driving immediate bookings and more about showing empathy for our U.S. customers," said Fisher.

TW also worked closely with Whistler Blackcomb and other resort partners and that was key to its success in the year following 9/11 said Stuart Rempel, vice president of marketing and sales for Whistler Blackcomb.

"All the stakeholders in the resort just after 9/11 really worked hard to align what we felt was going to be important to drive business that winter," recalled Rempel. "And it worked. We saw a strong season."

That was due in no small part to the value of the dollar.

"Americans continued to come because they saw great value," said Rempel.

That resort partnership, he added, has been fostered over the past decade to Whistler's success.

While the guests came in the year after 9/11, travel became much more difficult with increased security checks, lengthier screenings, more rigorous border checks.

In particular, Canada and America's laissez-faire border grew thicker overnight. Within a few years passports were required to travel between the two countries and that has had ramifications for the entire tourism industry in Canada.

Working in Canada's favour, however, was the fact that historically it is seen as a safe destination, which could have been perceived as boring but in the post 9/11 world turned out to be a competitive advantage.

The terror attacks also drove home the point that travelling, and spending time with family and friends is vitally important.

"To a certain degree, 9/11 highlighted that life can be short and we need to maximize what's important in our lives and find that balance between work and play and ensure that we're spending more quality time with our family and friends," said Fisher.

American visitors are still not coming in the numbers seen in the 2000-2001 hey-day. That is more a factor of the on-par dollar and the economic meltdown than anything else.

"What's the single most important issue that has impacted Whistler's yield? It would be the shift in currency, when you look at the currency differential between the U.S. and Canadian dollar and similarly with the drop in the U.K. economy," said Fisher. "The pound dropped accordingly, the Euro lost and if you look at any travel industry indications there is absolutely, without a doubt, a direct correlation between currency and travel."

American winter visitors are down 16 per cent over the decade, making up 22 per cent of Whistler's guests, down from 38 per cent. It's a similar story in the summer where there's a 15 per cent drop, from 35 per cent to 20 per cent.

That is a common phenomenon across the province.

"The mix of customers has shifted in a way that we would like to see it shift back," said Stephen Regan, president of CEO of the Council of Tourism Associations (COTA). "It use to be, pre 9/11, 70 per cent of the business was domestic... and 30 per cent was international, the lion's share of that from the U.S. Now we're in a place where our revenues are still up there, but if you look at the share of who is spending, domestic versus international, it's more like 80 to 20.

Better for business, as a whole, he said, to shift those spending dollars back to export revenue, back to international bucks.

"In terms of a sector that's a wealth generator for the province, export revenue is fantastic," explained Regan. "That's one of the elements that makes tourism such an important sector for the province and the country... It's new dollars... That's wealth creation."

Whistler isn't looking just to the U.S. for that wealth creation. New markets never tapped into before are on the radar.

"As we look at the landscape, the U.S. market, even though we've dropped in market share, is still an incredibly large part of our business and an incredibly important part of our business," explained Fisher.

"So we will continue to market to the U.S. But in any successful business you always want that balanced portfolio of markets so not only are we in our traditional destination markets of eastern Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Australia, but recognizing with the incredible growth opportunity that we have with China and India certainly new resources have been shifted into those market so we can start to develop those in the next three to five years. Certainly we're starting to see the results of those this year."