By Clare Ogilvie
Snowy weather and strong marketing have brought visitors to
Whistler Blackcomb in record numbers this holiday season.
And it has meant village shops, restaurants and other
businesses are enjoying the kind of year that the resort experienced before
global events, a strong Canadian dollar, crazy weather systems, mad cow, avian
flu and other factors were part of the tourist equation.
“We are the snowiest major ski resort in the world,” said
Stuart Rempel, vice president of marketing and sales for Whistler-Blackcomb.
“There are ski resorts in Europe that are closed or are running
on a bare minimum of snow and the east is having its challenges and even places
like Colorado.”
Even with the rain storm, which poured down to mid station on
Tuesday, the base sits at 300 cm. Over 99 cm of snow fell between Monday and
Wednesday and more snow is expected through the weekend.
With the Christmas holidays stretching over about three weeks
for school breaks Whistler is enjoying a long steady busy period.
Indeed, Saturday,
Dec. 30 was Whistler Mountain’s busiest day since its 1966 opening, when 15,994
people uploaded on the mountain. Another 10,000 went up Blackcomb.
Whistler and Blackcomb also enjoyed their third and fifth
busiest days ever over the break, making the week from Christmas Day to New
Year’s Eve the busiest week on record.
Even the tube park saw record days, with more than 1,300 people
showing up to slide.
“The fact that there is incredible snow, and during those
busiest days we had all 8,171 acres open, we had all the lifts turning, and we
groomed incredible amounts of terrain, meant that we had guests saying that
they didn’t feel it was that busy,” said Rempel, revelling in the records set.
“The feedback from our guests from all over the world has been,
‘wow’. They all felt like they had won the lottery skiing at Whistler.”
Rempel believes the guests’ positive experiences will be an
important asset for future bookings.
“All the people from the UK that are here are going home after
the holidays and I am sure they will tell everyone,” he said.
Having the new Symphony chair open also made a difference, said
Rempel, by helping to spread out skiers and boarders across the mountains.
The strong numbers were felt across the resort said Whistler
Chamber of Commerce President Louise Lundy.
“The consensus is that (the Christmas week) has been the
busiest week ever,” she said.
“Everybody is saying that they are hitting all kinds of
records.”
In an effort to get a pulse of what the resort was experiencing
chamber staff phoned several local stores, including Lululemon, Dream
Merchants, Keir Fine Jewellery, Canski Creekside, The Grocery Store, 21 Steps
and Pasta Lupino.
“It is excellent news,” said Lundy.
“Christmas is so important to the retailers, it is the most
important time. If Christmas is not successful they are not set for the winter,
so it is a critical time for them.”
However, the week before Christmas was not that strong for many
retailers, said Lundy.
Walking through the village it did feel like the resort was
buzzing. Restaurants were packed and retailers busy. Part of that, said Lundy,
is due to the fact that more people are coming to experience what Whistler has
to offer beyond skiing.
And with great snow conditions day after day, and more
destination visitors, tourists felt comfortable taking time off the mountains
to enjoy the town.
“I could stay open from morning to night and do a thousand
meals,” said Walter Wallgram, manager at the Trattoria Restaurant, adding that
it is busier than it was last year at this time.
Lunchtime is “crazy” with many of the same customers coming in
every day for the length of their holiday.
It’s the same story at Earl’s restaurant, another popular
eatery. Manager Rob McLean puts it down to strong branding — people know
what to expect from their meal — and outstanding staff.
“Our staff are the best, “ he said. “ A big part of it is the
time and training we invest in our staff and the level of service.
“We are definitely up for sure.”
Local spas are enjoying the busy season.
“We have been so busy, insanely busy,” said Lori Ternes, the
supervisor on shift at Aveda Spa at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, Tuesday.
“A lot of people are skiing for a couple of days then they are
so sore they are coming in for a treatment and take a day off.
“Mostly people do come to ski. But for the holidays there were
quite a few people who maybe brought their parents with them who don’t ski and
they came in for treatments too.
“We pretty much sell out during the holidays.”
Business is steady at local outdoor adventure companies too as
visitors take in some recreational activities apart from those on the slopes.
“From an operations point of view I was very excited to have
the valley snowpack so alive and as a result all of our activities were pretty
much sold out,” said Joey Houssian of Outdoor Adventures, which offers
snowmobiling, dog sled tours, sleigh rides with fondue dinner, and snow
shoeing.
“Starting on Dec. 20th if you wanted to do a horse-drawn sleigh
ride with dinner or a dog sled tour, you pretty much were out of luck. It was
pretty much sold out for those 10 days right through the Christmas holidays.”
Houssian, who makes a point of trying to talk to as many
customers as possible, said he found visitors were researching the resort
before booking.
“A lot of people had been doing homework on Whistler and knew
that this was the best snow in the world so guests seemed to be very much aware
of that and were all smiles on the tours,” he said.
“It was absolutely a perfect holiday season from a weather
point of view.”
Lots of new snow also drove skiers and riders to retail stores
for equipment.
“Ski sales definitely go up when there is this much new snow,”
said Snowcovers manager Kevin Glavas.
While business is strong, he said, it is not a huge increase
over last year, and most of the traffic seems to come from the regional weekend
visitor.
“Since ’01 it has been a tough go at it for retail,” said
Glavas pointing to poor weather, global events, the strong dollar and so on by
way of explanation.
“…All those things attributed to less than stellar years so
this year is more on par with what we were going through in our growth year.”
Occupancy was strong in the hotels. The Pan Pacific properties
were pretty much at capacity for the holiday season and are generally looking
at strong bookings for the rest of the season.
“Certainly the last two weeks of December were phenomenal,”
said Jim Douglas general manager at the Pan Pacific hotels.
“With the exception of a couple of dates here and there our hotel was very,
very full, to capacity.”
As far as booking patterns go Douglas saw both last minute
bookings and those made well in advance.
The strongest December Tourism
Whistler has on record is December 2000.
“We won't know for another
(one-and-a-half) weeks the actual results of how that year compares to this
December,” said spokeswoman Michele Comeau Thompson.
However, she said, it is expected
that December 2006 will come in about 8 per cent below December 2000.
Winter 2005-06 room nights sold were up 5 per cent over the previous winter.