BANFF, Alberta —Tourism boosters in Banff and Lake Louise are calling for a major expansion of marketing efforts. The money, $5 million annually, would be gained primarily by exacting a 2 per cent bed tax on the 15,200 lodging pillows in the area. Marketing efforts currently have a $1.5 million budget.
"This is huge. It’s about making us competitive again," said Julie Canning, executive director of Banff Lake Louise Tourism. Her organization reports that Banff and Lake Louise spend an average $67 per pillow in marketing, compared to $518 per pillow at Whistler and $507 at Tremblant, Quebec. With this proposed levy, Banff-Lake Louise would be spending $349 per pillow.
Another key proposal, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook, would boost funding for special events, which promoters say they can then use as leverage for gaining sponsors for events. "It’s like a chicken-and-egg problem," explained Canning. To get sponsors requires staging good events, but good events are impossible without sponsors.
The group proposes to even levy a 2 per cent fee on camping sites in Banff National Park. However, it proposes to grandfather any tour and travel contracts already in place if the bed tax goes into place June 1, as members want.
Boosters of the tax pledge that administrative costs would be kept to 20 per cent of the overall budget. Of remaining money, 70 per cent would be allocated to destination marketing and sales and the other 30 per cent to improving the visitor experience.
Sales tax revenue surges
VAIL, Colo. — Collections of sales taxes, the most reliable indicator of the economic health of a tourism community in Colorado, set a record last year in Vail, the second straight year for a new benchmark.
Sales tax collections increased 6.4 per cent, outpacing inflation in the nation’s urban areas that was estimated at 3.5 per cent. A similar story was told the previous year.
In Vail, that tax generated $16.5 million, which constitutes 40 per cent of the municipal budget.
This increase is a marked change from much of the 1990s, when tax collections lagged behind inflation. But if the tourism economy is doing well, the real estate economy is doing even better. Collections of the town’s 2 per cent real estate transfer tax yielded $6.2 million for the town government, a 27 per cent increase from the previous year.
There had been some worries in Vail that major reconstruction now underway would discourage visitors and hence soften tax collections. Given comparisons to Aspen, that may have been the case.
In Aspen, sales tax collections last year were up 10.5 per cent, the third straight year for increases. However, town officials continue to see some gloom amid these numbers. When inflation is figured in, reports The Aspen Times, the revenues were slightly less than they were a decade ago.
Vodka the X Games drink
ASPEN, Colo. — The X Games were, as expected, a bonanza for merchants and hoteliers in Aspen and nearby communities.
Total attendance was estimated at almost exactly the same as last year, 70,000, reports The Aspen Times. Hotel rooms were booked months in advance, bars had lines out their doors, and merchants catering to the younger crowd reported good sales. For whatever reason, customers this year wanted vodka, reported one bar manager, compared to Jagermeister and Bud Light in other years.
Not everybody was totally enamored. One visitor, who later wrote a column for the Winter Park Manifest, reported excitement that at times spilled into self-centred rudeness.
State declines gondola invitation
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — Jackson Hole’s 40-year-old tram, the guts of the community’s winter tourism economy, is to be retired after the ski season. The owners of the ski company, the Kemmerer family, say they can afford only $4 million of the $25 million replacement themselves, and they don’t want to bring in outside investors.
That put them into the position of arguing that the tram should get $20 million of Wyoming’s budget surplus of $1.8 billion. Their argument was that the tram is an important tourism draw for Wyoming.
But after a series of can-you-believe-this laughs from others in Wyoming, Jackson Hole Mountain resort has withdrawn the request. "At this point, and at this time, there doesn’t appear to be a lot of urgency on anybody’s behalf," said Jerry Blann, president of the ski area. State legislators from Jackson Hole, speaking with the Jackson Hole News & Guide, similarly reported slim-to-none prospects for major state aid.
Although the resort may still apply for some smaller grants, the big picture remains unclear. A host of community residents have suggested schemes for private financing, including formation of a cooperative, selling stock in the new tram, and giving financiers special tram privileges.
Planning for a business school in Jackson Hole, the topic of considerable debate during the last year, has also been shelved. Instead of planning a $46 million facility, an ad hoc committee now proposes a state appropriation of $708,500 to pay for hiring of three faculty members at the existing state university in Laramie. Those professors could one day become the nucleus staff for the proposed Teton Institute.
New ski resort opens in Dubai
WINTER PARK, Colo. — Those who aced their geography tests back in the day probably know that Dubai is located along the Persian Gulf. However, few would identify it as a ski resort.
That changed last year with the opening of something called Ski Dubai. Chris Seemann, owner of Winter Park’s Viking Lodge, visited the resort, which is actually located inside a building in a large shopping complex located about 10 minutes from the beach.
Seemann tells the Winter Park Manifest that the man-made snow is kept chilled to a temperature of 24 to 26 degrees. The size of three football fields, it has five ski runs, including the world’s first indoor black-diamond trail. It also has a half-pipe, although a 30-foot ceiling puts a lid on aerials.
With diminishing oil reserves, Dubai is looking to develop its tourism sector.
Sun Valley lauded, then ripped
SUN VALLEY, Idaho — Among the 500 people paying tribute at a recent dinner to Earl and Carol Holding, owners of the Sun Valley ski resort since 1977, was none other than Vice President Dick Cheney.
"Earl’s life is a testament to good citizenship," Cheney said in a videotaped message. Giving similarly glowing remarks, but in the flesh, were former Utah Sen. Jack Garn and current Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne.
The couple got their start as owners of a fruit orchard near Salt Lake City, but they went on to amass a fortune as proprietors of the Little America and Grand America hotel chains as well as Sinclair Oil. In addition to Sun Valley in Idaho, they own Utah’s Snowbasin, site of the 2002 Winter Olympics downhill races.
In an impromptu speech at the tribute, Earl Holding promised that ownership of the Sun Valley Resort would remain in the Holding family for the foreseeable future, including the lives of his children.
However, in a travel story published several days later, The Wall Street Journal was anything but glowing in its appraisal of the Sun Valley Lodge, the fabled hotel that has been host to movie stars and businessmen from the 1930s forward. It is also owned by the Holdings.
A writer for the newspaper’s Finnicky Traveler section snipped at what had once been "an outpost of luxury, glamour and impeccable service." The writer was distinctly unimpressed.
"With bland, institutional décor, little atmosphere, and few amenities, the hotel appears to have more in common with the naval-convalescence hospital that it served as during World War II than the famed destination of its heyday," wrote the Journal’s Laura Landro.
The Holdings plan to start work next year on a new 150-room high-end hotel.
Housing growing up?
CANMORE, Alberta — Located about 15 miles from the east entrance to Banff National Park, Canmore has a problem typical among pretty places. Housing prices have soared, and housing affordable to a service economy is becoming scarcer.
While the dream remains of suburban-style housing, an acclaimed architect and affordable housing specialist is telling Canmore it might want to build higher, smaller, and narrower housing complexes. McGill University’s Abraham Friedman says Canmore’s space could be used more efficiently if structures are shrunk in width and car parking is relegated to back alleys. He also advocates moving homes together to eliminate separation space and building units up to four stories. He also suggests duplexes and triplexes as a way of reducing costs.
Small homes need not be of poor quality or unattractive, he says. Japanese car manufacturers have learned how to build small, high-quality products that work efficiently.
The Rocky Mountain Outlook reports that the town’s absolute limit for structures is five storeys, and they generally require use of non-combustible materials, such as concrete and steel, which are more expensive than traditional wooden structures.
The architect’s ideas got limited support in Canmore. Cleo Prellwitz, executive director of the Canmore Community Housing, said the affordable housing need comes mostly from families who want full-sized homes with green space for their children. Canmore Mayor Ron Casey agrees further that Canmore might be unwilling to compromise its visual space. It would change the community’s physical character, he says.
But a municipal councilor, Corina Dootjes, welcomes a discussion. "I don’t think beggars can be choosers," she said. While some in Canmore may consider it a sacrifice to live without yards, in fact the surrounding public lands amount to a giant green space.
"We would be at the cutting edge and the forefront if we just opened our minds to what affordable housing could be," said Dootjes, adding that the 1950s dream of large backyards and white picket fences is a thing of the past.
The Outlook observes that while taller buildings are almost certain to be controversial if proposed for currently undeveloped areas, they would be even more controversial if proposed for infill areas.
Fur flying — off racks
ASPEN, Colo. — In 1990, Aspen drew national attention when voters weighed a proposal to ban the sale of fur. Voters rejected the ban after an extended and sometimes frenzied debate about whether fur coats caused unnecessary cruelty to animals raised for their fur.
Today, there is little more than the occasional letter to the editor to hint at anything other than acceptance – or, at least, indifference – toward furs and their wearers, reports The Aspen Times.
"The town that once flirted with a ban on fur sales is draped in the luxurious outerwear," the newspapers Janet Urquhart reports. "Fur sales are up dramatically and so is the number of stores that sells them. Minks and other fine furs proliferate on shoulders and in shop windows."
While wearers proclaim the heating properties of fur, rivaled only by that of down, all sources suggest that it’s all about fashion. "It’s a fashion statement," said Mark Goodman, a partner in Mark Richards Fine Outerwear. "We don’t carry any plain-Jane furs." In other words, he added, it can’t be something that your mother wore.
Mickey Alpert, owner of Aspen Fur and Shearling, reports having moved to a store that is twice as large. "The grocery store sells more dead animals than we do," he told Urquhart. "Fur is a farm-raised product, just like livestock."
Prices of fur coats and other fur-adorned shoes and clothing available in Aspen range in price from a few thousand dollars to more than $100,000.
Downtown upgrade doubles in price
BANFF, Alberta — Plans to update the century-old infrastructure of two key blocks of the main street in Banff and spiff up the district in the process have hit a snag. The bids on the sewer, water, and road work have come in at roughly double the budgeted price. The town had figured $11 million, reports the Rocky Mountain Outlook.
Big year for snow, visitors
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — Steamboat Springs continues to report impressive numbers. Through January, the resort had received 300 inches of snow, which is nearly the average for the full ski season during the last quarter-century. And that snow is one very good reason that tourists have been flocking there this winter. One recent day, all but one of the 1,080 airline seats flying into nearby Yampa Valley Regional Airport were booked.
Battery ban in Truckee
TRUCKEE, Calif. — Where do you put the double-A batteries from your digital camera when they’re out of juice? For most people, it’s straight to the trash.
But that is now an official no-no in Truckee and all other places in California. Effective Feb. 9, batteries as well as telephones, radios and microwave ovens must be disposed of as hazardous waste, which in fact they are. What these and other banned items have in common are components made of mercury and other heavy metals. Even sanitary landfills can rupture, with the toxins leaking into underground water supplies.
The Sierra Sun reports that local officials are talking about creating convenient drop-off places for batteries and other such items at local stores and other collection areas. Other items banned from landfills include fluorescent lights and computer printers.
The new ban applies to small businesses and homes; the ban was first applied to large companies several years ago.
Base village coming on line
TRUCKEE/LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — A Colorado-style base village is coming on line at California’s Northstar ski area.
The first phase of the project includes 72 condominiums, a large ice-skating rink and three buildings for shops like The North Face and Helly Hansen and restaurants like Earthly Delights and Euro Snaks. Some 70 per cent of the retail spaces have been leased, reports the Sierra Sun.
Construction last fall was slowed by rains. A shortage of materials resulting from the destruction of Hurricane Katrina also caused delays. Building of the second phase, which will include two buildings of condominiums, is underway. Developer of the project is Colorado-based East West Partners.
Hotel rooms become condos
TRUCKEE/LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — A $53 million renovation at Squaw Valley that includes conversion of 405 hotel rooms into 238 condominiums has been completed.
Of those condos, 200 have been sold. Still, with separate entrances to each room in the two-bedroom and penthouse condominiums, the former hotel rooms can function as before. As such, 375 rooms – 90 per cent of the original rooms – will be available for rent.
Next, the Resort at Squaw Valley plans to add 160 condominiums, a four-storey parking garage, and 50 employee housing units, although the construction schedule has not been nailed down.
Pollution requires stronger action
LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — An environmental lobbying group is calling for restricted development and air pollution in order to improve the clarity in Lake Tahoe. Historical accounts indicate the lake once had such clarity that objects more than 100 feet below the surface could be seen. Last year, scientists reported a clarity that allowed them to see only 74 feet.
The Environmental California Research and Policy Center issued a report written by Sujatha Jahagirdar that points the finger at air pollution. Studies have shown that more than half of the nitrogen that is fueling the algae growth in Lake Tahoe comes from air pollution. Other particles are also washed from the air during rain and snow storms.
The primary government body for devising and enforcing environmental measures is the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and it requires cleaner-burning wood stoves. The agency is also focusing on ways to get people out of cars and onto public transportation. But the environmental group wants to see stronger efforts, including even more restrictions on lake shore development. Defenders say that little development land remains, and that property owners must already follow strict rules that limit the impacts of their development.
Meth scares community
DURANGO, Colo. — Methamphetamine use continues to get into the headlines in Durango. The Telegraph reports that people in the rural areas of La Plata County are locking their doors and leaving the lights on at night after a series of break-ins into cars and trucks.
Crime statistics show no significant increase in theft, assault and burglary during the past year, although the number of assaults had been rising dramatically for most of the last decade.
But Wally White, a county commissioner, believes that 85 per cent of jail inmates are there for reasons either directly or indirectly related to use of methamphetamines. "No other drug has caused these kind of broad-based problems," he said.
For White, and others, the story is personal – he’s locking his doors.
Anguish over open space
TELLURIDE, Colo. — Telluride is in the midst of an anguished community debate about the future of a large parcel of land at the town’s primary entrance. That parcel of 500-plus acres is pastoral, a beautiful place of cows and, during late spring, dandelions glittering among deep green.
The land is also privately owned, and in a story line that began in the 1980s, the debate has been whether development will occur. Clearly a majority of town residents would prefer nothing happen, and with that as the guiding wish the town embarked on condemnation of the land, to force the owner to sell. The land is outside the town.
That condemnation effort has had repercussions far beyond Telluride, being cited as a classic case of a government arrogantly using its power of condemnation. But, while Telluride has set aside a goodly amount of money for open space preservation, there are major doubts that the town can come up with the money to pay fair-market value for the land, let alone defend its actions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, as some have predicted will be necessary. Meanwhile, Telluride and nearby Mountain Village continue to have the typical problems of where people who aren’t worth a million dollars are going to live.
A court-ordered mediation yielded a proposed settlement that would leave much of the land vacant, but allow some development of both big homes but also affordable housing. The town council proposed the measure, and the school district and county commissioners have endorsed it.
The debate has had no end of impassioned voices. Among them is that of the actress Darryl Hannah, who owns a home near Telluride. She began visiting Telluride in the 1970s. Her father, a developer from Chicago, could have purchased and tried to turn the real estate, but chose not to, she reports. And the parcel, called the Valley Floor, today is what keeps Telluride from being like other ski towns, a "mall with a mountain," she says. "This mountain town ain’t sellin’ out?" she exhorts in a piece published in The Telluride Watch.
Seth Cagin, publisher of The Watch, supports the compromise. "Can we afford to devote all of our resources to open space, even if it drives the cost of living here so high that only the ultra rich an afford to stay?" he asks.
Cagin also argues that the condemnation is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and he imagines Telluride becoming a poster child for what he calls "out-of-control environmental fundamentalism." The proposed settlement, he points out, would give the town 513 acres at no cost, giving the developers rights to build 22 homes clustered on 47 acres.
Microhydro power for lodge
REVELSTOKE, B.C. — A lodge used as a base for heliskiing in the Selkirk Mountains near Revelstoke is now being powered mostly by a small hydroelectric plant, called a microhydro. The microhydro eliminates the need to burn large quantities of diesel and propane, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere by 226 tons annually.
The Revelstoke Times Review reports that the dam, called a weir, measures 16 feet across. Site of the dam was chosen carefully so as to avoid separating the creek’s resident population of bull trout and their food source of invertebrates.
Total cost of the project has been $500,000, but given the reduction in cost of other fuels, the payback is expected within seven years.
Heritage or environment?
BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — How much should the past be glorified, if that past means creating environmental pollution? That’s the fundamental question being asked in Breckenridge, where the 19 th century architecture figures prominently in the community identity.
Because electric lights were not common until the 20 th century, that 19 th century look is achieved partially by installation of Welsbach-style lighting fixtures, which attempt to recreate the gas lamps that were once used. But like gas lamps, those fixtures cast the light upward, into the sky, not downward onto sidewalks and streets, which they are supposed to illuminate. As such, they are inefficient at their appointed task and also pollute the night sky. They blot out the visibility of the stars, not only locally but when combined with other lights, on a regional basis.
Still, studying this axis between architectural mood and environmental preservation, the town council came down on the side of nostalgia. And, unless plans change, it will implement that vision with lighting for new sidewalks in the town’s Wellington Neighborhood, a former mining area on the edge of Breckenridge.
The Summit Daily News reports that one resident, of the Wellington Neighborhood, Dave Rossi, is trying to reopen discussions. He points to not only preservation of the night sky, but also costs. The gas lamp-style lights cost four times as much and burn more energy, adding more costs as years go by. An architect, Matte Stais, likewise wants to revisit the issue. He suggests creating a baseline for light pollution, perhaps based on how many stars are visible from certain vantage points around the town.
While Summit County’s contribution to light pollution is still relatively small, it has grown noticeably in the past 10 to 15 years, says Dr. Robert Stencel, an astronomer who directs the observatory atop Mt. Evans, a 14,000-foot peak located between Summit County and Denver.
TDRs now worth $39,000 each
SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — Like most former mining areas, Summit County’s mountainous backcountry is a quilt of private land intermixed with federal lands, mostly Forest Service. Officials several years ago launched a program to consolidate development, mostly in towns. The thinking is that more compact and dense development reduces environmental impacts and also costs to governments.
To encourage this shift, explains the Summit Daily News, property owners can transfer building rights. So far, it has resulted in 70 per cent of the development potential in the Upper Blue River Valley’s backcountry either being extinguished or transferred.
The key to this transfer is a bank, although not of the conventional kind. Sellers can sell their development rights, and developers in urban areas can buy them. Essentially, 20 acres in the backcountry equals one development unit in an urbanized area.
The formula used for determining worth is based somewhat on transactions, with those backcountry parcels nearest towns having the highest potential market value, and hence the highest cost. The value of such a building right had been $34,000, but is being readjusted to $39,000.
