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Whistler firm designing resorts in China

Mountain planner says resorts could drive destination visits
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A prominent Whistler design firm is helping to develop resorts in China, developments that its lead planner claims could help bring destination visitors to Whistler.

Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners Ltd., a firm that has designed resorts including Whistler Blackcomb, Mont Tremblant and Sun Peaks, is now at work on Chinese resorts including Beijing Secret Garden, a $1-billion, four-season project located about 250 kilometres west of the Chinese capital.

Paul Mathews, Ecosign's director and head planner, said the Chinese resort and others he's designing there could drive up destination demand for Whistler.

"Having worked in Japan for 25 years then Korea for 15 it seems that the Asians really like the snow and skiing," he said.

"I think these resorts are going to bring a lot of customers to Whistler in future."

Developed by Malaysia's VXL Group, Beijing Secret Garden is on a site adjacent to the Great Wall of China and it will include ski hills, golf courses and a Whistler-style real estate/commercial area.

Ecosign is taking the lead on the resort's area master plan.

At build-out, the resort could include 22 lifts with capacity for 18,720 skiers at one time and a base lands design shows the ability to develop nine 18-hole golf courses and 138 land use parcels that could accommodate a maximum of 125,366 bed units. By comparison, Whistler's development cap is set at 61,234 bed units.

Once built, Beijing Secret Garden will be nestled between mountains and grasslands, with a golf course flanking both sides of the resort's entry road, making it the first thing that visitors see when they arrive. The project as it currently stands is expected to include seven golf courses in addition to the ski terrain.

Beyond that project, Ecosign has also completed the master plan for the Changbaishan International Tourism Resort, which is now under construction. Located in Jilin Province about 28 kilometres from China's Changbai Mountain, it has a pedestrian village and nine hotels that range from three- to six-star quality.

Once complete, the ski area will have a capacity of 7,000 skiers per day with two eight-passenger gondolas, three detachable six-passenger chairlifts with heated seats and two fixed-grip quadruple chairlifts. The resort is expected to open in November 2012.

"The middle class and upper middle class are growing like crazy," Mathews said of China. "They think that skiing and mountain resorts are a really cool thing. That's a place where they can go show off their style and also meet a lot of people (like them.)

"When you have a new country like that, just like we found in Russia and Ukraine, the first sort of full service resorts in, they just get swamped with latent demand. There is certainly latent demand in China in spades."

Mathews predicted that both projects would be "instant successes" and they're putting a special emphasis on beginner areas, designing gentle, flat slopes similar to Blackcomb's "Magic Chair" area and Whistler's "Olympic Station" learning area.

He predicted also that the projects would become "leader" resorts that could go on to bring more customers to Whistler.

"I would say it takes three to 10 years to build a true, committed skiing family," Mathews said. "They try it once or twice the first year, they rent their equipment. Then, if they like it, they get their own clothes and equipment, they get enough technique to navigate blue slopes, intermediate; if they get to that point they get pretty hooked.

"Then they'll start travelling to regional resorts (and) invest in real estate."

Don Murray, an Ecosign planner overseeing projects in Asia, agrees that Chinese visitors could want to come to Whistler. He said the mountains here make the community a "mecca of skiing" in North America, and that if visitors are coming to Canada then Whistler is the place they'll want to go.

"Everyone... will want to ski in Canada, in the United States or in Europe," he said. "They'll want to try those out as they become more proficient."

Whistler is aided as well by distance. It takes about nine hours to fly here from China, whereas it takes them 12 to 14 hours to fly to Europe.

Barrett Fisher, president and CEO of Tourism Whistler, agreed with the possibility that resorts in China could drive demand for Whistler.

"To have feeder mountains in the country that you're targeting would be a positive thing because then you're not only growing the awareness of skiing, you're actually growing skiers because they have a more local or national mountain, or mountains to be able to learn at and grow in that sport," she said.

"Our hope then would be that we can grow that interest into international visitation."

However, Fisher said that such development does not always grow demand in the way that Mathews is suggesting. Whistler has been targeting the UK for international visitation but many of their skiers tend to gravitate to areas in France, Australia and Switzerland.

But generally, as a rule of thumb, she said if there are mountain resorts in a country you're targeting that could grow demand for the sport.