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Intrawest restructures non-real estate holdings, prepares for growth

Smythe co-leader of new Leisure and Travel Group

Intrawest is poised to make a major move in the tourism industry after this week announcing a wholesale restructuring of all its non-real estate entities into a new Leisure and Travel Group.

"There are huge opportunities when we do that to leverage the organization, to get the synergies out of that," said Hugh Smythe, who becomes co-president and chief operating officer of the Leisure and Travel Group.

"What has happened… (after Intrawest’s resort acquisitions of the ’90s) is we’ve got a lot of independent operations, and that has worked extremely well," said Smythe.

"But the leisure environment that we operate in since Sept. 11, and probably even just a little before that… has changed. And quite frankly, out there, it’s just a different leisure and travel world, so to speak. There’s a lot of capacity out there. Our competition, specifically Whistler-Blackcomb’s competition, is not just other mountains – it’s everything: cruise ships, and all of those kinds of things are out there.

"We need to really refocus on what that looks like in the new environment. There’s more golf courses, more resorts, more development in Vegas, more development in Orlando and there’s more all-inclusives in Mexico."

The new Leisure and Travel Group includes all of Intrawest’s mountain and warm-weather resorts, it’s 36 golf courses, lodging and central reservations businesses, retail and rental businesses and Club Intrawest.

The Leisure and Travel Group – a temporary title – will be led jointly by Smythe and Dan Jarvis. Smythe was formerly president of Intrawest’s Resort Operations Group. He will continue to be based in Whistler but will be on the road a lot.

Jarvis will continue to work out of Vancouver. He was formerly Intrawest’s executive vice president and chief financial officer. His new titles are president and chief executive officer of the Leisure and Travel Group.

John Currie, who has been with Intrawest in a senior financial role for 15 years, takes on the position of acting chief financial officer, pending board review.

Intrawest President Joe Houssian calls the restructuring the biggest thing to happen to the company since it spun off its urban real estate in 1994 to concentrate on mountain resorts.

The Leisure and Travel Group’s operations will not be limited to existing Intrawest resorts. The restructuring is intended to take advantage of information technologies, direct marketing, e-commerce sites and other systems that have existed and are now being co-ordinated under the Intrawest umbrella.

"This is being done to have a platform for the next phase of growth," Smythe said.

"This is being done to grow the organization.

"And what it means for Whistler is…. We probably have 3.5 million individual customers. How are we going to do a better job of informing them as it relates to this resort?

"In the past we’ve kind of… quite frankly we haven’t done the greatest job of creating customers across (our resorts) and (Whistler-Blackcomb) is a place they want to come. We can do a much better job of doing that, both from leveraging our marketing and sales and through the systemization of some of (our information)."

Transfers will go the other way, too. Dave Brownlie, who has been vice president finance for Whistler-Blackcomb, is now chief operating officer for Whistler-Blackcomb and Panorama and executive vice president of the Leisure and Travel Group. His new duties will include sharing standards and best practices at Whistler-Blackcomb with other Intrawest resorts.

"This gives us an opportunity to leverage Intrawest’s resources," Brownlie said.

Doug Forseth’s title changes from vice president of operations at Whistler-Blackcomb to senior vice president of operations. He will continue to be involved in Whistler-Blackcomb’s preparations for the 2010 Olympics.

"We’re really lucky that we’ve got the Olympics," Smythe said. "You look at where we have been this past year, and things have been a little flat, and you go, ‘gee we’ve got something that is just absolutely phenomenal to look forward to,’ and we’re extremely lucky to have that opportunity.

"To make sure that we don’t squander that opportunity, and that we work on it, Doug’s connection to that is going to be significant. He’s handled a lot or most of the details, but that’s just the start."

Smythe said when he looked at streamlining the company he was also looking at how to leverage the assets Brownlie and Forseth represent.

"These two guys did a phenomenal job of bolting together two competing operations," Smythe said of the merger of Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb seven years ago.

"A the end of the day it’s people who make the resort. People like Dave and Doug lead the resort."

Smythe said the Leisure and Travel Group will be one of the most diverse companies in the tourism industry, with expertise in everything from golf to skiing to lodging to marketing to the Internet. It will look not only at "organic" growth within Intrawest but also at what opportunities may be available through partnerships.

"The total leisure and travel industry is worth trillions of dollars world-wide," Smythe said. "We have lots of room for organic growth. We haven’t even started (looking at partnership opportunities)."

But the common thread is all components of the group are in the business of selling experiences.

"We’ve got a huge opportunity as a company to go through this new, unique (post 9/11) environment," Smythe said.

"I think the market has been looking for this, to some degree," he said. "It needs to be scaleable. Now we can do that. We have the systems and the people."