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Spring break cause for celebration

Visitors flock to Whistler for deals, fresh snow
1613spring

It will be a month or more before Tourism Whistler can put spring break 2009 in any kind of numerical perspective, but it was easily the busiest week of a challenging winter for local businesses.

It's difficult to compare the week directly with last year, when spring break coincided with the Easter long weekend, but numbers were above average.

"It was an unbelievable spring break," said Dave Brownlie, chief operating officer for Whistler Blackcomb. "From when the snow started we got 158 cm of new snow, which really transformed the experience into the true Whistler experience that residents and regional guests know and love. There was definitely a lot of pent-up demand in the marketplace to come and enjoy our product.

"If you look at past spring breaks outside of the Easter holiday period, this would be in our top three ever. It was a really successful nine-day run for us. It's been a challenging winter, but when the product is there it's unbelievable."

With that much snow falling it was tough to get lifts and alpine areas open, but Brownlie praised his employees for stepping up and working hard to get as much terrain open as early as possible each day, and for the quality of grooming while snow was still falling - the kinds of things that most visitors won't notice, but make all the difference to the guest experience.

Brownlie says better snow through the season would have increased numbers up to this point, but he believes the financial crisis would still have resulted in an overall decline over last season.

"There would still be challenges for us, but they wouldn't be as great," he said. "When you don't get the snow into February, you lose certain markets and momentum in markets to get people here."

Whistler hotels are also celebrating a good week.

At the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, rates were down about 30 per cent compared to last year with $99 deals still available for the hotel's 20 th anniversary, and the result was an actual increase in room nights over last spring break of roughly three per cent.

"It was very successful for us," said Chateau spokeswoman Lynn Gervais. "Obviously there was a lot of last minute pickup, which is the trend these days.

"Snow is white gold for us, we're seeing a lot of pickup every time it snows."

Gervais says the hotel is also being more aggressive with its promotions, and is focused on offering customers deals. For example, the Wildflower restaurant was offering different $10 dinners every night during spring break, as well as a $5 children's buffet from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. each night.

"We have to be really adaptive to people's needs right now, and provide value," she said. "Spring break saw a lot of families come here, so we looked at what we could do to accommodate families.

"The second prong of our approach is that we've made it our mandate this year to give everyone as many hours as we can, and we've been doing everything we can to keep people employed. That means keeping the restaurants busy, filling rooms, and being really aggressive with new promotions. The Fairmont is fortunate that we have a lot of amenities to work with, a lot of restaurant options, the pool, our health club, so people can see the value when they decide to come here."

The Hilton is also celebrating a good week.

"It was a certainly a better week with pickup for us, and there was certainly some short-term pickup which wasn't the case in the prior months," said Steve Webb, general manager of the Hilton Resort and Spa. "It was down from the last March break, but without Easter that was more or less expected. It was really quite positive for us.

"Certainly the increased snow base helped, especially with the nearby drive markets like Vancouver and Washington state region. We also have some good weekends ahead of us, although towards the end of April and in May it looks soft."

Since November, Webb estimates that business is down about 15 per cent. They have made some cuts in employee numbers and hours, but are doing everything they can to keep staffing and service levels up.

Jim Douglas, the general manager for Whistler's two Pan Pacific Hotels, called in a "great week."

"I think everybody was excited to have the snow and the business," he said. "Our net is down because the rate structure in the resort has changed from a year ago and what we charge for a room, but from an occupied room standpoint it was really close to last year's spring break."

While business has been down in general, Douglas is encouraged by how well Whistler is weathering the storm.

"My general feeling is that Whistler is well-positioned to compete in the destination vacation business," he said. "We have had some exciting new products in the resort in recent years, like Symphony Express and the Peak 2 Peak. And while it's challenging I think we're really fortunate to have the Olympics and all the media it brings, and the infrastructure. It's kind of like our very own economic stimulus package."

Douglas also believes that Whistler will come out of the economic downturn stronger, as businesses work together at an unprecedented level to draw visitors to the resort. He gave high marks to Whistler Blackcomb, Tourism Whistler, the Resort Municipality of Whistler and other partners for making the best of a difficult situation.

"We are doing well from a resort standpoint, compared to other resorts," he said. "Bullish would be the wrong word, but it's positive and we've made the best of the opportunities, and we're smarter, better and more coordinated as a group. It's easy to be a critic, but Whistler gets more right than it does wrong. Spring break was a good indication of that - snow matters, and we saw a lot of drive-up business, but it's not the only reason people came."

While the snowpack through December, January and February was below average, Douglas says the conditions were underrated for most of the winter. Although residents may have been frustrated, he says visitors have generally enjoyed themselves, as well as the warm weather and blue skies.

"I think it's fair to say that we had more sunshine in January and February this year than we did in July and August last summer, and people were happy to be out there," he said. "We have a reception every day, and the response was generally positive.

"I know we had one group that comes here every year from New York City, and they brought their powder skis with them. They were a little frustrated with the conditions, so we guided them to a rental shop and fixed them up with some carving skis to enjoy the groomers and they had a great time, and plan to come back next year. It's all what you make of it, and that was a positive outcome for the resort."

Looking towards the end of the season, Whistler Blackcomb is expecting business to taper off a little faster than other years but Brownlie says they're not giving up. The recent snow has provided a boost, and should continue to help numbers through the spring.

"I think the snow will help in our local and regional markets but we're still facing occupancy shortfalls from here to the end of the year as forecast by Tourism Whistler, and that sets the tone from the destination perspective," he said. "The resort has done a good job filling up with regional drive guests which is great, but... people just aren't spending as much, and that's just the reality.

"There's opportunity there and we don't want to lose it. Ultimately we need to drive revenue to the resort and bring people here for everyone to be successful."

At the start of the season Tourism Whistler predicted a decline in visitor numbers of 12 per cent, but with last minute bookings the number has been closer to 10 per cent. Bookings were off before the start of March break, but pickup increased before and during the week.