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Tourism Whistler on the border

Successful opening weekend followed by long waits for Americans returning home Concerns about long border waits have prompted Tourism Whistler to lobby U.S Customs. "On Monday, after (U.S.) Thanksgiving weekend, we were on the phone to all our U.

Successful opening weekend followed by long waits for Americans returning home

Concerns about long border waits have prompted Tourism Whistler to lobby U.S Customs.

"On Monday, after (U.S.) Thanksgiving weekend, we were on the phone to all our U.S Customs and Consulate contacts and what we are looking at is proactively ensuring that they understand this is an issue," said Barrett Fisher, Tourism Whistler?s vice president of marketing strategy and business development.

"What we have committed to is that we, as Tourism Whistler, will communicate with Customs to provide them with key travel times when typically the border will be busy.

"We are trying to... provide them with a schedule to say this is where we need your support."

Customs, in return, have said they will try and move extra staff to work on those days highlighted as busy times by Tourism Whistler.

And Customs has told Fisher that they will keep in touch about their own staffing levels to help Whistler with its planning.

The Canadian and American governments have committed money for extra resources to keep border traffic moving smoothly. But, said Fisher, it is likely there will be at least four to six months of lag time before extra staff make a real impact on the crossings.

Last Sunday, as Americans returned home from the long weekend, U.S. Customs had five new officers working the borders but there was still a three to three and a half hour wait to get back into Washington State. All crossings were fully staffed.

Part of the reason for that was higher than expected volume.

"Certainly that was a spike at the end of the long weekend when you had a lot of people coming back at the end of a long weekend," said Customs spokeswoman Cherise Miles.

The combination of the opening of the ski season at Whistler-Blackcomb, the U.S. long weekend, and the low Canadian dollar, which is attracting American Christmas shoppers, all contributed to the wait said Miles.

"We have to look at it and work out something that we can do for the next time to alleviate the wait times."

Over and above the discussions with U.S. Customs, Tourism Whistler is also working with the hotels and Whistler-Blackcomb to offer some packages which would encourage people to return home on days other than Sunday.

Deals night be offered in which customers checking out on Monday would get deals on skiing or other activities.

And, said Fisher, different transportation packages are also being looked into.

"We are looking at train and bus packages with people travelling to Vancouver on Amtrak then taking the bus to Whistler," said Fisher.

While this may be attractive for couple or single travellers the car will probably remain the most popular way to get to the resort.

Whistler-Blackcomb reported that ski and snowboard visits exceeded last year?s American Thanksgiving Thursday by more than 10 per cent.

"Overall the weekend was good," said Stuart Rempel, vice president sales and marketing for Whistler-Blackcomb.

Whistler and Blackcomb had enough snow to offer skiing and boarding on the top one-third of the mountains, which was more than the Vancouver and many Interior mountains could offer.

And U.S. visitors had time off and a low Canadian dollar to boost their desire to travel.

"It?s a testimony to the great effort and partnerships in the community between all the partners, the mountains, the hotels, and Tourism Whistler," said Rempel.

"We did a great job. Had we not done a lot of this marketing we would not have been quite as successful.

But this is no time to rest on past laurels, said Rempel.

"We need to continue to work really hard as a resort and focus on the rest of the season," he said.

"From the destination market there is still a certain amount of uncertainly going forward.

"Some of the peak areas, like Christmas, we expect to be reasonably good but this week it is pretty quiet here. Hotel occupancy is off of last year?s pace and of course the occupancy drives a certain amount of visits."

While no statistics are available for occupancy yet, Fisher said: "From all indications we think (the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend) could potentially be stronger than it even was last year.

"And that is a very encouraging sign for how the ski season is unfolding."

Many of the booking were last minute, made just days before the weekend started.

Licence plates in every parking lot in Whistler told the story, with virtually every second car sporting a Washington plate.

Fisher hopes that now the snow is falling the bookings will be even stronger.

"Once the snow is falling you will see people say, ?yes, Whistler is the place to go,? and interest will peak and we will see it grow from here."

Not content to leave it to the weather, Tourism Whistler is also continuing with aggressive ad campaigns in the Lower Mainland, on television, radio and in the daily papers.

Full and half page ads are also running frequently in the Seattle papers, and in San Francisco quarter page ads are common.

In Oregon a direct mail campaign has just been launched.

"There is no doubt we have seen an increase in call patterns as a result of the campaigns and an increase in bookings," said Fisher.

"What we are seeing is there is definitely a shopping around as people are looking for good packages and good prices.

"But we are confident that we are offering very attractive packaging because we used our research and we created packages based on what each market was looking for."

For example, kids can stay and ski free as part of a vacation package offered to travellers from Washington state.

Said Fisher: "There is a lot of lobbying efforts in conjunction with communication efforts, in conjunction with marketing efforts, to make sure that we are coming up with some proactive ideas to ensure that we are making it convenient for our guests."