http://www.ResortAc.com features 50+ Olympic Vacation Rental Homes Available Now… DEALS & LAST MINUTE SPECIALS… Easily find owner-direct Whistler Olympic vacation rentals that suit your budget, while providing the amenities you want.
http://resortac.com/whistler_olympic_rentals.asp
Read the rest of this entry »
Whistler bookings are down for the pre-2010 period
Whistler’s big Olympic party is translating into a major gain for the B.C. Interior’s ski hills.
“They [skiers] are saying they don’t know where they’ll park their car, the prices are ridiculous, and ‘I’m coming to the Interior,’” Michael Ballingall, senior vice-president for the Okanagan’s Big White Ski Resort and Silver Star Mountain Resort, said in an interview Monday of the increased bookings they’re getting from people who would normally ski Whistler Blackcomb, but are worried about hassles during the 2010 Games in February.
“Our bookings out of the U.K. and Australia are down,” he added. “But out of North America, specifically the rubber-tire market in Washington state, the Lower Mainland, Edmonton and Calgary, the bookings are up and in some cases up over double digits. When you’re up over 10 per cent out of Vancouver, that’s a very healthy trend.”
Ballingall said Big White and Silver Star — with a combined 23,500 on-mountain beds — typically get one million skier visits per season and that they started getting bookings a lot earlier than usual this year.
“An interesting pattern is two-week holidays from West Vancouver [families] during the Olympics. We’ve seen a couple of dozen families with that pattern. They want to enjoy their skiing away from the crowds. That’s what we’re predominantly hearing. Whistler’s displacing a lot of traffic that would normally go there for a mid-February holiday.”
Tourism Sun Peaks president Christopher Nicolson said it’s similar at his mountain, although he’s seeing a lot more international skiers choosing Sun Peaks.
“We’ve already seen that in the long-haul market — Australia, the U.K., Europe, Eastern U.S. and eastern Canada. With the rubber tire [market] we’re starting to see that now. Anecdotal information suggests that the interior resorts will see a bump in traffic from Vancouver and Seattle.”
Nicolson said many clients who typically ski Whistler Blackcomb are saying they just don’t want all the hassle this year with such things as parking and security checks on Highway 99.
“But this isn’t a surprise for us. We’ve been working on an Olympic strategy for three years.
“Skiers are very passionate about skiing. They want to be on the mountain.”
Nicolson said another reason more people are choosing resorts like Sun Peaks is the lower prices compared to Whistler. “And we’re holding our prices to the same level as last year in most cases.”
Meanwhile, Tourism Whistler communications director Casey Vanden Heuvel said in an interview that before February, bookings are generally off in Whistler because of what’s called “Olympic aversion,” or a tendency by some skiers to avoid an Olympic mountain because they don’t like the crowds and assorted problems.
Vanden Heuvel didn’t have any actual numbers, saying only that he too is hearing that many skiers are looking to the Interior in 2010.
However, he said skiers should realize that nearly all of Whistler Blackcomb’s terrain is available to everyone all winter, including during the Olympics.
“In February, over 90 per cent of our 8,000-plus acres are available to ski and board. The mountain will not be closed.”
As well, he said, there are some exceptional deals. “In non-Olympic months, we have better value than they’d expect and far fewer restrictions than assumed.”
BY BRIAN MORTON,
VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 5, 2009
Whistler – Tourism Whistler (TW) is forecasting an increase in overnight stays of almost three per cent for the upcoming winter — an increase largely driven by Olympic visitation in February.
If the resort achieves 90 per cent occupancy during the 2010 Olympics and more than 60 per cent occupancy on the days surrounding the Games, February will see an increase in business of 21 per cent over last year, Arlene Schieven, TW’s VP of marketing, told a group at TW’s all member meeting Monday (Sept. 14).
At this point, single-digit declines are predicted for November, December and January, while the Paralympics could contribute to an increase in March, she said. The forecast for the season overall is to be 2.9 per cent busier than winter 2008-’09.
Meanwhile, TW’s summer 2009 results to date show continuation in the trend of last-minute bookings and walk-in traffic to local hotels. People are also staying closer to home, with continued declines in U.S. visitors and increases in visitors from around B.C. These trends are not unique to Whistler, Schieven said.
“Overall we’ve been doing fairly well this summer,” she said. “We had a phenomenal month this past August.”
For the first time ever, August was a busier month than January or March in Whistler. There was a 23 per cent increase in business last month, Schieven said.
With September and October still to come in what TW considers Whistler’s summer season, the forecast for the total season is for three per cent more hotel stays than summer 2008. While June and July were up slightly, September and October are expected to see declines.
Some of the increase in the number of hotel stays has come as a result of decreased rates — another trend that is taking place at many destinations, Schieven said. There has been a drop of 17 per cent in average daily hotel rates for the summer season to date, she said.
For the first half of 2009, Whistler saw a 27-per-cent decline in hotel room rates compared to the same period in 2008 — the largest decline in the country, according to the first-ever Canadian Hotels Price Index, released on Tuesday (Sept. 15).
Group tours and conference business are both down for Whistler, with a “huge” amount of attrition and cancellation so far in 2009, said Karen Goodwin, TW’s director of sales. New bookings at the Whistler Conference Centre are down 25 per cent, though hotels that host meetings are actually seeing an increase in business, she said. Overall, 2009 is expected to see an eight per cent decline in group business.
With tour operators unable to book trips for people in February because of the Olympics, it’s difficult to predict what will happen during the winter season and beyond, Goodwin said. However, the TW team is working to develop some theme months to help attract more value. January is being billed “Australia Month,” while March is “Family Month,” she said.
TW’s marketing strategies for winter 2009-’10 are focusing on the regional market for pre- and post-Games periods, while a separate campaign will target Games-time visitors to encourage them to return.
Meanwhile, TW’s communications team is working to leverage Games-time media exposure, said Communications Director Casey Vanden Heuvel. Millennium Place will be used as a media support facility for both non-accredited and accredited media, with services such as press conference space, working areas, and arranging for outdoor broadcast locations and “beauty cams” to provide rights-free broadcast footage, he said.
Before the all-members meeting, TW officials invited tourism expert Anna Pollock to give a presentation about the future of tourism in Whistler. An award-winning consultant, strategist, futurist and change agent with 30 years’ experience, Pollock said Whistler and other destinations must go through a transformation to be prosperous and stable in the long term.
Pollock said the Western world in general is in transition out of the economic model that’s based on always having more, and she encouraged Whistler in its efforts to promote sustainability. Whistler will get more street credibility doing things like starting the Whistler Centre for Sustainability than producing sexy marketing videos, she said.
Pollock also stressed the importance of giving people a remarkable experience when they come to Whistler. With social media increasing consumers’ scope of influence, it’s the consumers who are now marketers and consumer reviews that are the new advertising, she said.
Source: Whistler Question
JENNIFER MILLER JMILLER@WHISTLERQUESTION.COM
By David Ebner,
The Globe and Mail
VANCOUVER - The marketing sounds almost desperate. “Why on earth would you buy a season pass in 2010?” asks Whistler Blackcomb, Canada’s biggest ski resort, on the cover of brochures mailed this month to previous customers.
“Because,” the next panel reads, “we’re making you an offer you can’t refuse.”
It seems like a great deal. At almost 30 per cent off, the $1,100 price is the lowest in a decade for a season pass to a resort routinely ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in North America and well known as one of the best destinations in the world.
There’s a hitch.
Even though most of both Whistler and Blackcomb mountains will be open to skiers and snowboarders during the 2010 Winter Olympics to be held Feb. 12 to 28, access to the Whistler region two hours north of Vancouver will largely be restricted to buses for security and traffic reasons - not exactly convenient
for a family hauling ski gear.
Throughout all of February - often the best month of the season - there won’t be any day parking at the resort and overnight rooms will be nearly impossible to find and certainly not cheap.
The challenge for Whistler Blackcomb is the “Olympics aversion factor,” said Dave Brownlie, the resort’s president. Potential visitors are worried about getting tangled up in the congestion of the sports spectacle.
For Intrawest ULC, owner of Whistler Blackcomb, the Olympics bring a spotlight to an already famous ski resort. But this year, it’s bad for business. And Intrawest isn’t even sure it’s going to pay off in future years, like it did for Utah, a state whose excellent but lesser-known ski areas saw a 20-per-cent boost in visits after the 2002 Salt Lake City games.
Already hurt by the strong Canadian dollar, and hit by the global recession, Intrawest’s goals are modest.
The immediate goal is to stabilize business at Whistler Blackcomb, Intrawest’s key asset among 10 ski areas around North America and various resort-connected real estate. Its strategy is to target those who have spent money there before. It is going after previous season pass holders - or parents who had put kids in ski school and skied themselves on five- or 10-day discount cards - knowing that if they don’t sign up this winter, there is a risk they won’t come back next
year.
The long-term goal, while it is seeking big-time exposure, is also modest.
“Slow growth on the other side of this winter” is the hope, Mr. Brownlie says.
“It’s really about the future. The more people that stay committed to Whistler Blackcomb the better off we’ll be,” Mr. Brownlie said in an interview yesterday.
Bill Jensen, CEO of Intrawest, isn’t optimistic. First, the luxury travel market is lousy and the forecast remains tepid, regardless of talk of the end of recession.
Forget economic recoveries shaped like Vs, Us or Ws: Mr. Jensen sees a “hockey stick” for the ski business - a long convalescence after last winter’s sharp decline, which booked a 10-per-cent fall to 18.4 million skiers and snowboarders on the slopes in Canada after a record 20.5 million in 2007-08.
And any Olympics-related boost for business looks unlikely. “I don’t know if it will ever be measured in dollars,” Mr. Jensen said at a ski conference this summer. “The jury is out on whether we will experience … a longer-term sustained bump.” For other Western Canadian ski areas, Whistler’s pain is not a gain, said Robin Nasmith, president of Skican Ltd., a Toronto tour operator. The late January to early March period is tight for air travel, which means places like Lake Louise near Calgary (a hub for one-stop travel to Vancouver) will also face a hit.
But Mr. Nasmith is hopeful April will be big this year. “We just don’t see selling [Whistler] in February,” Mr. Nasmith said. “People who are skiers are not going to fight the crowds and the security and what have you.”
The discounts Whistler Blackcomb is offering is only the latest problem of the ill-timed and ill-fated acquisition of Intrawest at the top of the real estate bubble in 2006, by Fortress Investment Group LLC. The New York private equity investor and hedge fund manager paid $2.8-billion for Intrawest, which at the time made the bulk of its profit from real estate, not lift tickets at its ski resorts. Paid for with $1.7-billion of debt, the two-year loan came due in the middle of last fall’s credit crisis and Fortress managed to pull off a last-second refinancing, a testament to the New York firm’s skill and the strength of Intrawest’s business, but came with the promise to pay down the debt
as quickly as possible.
But it’s been a slow process.
In the spring, Mr. Jensen said all debt-reduction options were possible and talked specifically about selling off premier properties such as Mont Tremblant in Quebec. There have been subsequent rumours about the sale of Copper Mountain in Colorado and the Sandestin beach and golf resort in Florida. The only thing Intrawest has managed to sell is small lodging and commercial assets at two resorts in France.
While Intrawest’s debts are held by the company, its troubles are connected with the travails of its owner, Fortress, whose stock is down nearly two-thirds in the past year. However, with the market recovery, Fortress shares have jumped sevenfold from their December nadir, including a 19-per-cent gain yesterday when analyst Rogers Freeman of Barclays said Fortress’s “ability to realize long-term value from its investments” is improving.
From the outside, it looks like the attention on Whistler in February will pay big dividends, which makes Mr. Jensen’s public worry look unusual. (Mr. Jensen and Fortress declined interview requests.) However, company watchers say Whistler is already known widely among winter sports fans.
International viewers who see it on television during the Olympics will have already heard of it, said analyst Hayley Wolff at Rochdale Securities LLC in Stamford, Conn.
BY MIRO CERNETIG ,
VANCOUVER SUN COLUMNISTAUGUST 30, 2009
Here in Vancouver, it’s often remarked, the snow usually has the good sense to stay on the mountains where it belongs.
We had better hope that stays the case in 2010 during the Winter Olympics. But we may have a tiny little problem brewing thousands of kilometres away in the Pacific Ocean.
Our national meteorological service, Environment Canada, is warning that El Niño, the occasional warming trend of the tropical Pacific, is on its way…
read more here
Tourism officials in Whistler, B.C., are working to dispel a myth that there’s no place to stay for spectators during the 2010 Winter Games.
But while they’re stressing ample availability, albeit at high prices, Olympic organizers are conceding they’re still struggling to find space for themselves.
Organizers are looking at a worst-case scenario of busing workers and volunteers up from Vancouver to staff the alpine and Nordic ski events if they can’t get all the accommodations they need.
“We’re transporting people from Squamish and Pemberton for sure, regardless, and if we needed additional workforce transportation that was based out of Vancouver, that’s part of the solution as well,” Maureen Douglas, director of operations communications for the 2010 Olympics organizing committee, told a media briefing on Monday.
“But we’d really like volunteers and workforce to be as close to their venue as possible.”
Ongoing negotiations
The organizing committee, known as VANOC, won’t say exactly how many people it’s looking to accommodate in the Sea-to-Sky corridor, nor how many rooms they are short.
Douglas said that’s because negotiations for space are ongoing and they don’t want to jeopardize the plans.
One idea had been to use area schools to house workers, but that deal collapsed.
Another hope had been a bylaw passed by the municipality that would make it easier for people to rent out their homes to Olympics workers. But only two applications have been received for a permit under the new system.
Organizers are still examining the possibility of using a cruise ship in Squamish to house as many as 500 people and are also appealing to people to volunteer to house workers in exchange for event tickets, if they register their homes by June 1.
They have, however, finally secured all 3,000 rooms required to house Olympic officials, sponsors and the media in Whistler.
Aggressive campaign
Meanwhile, Tourism Whistler is keeping up an aggressive campaign to stress to spectators that there are potentially as many as 2,000 rooms available to them.
So far, officials say they’ve helped about 150 individuals and groups get rooms in the mountain resort, with an average price per bedroom of $600 per night.
Prices for rooms in Whistler during the Games range anywhere from 25 to 50 per cent more than the usual peak-season rates.
Officials said the central booking agency for the municipality, Whistler.com, has already sold $1 million worth of inventory for February 2010.
“The inventory that we have on is going quite quickly and we are getting new inventory on every day,” said Diana Lyons, vice-president of operations for Tourism Whistler.
Tourism officials say one challenge they’re facing is that people who usually rent their homes during winter months are opting to stick around so they can take advantage of the Games.
Source: CBC - The Canadian Press
http://www.ResortAc.com - Whistler Ski & Snowboard Festival - The many faces of Whistler Resort in 2009. Quickly search over 100 Owner Direct Whistler Vacation Rentals.
By Claire Piech and Clare Ogilvie Pique Newsmagazine
Fortress has close to $35 billion in equity by institutional clients and high-net-worth individuals. Its interests include real estate, newspaper publishing, aircraft leasing, shipping and telecommunications.
Until recently, said Turner, it was likely that asset managers would acquire under valued companies, break them up or turn them around, then sell for a profit - like the Fortress deal to buy Intrawest, which some analysts argued was an undervalued portfolio.
Now the future of private equity is somewhat uncertain.
The funds raised 60 per cent less in the fourth quarter of 2008 than the same time a year earlier, according to analysis by Dow Jones. In 2007, when Fortress first went public, shares were issued at $18.50, and closed the first day at $31. By the end of last year they were trading in the $1 range. Earlier this week shares were trading at about $2.30.
And challenges in the tourism sector, where visitor projections continue well below last year’s pace, make it much more challenging for Fortress to support a struggling Intrawest.
“Were conditions to deteriorate further for Intrawest, it would be harder for Fortress to step in and act as a backstop because their other businesses are not doing very well,” said Turner.”
“It just makes the situation that much more difficult for their relationship.”
Fortress does not reveal who owns the Intrawest private equity fund, even though its annual report lists the Fortress Intrawest Coinvestment Fund as the syndicate of lenders who bought Intrawest debt.
When Tuner talked to Pique in January, he speculated that Fortress may go private again.
“I don’t foresee the public company lasting much longer. Regardless of the real effect of the share price on their underlying business, that does not look good for an investment manager to be trading at $1.50 from just a prestige angle,” said Turner, referring to the low share price of Fortress funds at the end of 2008.
“I think it is a black eye for them, so I think their days as a public company are numbered.”
Turner did not believe Fortress would go out of business, though, and at the time he said he wouldn’t be surprised if Fortress considered selling Intrawest.
“I think they would be possibly very interested in off-loading Intrawest, but there is just no one buying,” said Turner.
“I would imagine that Fortress private equity business will stay intact and therefore Intrawest will stay a part of Fortress for some time.
Typically in a private equity firm, an investor will invest in a specific fund managed by the firm and become a limited partner in the fund instead of an investor in the firm itself.
A record $686 billion of private equity was invested globally in 2007, up over a third on the previous year and more than twice the total invested in 2005.
But Intrawest examines selling other assets to reduce $1.7 billion debt
By Claire Piech and Clare Ogilvie Pique Newsmagazine
As Intrawest ULC scrutinizes all assets in an attempt to reduce $1.7 of debt, the president and chief operating officer of Whistler Blackcomb said it is unlikely the number one ski resort in North America will be sold.
“I certainly can’t comment on Intrawest and Fortress, but I can say that Whistler Blackcomb is seen as a core asset to the success of Intrawest,” said Dave Brownlie on Tuesday afternoon.
“As a result, I am very confident that Whistler Blackcomb is not up for sale at this time.”
…
Intrawest has been hit hard by the economic recession, with fewer ski visits and a tough real estate market. In Whistler alone, skier visits were down 15 to 16 per cent, which Brownlie said “has a revenue impact on the organization and ultimately on Intrawest.”
As a result, all of Intrawest’s salaried, year-round employees had their wages rolled back to July 2008 levels, said Brownlie, and the company incentives won’t be paid until business picks up…
Despite 236 cm of snow and a spring break that was on par with last year, paid room nights in Whistler were down 10 per cent in March compared to the same period last year, according to the latest numbers released by Tourism Whistler (TW).
The good news is that Whistler continues to beat estimates, with TW forecasting a decline of 12 to 20 per cent in paid room nights at the start of the season. Those forecasts have become increasingly unreliable as more visitors book at the last minute.
“That’s held true for the entire winter as the percentage of last minute bookings has risen each month, and March was no exception,” said Jeff McDonald, manager of corporate and member communications for TW. “For March the percentage of last minute bookings was unusually high, in the area of 15 per cent (of paid room nights).”
To put that into perspective, last minute bookings accounted for 10 per cent of paid room nights in February, and slightly less than 10 per cent in January.
“There is still a fair bit of uncertainty in the economy, and we’re seeing that in the way people book their vacations,” said McDonald.
This week Tourism B.C. also released its own numbers for February, tracking overnight customs entries to B.C. and Canada.
U.S. overnight visitors dropped 16.1 per cent compared to February 2008, while nationally the decline was in the area of seven per cent. To date, U.S. overnight visitors are down 11.7 per cent to B.C. and 5.3 per cent for the rest of Canada.
Those declines were evident across the board, with Asia/Pacific Overnight visitors dropping 11.1 per cent in B.C. compared to 13.4 per cent for the rest of Canada.
European overnight visits declined 9.1 per cent in B.C. and 8.8 per cent for the rest of Canada.
The few markets where there was an increase in visits include Australia (up 4.9 per cent for B.C.), China (up 4.1 per cent), New Zealand (up 24.9 per cent), India (up 36.3 per cent), and South East Asia (up 31.4 per cent). The bright spots from Europe include Germany (up 16.6 per cent), France (up 57.2 per cent), Switzerland and Italy.
Taken together, overnight international visits to B.C. declined 14.2 per cent to 203,673 visitors in February over the previous year, which is almost twice the decline reported nationally.
Year to date, visits are down 9.8 per cent provincially and 5.4 per cent nationally.