From Tahoe to Telluride, there are more choices awaiting meeting planners in high-altitude Western destinations this year. Many mountain resorts have either upgraded existing infrastructure or are opening new upscale properties that were financed during the heyday of the condo and fractional ownership boom.
Summer remains a relatively good value for meetings in many mountain areas, although resort operators in general have found success in extending the tourist season beyond the snowy months. And at some resorts, especially those near national parks, summer has always been a time of high demand.
Colorado
"Summer is a great time to be in the Colorado mountains with lots to do, and music, food and wine festivals to tap into," says Heather McCarthy-Savoca, director of sales and marketing at The Arrangers, a Denver-based DMC.
"In this economy hotels are more open to negotiation. Rates are lower in the shoulder seasons—mid-April and May and September, October, and November, but groups must be more flexible as not all activities are available."
Vail Valley is currently a hot spot for upscale resort projects. According to the Vail Valley Partnership, new development stands at $2.5 billion—and that excludes Vail Resorts’ proposed $1.5 billion Ever Vail resort, for which the company began the permit process late last year.
According to Chris Romer, director of sales and marketing for the Vail Valley Partnership, there are plenty of good reasons to meet in Vail once the snow melts.
“Summer is a hidden gem,” he says. “Rates are lower than winter. Events and activities are limitless.”
Vail Village welcomed its first new hotel in decades with the December 2007 opening of the 138-room Vail Plaza Hotel & Club with 7,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space. The 121-room Four Seasons Resort Vail, which includes residences and conference facilities, opens late this year at the village’s main entrance.
In Lionshead Village, Arrabelle at Vail Square, a RockResorts property, opened early last year with 86 rooms and condos, a spa and conference space. West of Lionshead, the 11-acre Ever Vail site calls for over 1 million square feet of mixed-use space, including a RockResorts hotel. The Ritz-Carlton Residences is slated to open on a site between Lionshead and Ever Vail by late 2010.
Also in Vail, the 292-room Vail Cascade Resort & Spa completed a $30 million renovation in December that included new meeting rooms, bringing function space to 45,000 square feet. In November, the 140-unit Manor Vail Lodge reopened with more than 7,500 square feet of meeting space after a renovation and expansion. And last July, the Lodge at Vail, a RockResorts property with 165 rooms and a 5,500-square-foot ballroom, opened an 11,000-square-foot spa.
Elsewhere in the valley, the new 210-room Westin Riverfront Resort & Spa opened last September in Avon with 4,000 square feet of meeting space, announcing it was on track to achieve LEED certification. And in December, RockResorts re-launched The Osprey at Beaver Creek, the former 45-room Inn at Beaver Creek, after a $7 million transformation.
Aspen Skiing Co invested $35 million in on-mountain improvements for the Snowmass, Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk resorts for the 2008-2009 winter season. In total, 13 new restaurants opened for the season in the Aspen/Snowmass area.
Some of Aspen’s upscale, celebrity-packed limelight stands to rub off on Snowmass, 10 minutes away, where Related WestPac’s new $1 billion, 80-acre base village took shape for its second winter season.
Hayden Lodge and Capitol Peak Lodge, with an 8,000-square-foot conference center, are the first new Snowmass accommodations in more than 20 years. The new village has residences, restaurants, boutique stores and a new 25,000-square-foot children’s center.
Telluride’s Mountain Village has two new upscale boutique hotels: the 30-suite Lumiere Telluride, which opened last fall, and the 148-room Capella Telluride, which opened last month. Adjacent to the 11,000-square-foot Telluride Conference Center, Capella Hotels & Resorts’ first U.S. hotel offers 8,500 square feet of meeting space.
In southwest Colorado within the Gunnison National Forest and Elk Mountain Range, Crested Butte Mountain Resort has been upgrading and expanding its meeting space, now totaling 25,000 square feet.
Under new ownership, the ski area has invested over $200 million in improvements. The Lodge and Conference Center at Mountaineer Square, with 9,000 square feet of meeting space, opened as part of a new ski village in time for the 2007-2008 ski season.
The former Club Med, now the 240-room Elevation Hotel, reopened in December following a renovation, contributing another 11,000 square feet of meeting space.
California/Nevada
Just outside Yosemite National Park, the 244-room Tenaya Lodge will complete an expansion in May, almost doubling its meeting space. Its former 6,000-square-foot ballroom is expanding to 10,000 square feet; breakout areas, restaurants and an 8,000-square-foot spa are being added.
In November, the lodge acquired the adjacent Apple Tree Inn, adding 50 cottage-style units to its existing 244 rooms.
“Groups will have greater flexibility and Tenaya will be able to accommodate much larger groups,” says Jonathan Farrington, regional director of sales.
He says that although groups enjoy Yosemite year-round, summer is peak season and has the highest rates. However, there is less competition for meeting space.
Just 30 miles south of Yosemite’s eastern entrance is the town of Mammoth Lakes, five miles from the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.
The ski area has 600 guest units in three properties. Mountainside Conference Center, its largest meeting facility, has 6,600 square feet of space and is across from the 211-room Mammoth Mountain Inn, which has an additional 2,365 square feet. A handful of other event venues includes the Village Conference Center at the 204-room Village Lodge, with another 3,700 square feet of meeting space.
Mammoth Lakes also boasts the 230-room Westin Monache, which opened in 2007 with 2,000 square feet of meeting space.
According to Jamie Lokan, tourism sales manager at Mammoth Lakes Tourism, winter is high season.
“We’re pushing for summer groups,” she says. “Summer is beautiful. Rates are lower. The ski area becomes a mountain bike park. We have golf and hiking and rock climbing, and trout and fly-fishing, and geocaching, and there are gondola rides and scenic tours.”
With North America’s largest alpine lake and surrounding Sierra terrain, Lake Tahoe’s North Shore offers more than 30 meeting sites with a total of 200,000 square feet of space and 7,000 guest rooms.
The big news is the opening of The Ritz-Carlton Highlands this fall. Situated mid-mountain at Northstar-at-Tahoe in Truckee, Calif., the 173-room property will have 14,000 square feet of function space and a 20,000-square-foot spa.
Tahoe’s South Shore has 4,000 hotel rooms and 100,000 square feet of meeting space. It is home to Stateline, Nev., where four casino hotels: MontBleu Resort, Casino and Spa; Harveys Resort & Casino; Harrah’s Lake Tahoe; and Horizon Casino Resort provide a combined total of 69,000 square feet of that meeting space.
In addition to 24-hour gaming and world-class entertainment, activities range from lake cruises to hiking, fishing, golf, tennis and mountain biking.
Construction on the $420 million Chateau at Heavenly Village on the California side across from Harveys was halted last year while the developer seeks financing. RockResorts pulled out as a partner last May.
Originally slated for completion this summer, the project is to include 470 rooms, a 50,000-square-foot convention center and a spa.
Idaho
According to Bronwyn Patterson, spokeswoman for the Sun Valley/Ketchum CVB, Idaho’s Sun Valley has winter and summer peak seasons, although more visitors arrive in summer.
“Groups can plan outdoor activities more easily in the summer when the weather is wonderful,” she says, adding that popular activities include hiking, biking, fly-fishing, horseback riding, golf and rafting on the Salmon River. Shoulder seasons are April to June and September to December.
A revamped CVB website (www.visitsunvalley.com) launched in December and includes a meetings/groups section with an online RFP.
“More and more groups are coming to the area and we wanted to make it easy to find information,” Patterson says.
Eight hotels and resorts have meeting space. The largest, Sun Valley Resort, has 540 rooms and lodging units and a convention center accommodating groups of up to 1,200. Last August, the resort unveiled an additional nine holes of golf and a new 58,756-square-foot golf clubhouse featuring a restaurant, bar, pro shop and indoor driving range that doubles as its Nordic Center in ski season.
Montana
For the 2007-2008 winter season, Montana’s Whitefish Mountain Resort celebrated its 60th anniversary, changed its name from Big Mountain Resort and spent $20 million on upgrades.
Included was a new 35,000-square-foot Base Lodge with event space for up to 300. Several other Whitefish venues offer meeting space; lodging ranges from budget hotel rooms to luxury condos.
Bordering Yellowstone National Park, Big Sky Resort can take groups of up to 750 and is one of North America’s largest ski resorts.
Its Mountain Village and Yellowstone Conference Center, which underwent upgrades for the 2008 summer season, together provide over 55,000 square feet of summer meeting space. Its village offers a dozen lodging choices, from a luxury hotel to townhouses and condos.
Twelve miles from Big Sky and five miles from the Yellowstone boundary is the 320 Guest Ranch along the Gallatin River, which has accommodated guests since 1905. Noted for fly-fishing, it has 87 rooms, an emphasis on big game cuisine, meeting space that includes a 2,400-square-foot ballroom and such summer recreation as horseback riding, hiking, rafting and mountain climbing.
“We do well with weddings on weekends and corporate groups during the week,” says Sales Manager Daniel Evans, adding that summer is peak season.
Pacific Northwest
Last April, the 254-room Lodge at Suncadia opened overlooking Washington’s Cle River Valley at Suncadia, a year-round, 6,400-acre mountain resort community 80 miles east of Seattle.
The new property has 16,000 square feet of indoor meeting space and an adjacent 9,900-square-foot spa. The resort’s existing 18-room Inn at Suncadia offers an additional 5,000 square feet of meeting space. A third golf course is slated to open this spring.
According to Jack Schmidt, vice president and regional director of sales and marketing at Destination Hotels and Resorts, Suncadia’s operator, the lodge’s first summer exceeded expectations.
“Advance summer group bookings are looking good in spite of the economic slowdown,” he says. “The major challenge is communicating the size and scope of the project.”
Peak season, he explains, is summer, when group activities include bicycle scavenger hunts, geocaching, fly-fishing lessons, golf tournaments and hiking.
Minutes from, Mt. Hood, Oregon’s highest mountain, and less than an hour southeast of Portland is The Resort at the Mountain in Welches, which has new ownership and is completing a $17 million renovation. The 160-room resort, which has 18,000 square feet of meeting space, is opening a new spa in May.
According to resort spokeswoman Sarah Biggerstaff, peak season is May through October, and off-season, December through March. Summer and fall activities include golf, tennis, swimming, volleyball, badminton, cycling, croquet, lawn bowling and horseback riding; in winter there is skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, sledding and snowmobiling.
Western Canada
Whistler, 75 miles north of Vancouver, British Columbia, will be host to the 2010 Winter Games next February, which will be followed a month later by the Paralympic Winter Games.
“In winter people are concentrated on the mountains. In the summer they spread out into the valley. Summer is great. There is so much going on, and rates are lower. Golf is huge for us, and so is mountain biking, which is growing in popularity,” says Jeff McDonald, manager-corporate and member communications for Tourism Whistler, adding that other activities include hiking, rock climbing, ziplining and water sports.
Three new Winter Games venues provide additional attractions. Visitors can take tours of the new Whistler Sliding Centre (bobsleigh and other events) and self-guided tours of Whistler Olympic Park (Nordic and cross-country skiing, biathlon and ski jumping).
December saw the unveiling of the new 2.7-mile PEAK 2 PEAK Gondola, which stretches from the top of Whistler to the top of Blackcomb Mountain.
The Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre opened last summer. Featuring the heritage and culture of the Squamish and Lil’wat First Nations, it includes a museum, a theater and a Great Hall that can accommodate banquets for 270.
Whistler has 3,200 hotel rooms, more than 5,000 other guest units and 22 properties with meeting space. Four village properties, the Fairmont, Hilton, Four Seasons and Westin, together offer almost 70,000 square feet of meeting space. The TELUS Whistler Conference Centre has 40,000 square feet of rentable space.
In Alberta, the magnificent natural beauty of the Canadian Rockies is a draw for meeting and incentive groups. The Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper areas, known for such premier hotels as the Fairmont Banff Springs, Fairmont Chateau Lake Louse, Fairmont Jasper Lake Lodge and Rimrock Resort Hotel, offer a wide variety of activities for groups in summer as well as winter.
The region’s premier meetings and cultural venue is Banff Centre, which offers 60 meeting spaces that include an IACC-certified conference center, theaters and auditoriums.
Utah
With three ski resorts, The Canyons, Park City and Deer Park, and almost 30 properties with meeting space, Park City continues to add to its upscale resort collection.
“New luxury properties joining the mix show this is much more than a ski town,” says Ashley Andersen, meeting and convention sales and marketing manager for the Park City Chamber & Visitors Bureau.
“Summer group business is very important to us. The bulk of meetings take place during this time,” she says. “Room rates are a better value. In fall and spring, meeting planners can find even more added value and some killer rates.”
Popular group activities include hot-air balloon rides, rafting, hiking, biking, ziplining, gondola rides and watching the Flying Aces perform athletic feats at Utah Olympic Park. Main Street has quaint shops, galleries and restaurants, and as Andersen points out, Park City has “free in-town transit just about anywhere you want to go.”
Last fall, the new Swaner EcoCenter, a 10,000-square-foot environmental facility, opened. Overlooking the 1,200-acre Swaner Nature Preserve, it has a variety of meeting and event spaces and can handle groups of up to 150 people seated.
Dakota Mountain Lodge & Spa, a Waldorf=Astoria Collection property, opens in June at the base of The Canyons. The ski-in/ski-out resort will feature 197 guest rooms, condo units, a 20,000-square-foot Golden Door Spa and a 15,000-square-foot ballroom.
The 97-suite St. Regis Deer Crest Resort & Residences opens Aug. 1 in Deer Valley, with 8,000 square feet of meeting space and a spa.
Slated to open in late 2010, the 173-room Montage Resort under construction in Deer Valley will include a 35,000-square-foot spa and 14,000 square feet of meeting and function space.
Opened in December 2007 in Old Town, and a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, the Sky Lodge offers 33 suites, a 6,500-square-foot Amatsu Spa and conference facilities for 35 people.
In Midway, between Park City and Sundance, Zermatt Resort and Spa, which opened in 2006, features 38,000 square feet of function space, including an IACC–approved conference center.
Like Park City, Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort is southeast of Salt Lake City in the heart of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Its has 882 rooms in four lodges and 29,000 square feet of meeting space that expands to 50,000 square feet during summer with a 1,000-seat outdoor tent.
Last summer Snowbird opened a new 24-foot, four-station climbing wall; this summer it will add a mountain bike trail, which, according to spokesman Jared Ishkanian, will be of a higher caliber than the existing trails.
“Snowbird has made a very conscious effort to be a four-season resort, and through summer family-friendly activities we’ve seen a pretty considerable bump in summer business. We also host a Rock and Blues festival and a Folk and Bluegrass festival that are big hits every year,” he says.
Summer group activities include an aerial tram, alpine slide, horseback riding, hiking and biking. According to Ishkanian, summer peak season occurs in July and August, while the lowest rates are in May, October and November.
Wyoming
Summer activities in Jackson Hole run the gamut. There is boating in Grand Teton National Park, along with golf, fishing, horseback riding, overnight wagon rides, ballooning, scenic flights, rafting and river trips. Yellowstone is just 56 miles from Jackson.
“Peak summer tourist season is late July-early August. Peak for winter is February. Groups start coming in May and trickle into November, and June and October are great months for groups, although not all activities are up and running,” says Heather Falk, tourism manager at the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce.
Indoor/outdoor meeting space will increase by 9,000 square feet before summer with the opening of the new Grand View Lodge & Spa, with condo suites and an 11,000-square-foot spa.
Its sister property, the 204-room Snow King Resort, has more than 40,000 square feet of meeting and event space. Other meetings hotels include the Jackson Lake Lodge, which can take groups of up to 700, and the Four Seasons Jackson Hole, with 8,000 square feet of meeting space.
The newest property, billed as an “eco-boutique” hotel, is the 72-room Hotel Terra, which opened last year in Teton Village with a spa and meeting space.
