By Joel McKay
BC’s interior resorts are using their alpine charm to lasso corporate clients and foster intimate settings for meetings and getaways.
In southeastern B.C., Red Mountain Resort recently opened a $2.8 million conference centre and renovated day lodge in an effort to boost business and attract new clients.
The mountain, which is known for its “hard-core” skiing (45% of its runs are rated expert), was recently named a top destination for “core skiers” by the New York Times.
Red Mountain CEO and serial entrepreneur Howard Katkov bought the resort seven years ago after first visiting nearby Rossland (population 3,500) in 2000.
“I didn’t come here to buy a ski resort; I came here to start slowing down, but I fell in love with the place,” Katkov told Business in Vancouver.
Red Mountain is Western Canada’s oldest ski resort, and more than $65 million has been invested in it since Katkov bought it in 2004.
The resort boasts a new conference centre with a capacity for 120 guests.
Katkov said the renovations have boosted the resort’s business significantly, with bookings up 75% in 2010 compared with the year before.
The mountain also includes retail and restaurant services for guests and a new pre-fabricated cabin community at the base of the mountain.
Katkov said his resort is already attracting corporate clientele from the U.S.
“The convention [centre] is just a perfect suit for us because so many of our guests are sophisticated businesspeople who love this resort, and would love to bring their guests here. And that is starting to happen.”
But where Red Mountain is relatively new to the corporate getaway game, Sun Peaks Resort near Kamloops is an old hand.
Less than five hours from Vancouver, this Interior getaway is the second largest in B.C. and includes 7,000 beds, 35 restaurants and shops and a host of meeting facilities for groups of 10 to 300.
Christopher Nicolson, Sun Peaks’ president of tourism, said the resort is attractive to corporate clients who want to avoid the hustle and bustle of big resorts such as Whistler.
“The village, while sophisticated, is also quite intimate so outside the boardroom you have delegates still interacting with one another … if you go into a larger centre you’ll never see the person,” Nicolson said.
Geography also plays a big role for Sun Peaks.
Nicolson said the resort’s Interior location allows it to draw clientele from northern B.C. as well as the Lower Mainland, and airport access in Kamloops brings clients in from all over the country.
Sun Peaks also offers discounts for groups of 20 or more, and Nicolson said corporate clientele might also be interested in spring and fall getaways when the resort isn’t as busy.
“That provides an opportunity for a pristine environment for team-building exercises, but the advantage for the client of course is you’re looking at some attractive rates.”
In Kelowna corporate guests are in for another informal setting at Big White Ski Resort.
Michael Ballingall, senior vice-president, sales and marketing, at Big White, said that while the mountain doesn’t have big convention spaces it specializes in groups of 50 people or fewer.
Corporate guests often rent large houses or condos for their getaways, he said, although the resort’s ski-in-ski-out village includes a variety of accommodations, restaurants and shops.
Ballingall said 90% of the resort’s corporate clients are people who originally came to the mountain for a private vacation.
But even when a guest returns for a business function, most of his or her time is spent on the mountain.
Said Ballingall: “It’s amazing the amount of business that gets done on a chairlift.”