Hot on the heels of a record breaking summer, Tourism Sun Peaks’ president is predicting the trend of high occupancy will continue throughout this winter season.
Christopher Nicolson said bookings for this winter are “significantly ahead of where we were last year” thanks to a number of areas of growth.
Tourists from Australia and New Zealand have been booking their visits early and in increased numbers from past years.
“Indications from our Australian tour operators show Sun Peaks is performing as one of the top destinations for Canada. This relates to the strength in January which is the month most commonly booked by our Australian guests,” said Nicolson.
Also according to Nicolson, Sun Peaks is also ahead of most other Canadian resorts for tour group bookings with pacing up across the board, especially in January and February.
Ski clubs from the U.S. also account for a large number of bookings. With Sun Peaks’ recent new terrain and a strong U.S. dollar, the resort has become popular with U.S. ski clubs who come to train and explore. The resort’s strong snowmaking and good early season snowfall have also allowed ski teams earlier access to the resort before it opens to the public. Nicolson also credited the new terrain in Gil’s and on West Morrisey with attracting groups who want to ski it for themselves.
Throughout the fall TSP ran a number of promotions with the intention of increasing early bookings. One such offer was a ski and hotel package for two nights for the price of three. They also created a new online campaign called the “Sneak Peek” video series that used humour to make short, popular videos that were easily shared.
Some videos received more than 80,000 views.
Nicolson said this is one of the first years that summer growth expanded into all sectors, including regional weekend visits, event weekends, tour groups and international tours, rather than being limited to a select few and that this bodes well for the resort. The resort saw a 16.5 per cent increase in bookings from the summer of 2014 and in July alone there was a 20 per cent increase in room bookings
from 2014.
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