By David F. Rooney
RMR’s decision to rescind the late April bonus weekends it had originally marketed to skiers has disappointed both spring skiing fanatics and local landlords.
The resort had planned to close April 8 but re-open for two bonus weekends April 14-15 and 21-22. Now, it will just close for the season on April 8. One disappointed local skier, Jean-Marc Laflamme has started a petition to try and keep the runs open until May 1 So far, he has garnered 317 signatures. You can view — and sign — the petition at http://www.change.org. Enter the key words “Revelstoke Mountain Resort” in the search field at the top of the page.
One unintended consequence of the resort’s decision is that many members of the transient skier population who had rented rooms through until May 1 are now planning to leave town earlier than expected.
RMR’s Sarah Windsor acknowledged that the resort did offer bonus weekends last year, but this year is a different story
“Being that the end of our regular operations is closely tied to the Easter weekend (as it is for many ski resorts), we did include some bonus weekends last season due to the Easter holiday occurring so late in April (April 24, 2011),” she said.
“As many ski operators can attest, once Easter passes, our guests move… tend to visit less and less. As we are a new resort, we continue to experiment and adapt with our operations to deliver the best ski experience to our guests. A successful result of this growth has been our early openings that we delivered both last year and this season and have been very well received by our guests. Bonus weekends are just that and various factors make the decision to operate them. We will continue to assess our overall operations on a season-to-season basis in an effort to enhance the experience.”
Sounds like Jean-Marc’s gonna need a lot more than 317 signatures on that petition to change management’s mind at RMR.
