Ski Resort Sets Sights On Meetings And Incentives

<I>Mont Tremblant, Quebec</I> - A popular ski resort of about 80 miles north of Montreal, this provincial resort village was transformed from a leisure-only, four-season retreat into a corporate incentive and conference destination when the Chateau Mont Tremblant reopened in February.

The hotel, which is part of the Toronto-based Canadian Pacific Hotels & Resorts chain, expects about 60 percent of its new business to be conference related and another 5 percent to be drawn from incentives; the remainder will be leisure, according to director of sales Richard Lavallee.

"The Chateau really opens the doors to a whole new clientele--the meetings market, which the older Tremblant could not service because it did not offer the facilities," said marketing manager Sukie Houldsworth.

Lavallee is optimistic that the new emphasis placed on group travel coupled with chainwide marketing efforts will boost corporate sales.

"Having a good group base, a good corporate and incentive base, really secures business for us," Lavallee said, adding that the hotel's high percentage of convention business at the outset has resulted from pre-opening sales efforts. "We've been working on it for the past two years, and there's been a lot of cross-selling with other CP properties," he said.

In the Ottawa-Quebec region, CP has five hotels, including the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, the historic Chateau Laurier in Ottawa and the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City.

In addition to selling the Mont Tremblant as a stand-alone product, CP is promoting it as a possible venue for multiple destination meeting and incentive packages.

And because Vancouver-based Intrawest Corp.--which has developed U.S. resorts such as Stratton in Vermont and Snowshoe in Silver Creek, West Va.--has owned and developed the hotel since 1991, Lavallee believes Mont Tremblant is already making a presence on planners' radars.

The 316-room hotel, including about 50 suites, is a stone's throw away from the foot of the mountain and ski lifts, and features a health club, a restaurant, bar and underground parking.

The property's separate but adjoining conference center offers more than 16,000 square feet of meeting space, including an 8,300-square-foot ballroom and 19 meeting rooms of varying sizes, and bills itself as the largest resort conference center in Quebec.

In keeping with the theme of the Mont Tremblant, the Chateau's French-inspired architecture is similar to that of Old Quebec City with its pitched rooftops, corrugated shingles, old-fashioned chimneys and colored stucco exterior.

Besides the meeting space available at the Chateau, Intrawest is opening an additional 3,500 square feet of meeting space this spring and another 6,500 square feet in the fall. The space, located in the former Mont Tremblant Inn in the village, will complement the existing conference facilities at the hotel and will be a less expensive alternative for planners on a budget.

For skiers, the area has 74 ski trails and almost a dozen lifts. Tremblant also offers other winter activities, including dogsledding, skating, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. For the less adventuresome, the newly created village features more than 70 boutiques and restaurants, and a movie theater.

The resort also features a championship golf course, which was voted the second best new course in Canada by Golf Digest in 1996. A second course is scheduled to open late next year. Guests also can play tennis, mountain bike, rollerblade and kayak.

Although the Chateau will market itself to regional, national and international groups, Lavallee said it will focus a lot of attention on potential U.S. clients through the hotel's sales department and CP Hotels' national sales offices.

Because the property is new and untried, Lavallee acknowledged that rates--expected to average $100 this year--are flexible, especially during shoulder seasons and low-demand periods such as April, May and November.

"The first thing we're pushing is the destination, the whole village concept, the activities and so on," Lavallee said. "It's an hour and 25 minutes to Montreal and two hours to Ottawa, so it's also good for pre- and post-convention programs. We feel there's a lot of potential there."

Other accommodations in the Mont Tremblant village include a 120-room Marriott Residence Inn, plus a number of condominium units of varying sizes. A new all-suite hotel, Le Kandahar with 120 units, is scheduled to open in June. Houldsworth estimates the resort has about 800 guest rooms in the hotels and condos.