BEAVER CREEK — The 36th annual Mountain Travel Symposium landed in Beaver Creek this week.
Themed “Adaptation in Mountain Travel,” the six-day confab of several hundred resort operators, hoteliers, travel consultants and other mountain-business representatives revolved around the need for travel industry insiders to innovate and adapt to a rapidly changing world of travelers.
Wednesday’s presentations kicked off with Western mountain travel researcher Ralf Garrison presenting the ups and downs of today’s recovering resort travel business. The up: The 2010-11 ski season is tracking toward at least a top three finish. And the down: Revenue generated from that near-record number of skiers and snowboarders is lagging.
He noted that the deep-pocketed international travelers have been replaced by less-spendy local travelers.
The headliner for Wednesday was Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity and chairman of .
As Travelocity tapped the increasing use of the Internet to arrange travel plans, its sales climbed to $10 billion. Web-searching for the best price has hardly ebbed, giving rise to his wildly profitable and popular , which compiles and lists prices from a host of travel sites like Travelocity, Orbitz and Priceline.
“We live in a world of speed and convergence,” he said. “This is a world where choice happens instantly.”
Following Jones, a panel of executives raced through infomercial-like previews of their respective businesses.
Dave Hilfman, senior vice president of worldwide sales for United Airlines, detailed the woes of the airline industry and its fight to climb out of the recession.
The panel also included Steve Rice, vice president of CNL Lifestyle Properties, a Florida real estate investment trust. CNL has a $2.67 billion portfolio, including eight Western and eight Eastern resorts that it leases to operating companies like Vail Resorts.
Rice’s presentation revealed minor tweaks and investments at its resorts that resulted in large changes. “You don’t have to blow your brains out with capital investment to improve the ski experience,” he said.
