One size does not fit all for Vail Resorts.
North America’s largest resort operator learned that lesson this month in Park City, Utah, where hundreds of local townsfolk rallied to oppose the company’s plan to trademark the name “Park City,” just as it had trademarked “Breckenridge” and “Vail.”
“My favorite sign was ‘You’re so Vail. I bet you think this town is about you,’ ” Park City’s former mayor Dana Williams said of the protest last week that drew around 250 locals, from kids wearing “Born in PC” hats to octogenarians who were around Park City back when it was all about mining, not skiing. “The town was pretty unified.”
Vail Resorts over the weekend backed off the trademark plan. Park City ski area chief operating officer Bill Rock , saying despite “misunderstandings and misinformation” about the trademark application, Vail Resorts was nixing the plan.
“This has clearly become a distraction that is pulling our collective focus away from the important work that lies ahead for our city on critical issues, such as affordable housing, parking and transit among others,” Rock said in the letter.Vail Resorts won Park City Mountain Resort in a , the ski area’s previous owner. Powdr Corp. missed a lease-renewal deadline with its mining company landlord in 2011, triggering a three-year legal showdown that ended with a from the ski area and .
Vail Resorts last year merged its neighboring Canyons ski area with Park City Mountain Resort, rebranding what would become the nation’s largest ski area As part of a $50 million plan to upgrade and unite the two resorts into a 7,300-acre ski area, Vail Resorts filed , seeking to trademark the Park City name.
But unlike in Vail and Breckenridge, locals quickly galvanized in opposition. not to oppose the municipal use of Park City and to allow local businesses to use the name. They also asked the resort operator to adjust its signage to eliminate confusion between town businesses and the ski area. Vail Resorts balked, saying it would work in “good faith” with local businesses but “it is not appropriate for the city to expect to have legal rights over our branding,” according to .
After the protest last week, city leaders said they might dealing with transportation, parking and affordable housing.
Williams, who was mayor of the city from 2002 to 2014, called it “a paradigm shift and a major tone shift.” Locals who opposed the trademark plan — gathered more than 3,300 signatures — are planning to ask Vail Resorts to more clearly differentiate the ski area from the town in its marketing, Williams said.
“I can understand that approach in Vail, where they pretty much built a ski town from scratch,” Williams said. “But we have 150 years of history here. There needs to be a greater level of respect for the community and our history. I don’t think it would be a disadvantage to Vail — at all — to kind of accentuate the fact that their ski area is in this beautiful old mining town.”
