Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Amandalina Letterio

BC HIGHWAY CLOSURES

Sun Peaks Resort, businesses expecting a higher than 50 per cent decrease in revenue this season

Dec 17, 2021 | 3:40 PM

SUN PEAKS, BC — Sun Peaks Resort is taking a financial hit for the third year in a row. Between the ongoing pandemic and the disruption to highway traffic throughout the province as a result of the flooding event earlier this year, it could be difficult for visitors from outside the region to visit the resort municipality.

“Between the COVID situation, the highways situation —we stay on our toes around here pretty much,” said Aidan Kelly, Chief Marketing Officer at Sun Peaks Resort.

With the new COVID-19 omicron variant and major highways closed to non-essential travel, the resort says it’s expecting a substantial decrease in visitors.

“We’re very dependent here on rubber tire traffic. Over the Christmas Holidays specifically, a vast majority of our traffic would be coming from the Seattle-Washington State area and the Vancouver Lower Mainland markets,” said Kelly.

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This year, Sun Peaks Resort expects to bring in less than half of the revenue it makes in a normal year.

“This Christmas is going to be pretty close to what last Christmas was, which is about a 50 per cent decline in people around the resort — Which would result in a higher than 50 per cent decrease in revenue,” Kelly explained.

Fewer visitors at the resort means businesses are seeing less foot traffic. The owner of Jardines Ski and Snowboard shop says he reduced his staff after he saw a decline in early December.

“It’s getting pretty quiet around here to the point where we’ve needed much less staff than we’ve had in the past,” Derek MacGowan told CFJC News.

“We get a lot of Vancouver traffic comes out here – and we’ve definitely seen a big reduction in that. The flipside is we definitely have seen, especially over this last year with COVID and all that kind of stuff, a huge increase in local traffic,” he added.

However, those local skiers from Kamloops and its surrounding areas are loving having the slopes all to themselves.

“It’s really nice to not have to wait a long time and most of the time also having a free chair lift,” said Geanne, a woman who resides in Sun Peaks.

“I just did a lesson this morning with some of the awesome instructors here and I kind of got a bit of a one-on-one lesson by accident, and the hills are totally bare so you kind of had it almost all to yourself — so it’s been awesome for learning,” a Kamloops woman, named Jillian, said.

“It’s perfect, lots of room up here right now. I think it would be a great opportunity for locals to come up here and enjoy the slopes,” said Josh, a Kamloops man.

The peak in local visitors helps, but Sun Peaks says it’s not enough to sustain the resort and restaurants.

“A long haul international guest or someone from Eastern Canada — they spend more money than the local market,” Kelly said.

“The local market, people are coming up, they’ve got their seasons passes — getting great value. Going home at the end of the night, having dinner at their house, that kind of thing,” he added.

To attract more regional visitors, the resort is offering some never-been-seen before deals. Although it’s facing some hardship Kelly says Sun Peaks is feeling positive.

“Even with all of those challenges, we still do count ourselves pretty lucky because there’s a lot of people in the province of B.C. right now, who aren’t as lucky that are going through more challenging times than us,” he said.