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« Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Kaatskill Mountain Club Signals Upscaling of New York's HunterBy  A snazzy new fractional ownership lodge and hotel, the $26-million Kaatskill Mountain Club, at its base symbolizes the gradual upscaling of Hunter Mountain, the venerable Northeast ski area. A longtime favorite weekend trip for blue and white collar singles who work and live in New York City and its suburbs, Hunter, in New York's Catskill mountains, has been moving in the direction of a more affluent, more family-oriented and more ethnically diverse crowd for several years now. That new brand image took a giant leap forward this summer with the opening of the Kaatskill (the original Dutch spelling) Mountain Club. It is the biggest single expansion in the history of the mountain since its opening more than 40 years ago. Hunter loyalists who still have "a hard core notion" about what the ski area is -- a place for guy-groups of firefighters and police officers who might take a ski club bus trip up on a Saturday, will have to revise their notions," said Rob Megnin, the marketing director. "This is very important to us as we start to move to more affluent direction," he told Industry Report. The slopeside club, with 109 guest rooms, is Hunter's bid to become a four-season resort. Its aim: to win over more of its visitors for a week-long or mid-week stay. Banquet facilities, a restaurant called Rip Van Winkle's Bistro, conference rooms and a spa are among the amenities. Fractional ownerships are for one-quarter shares, or 13 weeks of 77 studio, one- two-and three-bedroom suites. Preconstruction prices began at $40,000 for a studio and climbed in price all the way to $200,000 for a penthouse. The fractionals are already 85 percent sold, according to Megnin. For vacationers who simply want a luxury hotel room, the Kaatskill Mountain Club has almost no competition. The Club caps an effort that began in the 1980s when Hunter built its first slopeside condos. Hunter, which is still owned and operated by the Slutzky family, saw that its market, while remaining familiar in terms of geography (Northern New Jersey, New York City and Long Island) was widening demographically. "In the past three to five years the mix has changed," said Megnin, with more families and a "significant" demand for longer stays at the base of the hill, in a luxury setting rather than in motels in nearby Tannersville. The rack rate for rooms at the Kaatskill Mountain Club starts at $150 a night midweek for a studio (comparable to a traditional hotel room) and jumps to $250 for a weekend night. Hunter, which is a two and a half hour drive from Manhattan, realized that it was facing increasing competition from such developing snow-plus-real-estate resorts as nearby Windham, Jiminy Peak in western Massachusetts, and Mountain Creek, an Intrawest property in northwest New Jersey. At the same time, it has tried to capitalize on its proximity to the huge metropolitan New York/New Jersey drive market that feels squeezed by ballooning gas prices. Hunter now features an interactive gas monitor on its Web site that lets visitors calculate how much less they will spend on gas getting to Hunter compared with trips to Southern Vermont or the Adirondacks resorts farther north. Hunter also has nourished its ethnic market, with Hispanics last year accounting for about 6 percent of its visitors. "Ten years ago it was probably less than half that," said Megnin. The Web site features some material in Spanish and the resort is experiencing an upsurge in metro-based Eastern European and Asian clients. The ski school now has instructors who can say "carve" in 10 languages. The push to spiff up Hunter's own accommodations comes on the heels of a multiyear effort to turn the resort's ski and snowboard school into a model for others nationwide. In 2001, Hunter opened a 17,000-square-foot learning center, including rentals and day care, and became a beta test center for the National Ski Areas Association's growth model. "On a weekend we actually take learn-to business on demand," said Megnin. Its numerous customer-friendly programs and money-saving deals have brought it big gains in the number of multi-day learning packages sold, more children and more women than ever in ski school, and executives have seen a carryover into multi-day lodging requests. Mind you, Hunter still flaunts its Gothamite heritage with runs bearing names like Gramercy Park and Fordham Road. It still get busloads of twenty- and thirty-something day trippers whose headgear of choice is a Yankees or football Giants cap. But Megnin suggests that the disappearance of bars from Tannersville, which once had a bustling weekend singles scene, is a good indicator of the new demographics. As Hunter woos more affluent families, Megnin says its guest profile is starting to resemble that of its neighbor, Windham Mountain. And for the first time, the two resorts will cooperate on a March promotion in an attempt to combat the financial firepower of southern Vermont resorts. Meanwhile, Windham is slated for an infusion of capital. A few weeks ago the ski area was sold to a group of investors headed by former general manager Dan Frank. Among his partners are Dick Jordan, a local developer who has just finished the Enclave, a $35 million condo and town house complex near the mountain's base. "All of our existing marketing relationships will remain unchanged," said sales and marketing chief Kirt Zimmer. However he also declared that "the new owners are excited about investing in Windham Mountain." « Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » |
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