Grand Pacific Resort Management (GPRM), a privately owned vacation ownership management company located in Carlsbad, CA has been awarded the contract to manage the Mountain Resort at Panorama in Panorama, BC, Canada.

Mountain Resort at Panorama is nestled in the Canadian Rockies within the Panorama Mountain Village complex.  Panorama is an area rich with rugged natural beauty. Surrounded by creeks, lakes, forests, and mountains, the resort offers seasonal outdoor activities ranging from on-site downhill and cross country skiing in the winter to golf, tennis, hiking and rafting in the summer.

According to GPRM Vice President – Operations Nigel Lobo, this management contract is Grand Pacific Resort Management’s entry into Canada.  “When we welcomed Mountain Retreat to our family of resorts last fall, our owners and guests were excited to enjoy northern California’s foothills of the Sierra Mountains. Now, with Mountain Resort at Panorama, we are an international management company and all of our owners can now explore the rugged and spectacular terrain of the Canadian Rockies as well.”

The rest of this article is for registered users only.
Login now or Register Free Here for full access to all articles, groups and forums.

As CRDA prepares to welcome international attendees to its 2011 “Resort Development Summit” in Vancouver this April, it quickly becomes apparent that the focus of this year’s event is clearly on the need for change within the shared ownership industry.

According to Ross Perlmutter (CRDA’s President/CEO): “One of the best pieces of business advice I’ve ever received is something that my peewee hockey coach taught me when I was twelve: “You have to skate to where the puck is going; not where it’s already been.” That statement is certainly true for hockey, and it’s especially true in the context of our industry right now. If we are going to adapt to the ‘new normal’, it’s imperative that we focus on the future, and that we change the way that we develop and offer our products and services to consumers. Maintaining the status quo simply isn’t a viable option any longer.”

With such a strong emphasis on “change”, it seems only fitting that CRDA’s 2011 Conference is undergoing dramatic changes itself. “Without question, this is going to be a truly exciting year for our conference attendees. For example, we’ve expanded the educational programming portion of the conference to one and a half days, and we’ve increased the total number of breakout sessions by 25% this year”, said Perlmutter. “All of the sessions are designed to be extremely interactive, culminating in an ambitious “Industry Thinktank Workshop” involving all of the conference attendees. In order to better understand our consumer, we’ve added an “Ask the Owners” session, and we’ve worked hard to develop dynamic breakout sessions that cover all of the bases: marketing, finance, fractionals, management, public relations, legal issues, renovations & refurbishments and even body language!”  

The rest of this article is for registered users only.
Login now or Register Free Here for full access to all articles, groups and forums.

Parkside Victoria Resort & Spa and Epic Real Estate Solutions Inc. Announce Strategic Partnership.

Sales of condominiums and other primary residential properties in British Columbia have been brisk for the past few months, but sales of recreational property are just beginning to recover in early 2010.

Parkside Victoria Resort & Spa in Victoria, BC, recognizes that strategically aligning itself with a specialty real estate sales group will boost sales of its fractional interest real estate. As a result, the $60 million resort hotel has partnered with Kelowna-based Epic Real Estate Solutions Inc.

“We believe our fractional interest residences will be a great fit for Epic’s large database of customers who are looking for alternatives to the expense of whole ownership recreational homes,” says Jim Pearson, Director, Parkside Project Inc.

“Our customers have clearly told us that they want to own a vacation getaway that makes financial sense, where their usage matches the cost of ownership” says Mark West, President of Epic Real Estate Solutions, Inc.

Parkside is a sustainable resort hotel, as well as Canada’s first resort hotel targeting LEED® Platinum Certification for sustainable development and design. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Green Building Rating System and principles of sustainability means a greater connection to the surrounding community and a higher level of environmental health and comfort for Parkside’s guests.

Says Pearson, “Fractional ownership at its essence is green. Instead of typical vacation homes that sit empty for much of the year, our suites are shared. Owners effectively reduce their carbon footprint by sharing amenities and energy usage.”

Featuring world-class amenities including AquaTerre Spa, a private 29-seat movie theatre, Penthouse City Club Lounge and a 25-metre indoor pool, Parkside Victoria Resort & Spa is the only urban resort hotel of its kind offering an exceptional accommodation guest experience and affordable, flexible second home ownership in the heart of downtown Victoria, BC, Canada. For information, go to www.parksidelifestyle.com.

Epic Real Estate Solutions is a Lifestyle Real Estate project marketing and sales brokerage that specializes in creating integrated marketing & sales programs for resort and urban new home communities.

OSI’s Timeshare Soft is Hit with Canadian Resort

“OSI’s software has, hands down,  the fastest  booking process  I’ve ever seen, “ says Kelly McAree, Resort Manager at Fairmont’s Lake Okanagan Resort located near Kelowna, British Columbia.  “We’ve looked at a number of solutions for our reservations systems, but nothing comes close to what OSI’s Timeshare Soft provides.”

Object Systems International (OSI) a Utah-based, multi-national business, founded in 1999, with offices in Layton, Utah, and Sofia, Bulgaria focuses on enterprise-class, web-based records management solutions. Since the year 2000, they have been servicing the timeshare and travel club industry with their TravelClubSoft (TCS) product (formerly known as @ttitude Resort System). OSI has a number of software products and two of them (Travel Club Soft and Timeshare Soft) are specifically designed to facilitate the diverse aspects of the timeshare and travel club industry.
Their newest product, TimeShareSoft (www.Timesharesoft.com) was developed out of necessity to accommodate some distinct needs of clients within the timeshare industry.  It is able to solve timeshare-specific challenges such as highly specialized inventory control, auto-generated maintenance fees, and complex ownership types.

OSI’s software  has been successfully implemented in multiple offices within Fairmont Resort Properties in Canada, as well as several Travel Clubs and single resort operations in the US and in Canada.

According to Catherine Fuller, OSI’s Director of Business Development, OSI’s travel industry software  is a true web-based SAAS (Software as a Service) system, meaning that it is hosted and maintained by OSI, and users access it securely via a web browser from anywhere at any time. OSI’s software, being both flexible and scalable, is capable of handling anticipated growth, regardless of how quickly it occurs, and regardless of its geographic distribution.  The technology and application have all the functions and features necessary to run the largest of enterprises, but can also be configured to run single resort operations and smaller travel clubs.

McAree, whose resort is located along the shoreline of Okanagan Lake, one of the 10 hottest destinations in the world referred to as “Napa of the North,”  says “Once I saw their solution first hand, I was impressed with  how OSI is able to facilitate increased efficiency with regard to data migration, system configuration and installation of their software. The speed of the reservation system within OSI’s software is really going to  impact our day-to-day operations. To say I was impressed is an understatement. “