I wanted to share the below information with you after yesterday’s meeting at Crested Butte Mountain Resort. During the meeting they confirmed the new direct flights and I wanted to be the first to pass it on to you. If the following information sparks your interest for Crested Butte call me for further discussion, there are many opportunities to talk about.
During today’s meeting with Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s (CBMR) Planning and Marketing directors they revealed the new confirmed direct airline flights for the 2008/2009 ski season, progress of Snodgrass Expansion, and overall ski industry growth. Monday, June 9 CBMR will release a new website confirming the below details, which will be passed on through Benson Sotheby’s monthly newsletter and additional emails from myself.
For the 2008/2009 ski season, over 6000 additional non-stop/direct airline seats have been confirmed into Gunnison/Crested Butte Airport. The added airlines include: American Airlines, Delta, United Express, and most likely Continental. American Airlines non-stop direct flights include Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth. Additionally from the Chicago hub comes numerous East Coast small hub connector flights. Delta has direct flights from Atlanta and Salt Lake City. Atlanta is the largest connecting airport in the United States, which will offer great convenience no matter where visitors are coming from. From the Salt Lake City hub brings connecting flights from the West coast and United Express has increased connecting flights from Denver to Gunnison. CBMR is still in negotiations with Continental for a direct connection from Gunnison to Newark, Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth. In addition, they are working with the Montrose Colorado hub for direct Continental flights from LA with continuing ground travel via public transportation or rental car 90 miles (about 1.5 hours) from Montrose to Crested Butte. CBMR managers expressed that 30% of our guests come from the direct hub areas, with 70% coming from the small hub feeds that are maximized by the diverse United States coverage of these flight patterns. This is the same flight pattern Telluride used in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
The new North Village development on Snodgrass is proceeding forward with continuing dialog between CBMR and Mount Crested Butte to create a modern mountain town atmosphere with pedestrian friendly access. This development has received approval from Mount Crested Butte and will most likely begin after or during the development of North Mountaineer Square. As far as lifts on Snodgrass, CBMR will begin the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process this summer to receive approval from the National Forest Service. Final approval for additional skiing on Snodgrass looks to be 2-3 years out with an additional 1-2 years before actual service is up and running.
The ski industry as a whole has seen an increase in skier days overall of 12.6% since the 1998/1999 season. Colorado has increased skier day visits by 10.3% in the last year. Crested Butte skier days were up 14% from 356,000 skiers from last season to 411,000 this season. Currently for the 2008/2009 ski season there is over $1mil of group sales reservations on the books. This is up from $560k of reservations from last year, just about a 100% increase. The Convention center is booked for summer, and there are already five Chicago ski clubs booked to visit next winter. The majority of these group sales contracts are 3 to 4 year contracts so these groups will be returning year after year.
CBMR’s Planning and Marketing Directors also added that “smart money” will be purchasing this summer before the bottled up demand from the last year and a half releases this winter resulting in more visitors, more demand, more real estate sales and increasing values. Now is the time to purchase in Crested Butte.
Please contact me with all your thoughts/questions and if I can be of more assistance. I look forward to talking to you soon.
Best Regards,
Corey Dwan – REALTOR
Benson Sotheby’s International Realty
P.O. Box 210
433 Sixth Street
Crested Butte, CO 81224
970-596-3219 Cell
970-325-3219 Google
970-349-6653 Office
970-797-1810 Fax
www.CrestedButteForSale.com
