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US hospitality giant Vail Resorts is hoping to significantly boost its visibility here, with the strong Aussie dollar making its range of ski and hotel properties even more attractive for Australian visitors. This week the company’s PR manager May Lilley has attended a number of events in Melbourne and Sydney to showcase the ongoing investments the company is making – including its purchase late last year of the fabulous Northstar-at-Tahoe resort in northern California. At a function last night Lilley said that the previous owners of the resort had done “no international marketing whatsoever,” meaning it’s relatively unknown in Australia. That’s certainly set to change, with Vail already working with a number of ski wholesalers to promote its other resorts which include Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone and Beaver Creek in Colorado and Heavenly, also in the Lake Tahoe region. Northstar-at-Tahoe has extensive snowboarding facilities and this week announced a new partnership with two-time Olympic gold medallist, “snowboarding and skateboarding phenom” Shaun White. White will base himself at Northstar-at-Tahoe, where he will design his own 22-foot half-pipe. Vail has set itself apart from other resort operators, according to Lilley, because of its ongoing investment in technology and new facilities even through the economic downturn. A major innovation offered at Vail’s properties is the ‘EpicMIX’ season pass card, which automatically tracks ski days, vertical feet and runs completed and allows the information to be easily shared on social networks. The EpicMIX pass is on sale now for just US$649 for adults (and even cheaper for kids) giving access to all of Vail’s resorts right across the season, seven days a week with no blackouts – meaning it’s a great option for Aussie travellers planning to ski for a week or so during a US trip. Lilley is pictured above last night with Vail’s Aussie “celebrity ambassador,” Justin Melvey, who is well known to viewers of daytime TV through his roles in Days of our Lives and Young and the Restless, FOX8’s The Phone and Aussie soap Home and Away. |
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