RMR mountain coaster leads Revelstoke summer tourism boom

Revelstoke is bustling right now, ever since news of Revelstoke Mountain Resort’s The Pipe Mountain Coaster hit early this year and a video of the attraction went viral.

Because of this, visitor numbers are up everywhere from local businesses, to the pool, to the visitor centre.

Tourism Revelstoke’s marketing coordinator Meghan Tabor said the busiest months of summer this year (July and August) will be comparable to those of our typical peak tourist time in winter (late Jan to early March).

This June, the Revelstoke Visitor Centre recorded 7025 visitors, a 21 per cent increase on last year. For July it was an 18 per cent increase on 2015 with 12,936 visitors. August is expected to follow in a similar manner.

Tabor said the mountain coaster is a big reason for the influx of visitors, along with the low Canadian dollar.

“We’ve been trying to find something for years to encourage people to stop in Revelstoke and check it out,” she said. “We’re seeing a lot of people doing that this year.”

“We’re seeing a lot more American tourists than in the past. And word is getting out about our mountain biking, our hiking and national parks are always a huge draw for people.

“We get tons of people asking about Mount Revelstoke and the Meadows in the Sky highway — being able to summit by car is a big draw factor.”

The Pipe mountain coaster has been, simply put, a raging success.

“It has blown our minds,” RMR marketing manager Nico Leenders said. “It has dramatically exceeded our wildest expectations.”

Those expectations were a conservative 25,000 rides this summer. But once the last cart has rolled down the single track on Mount Mackenzie this year, RMR expects that number to exceed 100,000.

But with such immediate success came teething problems for the attraction’s first year in operation. Waiting times stretched over hours and while RMR scrambled to find a solution, they estimated about 20,000 potential riders turned away.

The stress eased after a digital queued ticket system was implemented, allowing visitors to see via their devices what time their ride would be. Now while guests wait, they explore the rest of Revelstoke, from our lakes and local walks, to spending dollars in our heritage downtown.

“We very actively encourage people to leave the resort and go do something else,” Leenders said.

Local business owners have seen an increase in customers and Jack Boruch, who has had his souvenir and printing store Selkirk Graphics since 1988, said it has been one of his busiest years. He’s seen a steady flow of customers this year since July.

“There are just no gaps,” he said. “Last year was a pretty good year too. Percentage-wise this is about 20 per cent more. And on from the year before that, this year is a 50 per cent increase.”

Boruch said it is because of the mountain coaster and its build-up since April.

“Everybody that comes in is here to ride the coaster, other than the Europeans that we would normally see at this time of year,” he said.

At the Revelstoke Aquatic Centre visitor numbers are up markedly. There were about 2,766 visitors in May of 2015, and that increased to to 4,566 this year. June jumped from 3,429 to 4,839. July was also up from 7,172 last year to 8,444 this year.

But with Whistler-Blackcomb looking in the future to build its own mountain roller coaster, will this be a short-lived moment in the sun? RMR intends to ride the momentum of the coaster’s popularity for a while longer, with plans to expand even more of its offerings in the summer of 2017.

Tight staffing and housing

While the mountain coaster has brought in a number of visitors —The Rockford restaurant is as frequented as it is in winter and downtown is busier than ever — but without the influx of winter seasonals, more staff are needed but housing is getting tougher to find.

“I think staffing difficulties, summer or winter, are always going to be an issue in a resort community,” Tourism Revelstoke’s marketing coordinator Meghan Tabor said. “I know a lot of hotels are feeling that for sure in terms of keeping good staff year around. I think it’s a matter of offering better incentives and reasons to stay year around.”

The Cube’s owner-operator Louis-Marc Simard is fortunate to have an accommodation business where he can — and has — set aside one of his rooms to entice his staff to stay through-out the summer.

Simard also said part of his solution to keeping staff is to pay above minimum wage.

“I think everybody can pay $15 an hour and they would still make money,” Simard said.

He believes the higher rate would allow staff to afford available accommodation.

“You need to make an effort to have decent wages and accommodation,” he said. “This is how the is town is going to grow.”

As of today, there are 118 jobs available in Revelstoke at Work B.C. Front desk clerk Kirstin Aquiline said there isn’t a noticeable increase in job opportunities this summer, aside from more operations at RMR, but less availability of potential employees.

“I would say about the same amount of jobs are popping up. The fact is summer is becoming busier definitely [is a factor], employers are finding it really hard to find staff,” she said.

“I think there is a huge decline in younger people working. Students 10 years ago, about 90 per cent would have had a summer job.”

With winter coming, Aquiline said town usually sees an increase of up to 1,500 newcomers. But many of these are on working holiday visas who are not attractive to employers as they’re not going to stick around.

“People don’t want to hire people that are leaving,” she said.

For those that do want to stay, finding housing is getting worse each year.

“Revelstoke is really low on housing and if you don’t get housing situated by the end of September, you probably won’t get anything, or it’s very limited,” Aquiline said.

“People are finding it very hard, if they want to work a winter. [They] get really angry that there is no housing for the resort staff.”

“I would think there is more people coming, making it seem less and less.”