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Eagle County’s group business rebounds

Numbers are almost back to 2019 levels

One of the ballrooms at Avon’s Westin Riverfront Resort & Spa is ready for guests. Group business, a major part of the valley’s economy, is rebounding in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Westin Riverfront Resort & Spa/Courtesy photo

Group business, from corporate meetings to family reunions and weddings, is big business in Eagle County. That business seems to be coming back, although perhaps not quite yet to pre-pandemic levels.

Group sales so far this year are “going well,” Sonnenalp group sales director Chris Cofelice said.

“We’re excited to see group (business) coming back. We’re optimistic,” Cofelice said.



At Avon’s Westin Riverfront Resort & Spa, Associate Director of Sales Jing Butler said that hotel is receiving a lot of inquiries for this year, including the remaining weeks of winter.

Butler said group business is coming back strong since 2020’s virtual shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“Everybody canceled events — nobody knew what was going to happen,” Butler said.

In Vail, group bookings went from 98 in 2019 to just 45 in 2020.

The trend started to reverse in 2021. In fact, Butler said, she’d never seen the number of inquiries that started pouring in during the summer of 2021.

“We had some really large groups that usually book one or two years out, and they wanted (space) in two months,” Butler said.

That pace eased when the delta variant of COVID-19 hit last year. But, Butler said, people now seem to understand that the virus is here to stay, and everyone has to work around it.

There’s a little bit of an attitude now that enough’s enough,” Four Season Resort and Residences Vail Sales and Marketing Director Scott Gubrud said.

Meeting safely

At the Westin, most of the meeting spaces have large windows that can open up a room to the outdoors. Meal events can be held outside, too.

Meeting planners these days also tend to want in-person site visits, so they can see amenities firsthand.

With interest rising in group meetings, Butler said meeting planners and hotels need to work together to host events as safely as possible.

That seems to be working.

Gubrud said the Four seasons so far this year has only had one group meeting postponed, and that was just moving a January meeting to March.

Reservations seem to be holding, Gubrud said. And lodges seem to be returning to their old cancellation policies, which means it costs a group to pull out of a booking.

Gubrud said the Four Seasons is actually seeing inquiries pacing ahead of 2019, the year before the pandemic.

“We’re seeing tremendous lead demand,” he said.

That seems to be the case at other valley lodges. Gubrud said he recently met with his counterparts from around the valley, and just about everyone is telling the same story.

The Vail Valley Partnership, the valley’s chamber of commerce, has a group sales division. Partnership CEO Chris Romer said he expects the trend of group bookings to continue into this year.

“We continue to trend really well,” Romer said. “Lead generation is extremely strong.”

Just about back

Romer said leads and bookings are running about even with 2018 but not at the strength of 2019 business. All those numbers are far above 2020’s numbers, which quickly fell off a COVID cliff that year.

Gubrud said the Four Seasons isn’t quite back to the 2019 pace, estimating that current business is perhaps 70% of the 2019 level. Cofelice said that’s about where the Sonnenalp’s group bookings are at the moment.

While corporate and industry groups are one part of the group picture, the valley’s wedding business never fell quite as far.

Butler said more than half of the weddings set for 2020 were still held, although with smaller guest lists.

“That carried us through the worst of COVID,” Butler said. Like other groups, Butler said she’s fielding a lot of inquiries about weddings.

Gubrud said wedding inquiries so far this year are also running ahead of the 2019 pace.

But, Butler noted, between current demand and those who are rescheduling from 2020 and 2021, the best windows may be in 2023.

Still, she added, if a group can be flexible, there might still be some space.

That’s all because people want to meet in person, Butler said. There are just some things a Zoom meeting can’t accomplish.

By the numbers

Here’s a look at group and meeting room nights in Vail from 2018-21:

2018: 10,385.

2019: 13,814.

2020: 4,780.

2021: 7,538.

Source: Vail Valley Partnership


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