This year’s Canadian Resort Conference (CRC 2015) will be held Sept. 9 – 10, at the luxurious Pan Pacific Vancouver hotel in British Columbia. The annual conference attracts delegates from the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and beyond. CRC 2015 will focus on all that the Canadian Resort marketplace has to offer for companies looking to expand into that market and insights into how to attract Canadian vacationers to other destination hotspots.
“The CRC Annual Conference is the Canadian resort industry’s premier annual event. Operationally, the industry is at unprecedented levels in serving guests from around the world and in almost every performance metric. On the other hand, resort development and real estate marketing are facing many challenges. CRC 2015 will be an opportunity for our industry and its partners to address key issues and opportunities in the formal sessions as well as the networking sessions. The Canadian resort industry also takes this opportunity at CRC to recognize excellence amongst its own through the Cornerstone Award,” says Ed Romanowski, Chairman of the Board of CRDA.
Meetings and Networking
The first official conference day will include a CRDA board of directors meeting, a CRDA annual general meeting in which all attendees are welcome, a high-energy speed networking event and a cocktail party to end the evening. “Attendees will have the opportunity to learn from the industry’s most influential leaders, gain a global perspective on the marketplace, network with peers and key decision-makers, re-kindle old relationships and forge new ones,” states Jon Zwickel, President & CEO of CRDA.
CRDA is very focused on becoming the voice and advocate of the Canadian vacation ownership industry. We are broadening our mandate to include all resorts, regardless of the form of ownership,” Jon Zwickel continues “Rather than repeating topics that many of us have heard at other conferences, this year’s CRC will explore thought-provoking subject matter such as timeshare’s relevance in the modern-day sharing economy.”
Sessions
“We are very excited about the impressive lineup of panel speakers that have been put together for this year’s CRC conference. The information that will be shared with attendees in this intimate setting will be truly invaluable,” says Paul, Mattimoe, president and CEO, Perspective Group.
The first session titled CRDA Update – Building Member Value Through 2020, will discuss the latest CRDA news and future plans. An Industry Without Boarders will follow thereafter and highlight common challenges, successes and opportunities, regardless of region, nationality or resort type. This session will bring together four key North American trade associations to discuss growing trends and opportunities for cross-border collaboration. Whilst, the session Resorts Without Boarders follows on to discuss resort developer’s experiences with multi-national guests.
In the session Engaging The Customer, Delivering The Experience; speakers will discuss how developers and resort management companies are living up to increasingly demanding customer expectations. The session Preserving A Legacy will take a detailed look at the operational side of HOAs as they continue to deal with increasing management fees, aging owners and resorts. This panel will discuss the varying effects of introducing exit strategies and rental programs. The Sharing Is Cool- Are We? debate session will explore the past, present and possible futures of the sharing economy. Additionally, the Financial Landscape, Issues and Solutions session offers an update from the financial sector including traditional funding, crowd funding and alternative currencies.
