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 three young men from Winnipeg, Canada found themselves looking at the prospect of another bleak and bone-chilling winter on the prairie. One of the three, Gordon Gannon, had grown up in the hospitality business; learning hotel management first hand from his father, who had owned and operated several major Canadian properties. Fueled by a small bit of capital and a large helping of optimism, the partners established Sunset International for the purpose of identifying, marketing and selling resort memberships that would have a special appeal to Canadians. After what would prove to be a memorable series of coin tosses, Glen was nominated to stay in Winnipeg to establish the travel agency that would serve as the Canadian homebase for the venture. |
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Gordon and Mike set out for the North Coast of the Dominican Republic-a destination selected because of its growing number of Canadian visitors. The appeal of this beautiful, friendly island was obvious from the beginning. What was not so obvious was which resort property would offer the combination of quality, stability, and value that the partners required. | |
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The Windsurf Hotel had already created a resort membership program and had gained an affiliation with Interval International, a well-known exchange company. The hotel was owned by a Montreal-based doctor who was far too busy in his medical practice to be able to oversee his property effectively. Absentee management is a tricky proposition in any business and this was no exception.
Nonetheless, the partners looked at the Windsurf Hotel in the same way that a sculptor looks at a piece of stone-they felt that from this raw material they could create something that the wider Canadian market would appreciate and support. This was the right fit--they were certain. |
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Some nights they talked only to each other as snowdrifts kept their member prospects at home. But on other nights the partners unleashed their enthusiasm and told their story to sun-hungry Canadians who took the leap of faith necessary to become members in a resort they had never heard of on an island they had not yet visited. The checks came in, the credit card vouchers piled up. Member by cautious member, the Windsurf membership club roster grew.
Gordon, Glen, and Mike were beginning to see that their instincts were correct-their new members flew down for their first vacations and were captivated by Cabarete. The young, athletic environment was a tonic for weary bones. The friendly Dominican citizens were quick with a smile and they extended genuine welcomes to the visitors. The sun was a sure bet; the mountains, valleys and rivers of the island provided alternatives to a steady diet of beach going; and smart entrepreneurs made sure that hockey games were beamed down from the satellites to a few Cabarete bars so the Canadians would not suffer withdrawal symptoms. All was not perfect in paradise, however. It took a certain amount of patience to put up with the electrical outages that made the Dominican Republic one of the world's largest consumers of candles and batteries. Many a night, Gordon would stumble through the tropical darkness to fire up the back-up generator, known affectionately as "Old Sparky." The water in the Windsurf Hotel would run out just as the missus had a head full of soap suds. And, from time to time, that taxi that you had counted on to get you to the airport just wouldn't show up. For the Windsurf member with a certain measure of tolerance, the resort provided a welcome escape from frigid and colorless winters. It wasn't a Four Seasons property, to be sure, but as families reclined around the pool and gazed up beyond the palm fronds into the blue sky, it didn't matter. They were a part of something special, and the price was right. |
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During the time Glen, Gord, and Mike had spent selling memberships for the doctor, the vacation ownership industry had been steadily improving, gaining both respectability and acceptance in a broad marketplace. The partners studied the North Coast of the Dominican Republic and realized that the competitive edge that they needed would best be attained by building two-bedroom suites.
So, with the financial help of selected club members/investors who realized there was more potential in Cabarete than they had initially understood, the partners purchased the original building from the good doctor from Quebec. With a fervent "merci", they set about acquiring the land next door and building the next phase of the Windsurf Hotel. The pool of construction labor on the North Coast may well provide some of the best crews of worker bees in the Caribbean. The entire twelve-suite Phase 2 of the re-christened Windsurf Resort was completed in just four months. Thanks to the ready availability of construction materials and those eager hands, Windsurf members had two brand new buildings to enjoy when they arrived in the winter of 1997. |
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Still not immune to the occasional lumps and set-backs, and in the absence of any better ideas, the partners employed traditional marketing and sales techniques in Cabarete. They sent friendly agents out onto the beach to invite vacationers in to hear the membership story. They gave away promotional gifts, employed multi-lingual salespeople, and tinkered with the membership model.
With the exception of the core group of members from Western Canada, the rolls of happy vacationers were not increasing at the pace that the partners had anticipated. The high-pressure sales setting created by the traditional and admittedly primitive marketing methods did not sit well with either potential members or the partners. Many a brainstorming session kept Glen, Gord and Mike up nights fueled only by enthusiasm and desire. Oh yes, and enormous quantities of cold Presidente beer. |
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They realized that they had a vacation product with enormous advantages over almost every other vacation ownership, club membership, or resort timesharing program in the world.
The question was simple-how to distribute this to the entire Canadian market in the least offensive, most efficient way? Because Sunset International had always owned and operated a travel agency to support Windsurf members, the partners were aware of the growing turmoil in that industry. They realized that leisure oriented agents were losing market share to direct bookings, were losing revenue due to commission cutbacks, and were looking around for new revenue sources. Most significant however, travel agents were sending clients on resort vacations and watching them purchase vacation ownership plans at the very resorts that the agent had sent them to! This meant that the client was lost forever. Worst of all, the agent had delivered a qualified prospect to that resort and got nothing in return. The partners decided that the time was right to recruit travel agents and to weave them into a network of Windsurf Resort distributors across Canada. After all, if the partners could convince this previously most skeptical group of travel professionals to add the Windsurf membership program to its list of travel products, then the evolution would be complete. |
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Since the summer of 1999, travel agents across Canada are grabbing spoons and loading up their plates. With a large proportion of citizens in the leisure-hungry baby-boomer category, the appetite throughout the provinces for the Windsurf Resort's gourmet vacation club program is huge.
Since the summer of 1999, travel agents across Canada have been grabbing spoons and loading up their plates. And now, as millions of leisure-hungry baby-boomers prepare to enter the leisure phase of their lives, the appetite for Sunset Resorts' gourmet vacation club program has never been greater. As evidence of this, Sunset Resorts' ever-expanding network of distributors successfully sold all of the remaining memberships in Windsurf Phase 2 in record time. In order to meet the ever-increasing global demand for its product, Sunset decided to seize yet another unique opportunity to expand its vacation palette by including a world-class alpine destination. In 2003, the company launched its brand new four-seasons flagship property, "Sunset Resorts Canmore" featuring spacious, luxurious condo units and Sunset's famous hospitality. Since its advent, demand for this stunning new resort has been so strong that plans are currently well under way for Sunset's construction of a fantastic multi-unit development right next door. As they were in the beginning, the three young men from Winnipeg are committed to keeping the price reasonable, but the vacation experience unforgettable. With the help of a devoted staff that earns accolades every week for friendliness, courteousness, and willingness to go the extra mile for Sunset members, the company looks forward to decades of providing fun, relaxation, and indelible memories for generations of vacationers. From the locker room to the boardroom, it's been a glorious trip for Glen, Gord, and Mike. Stay tuned to hear about more destinations in the future as the journey continues. |
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After a false start and the inevitable painful lumps, Gordon and Mike found the town of Cabarete-a small, beach-oriented village with a growing complement of modest hotels and palm-shaded restaurants. Sitting just across from Cabarete's world famous windsurfing beach was a small apartment hotel named--appropriately enough--the Windsurf Hotel.