Alberta’s slumping economy is being felt at some foothills venues
Bookings for Christmas parties are down, but it hasn’t dampened the holiday spirit at the many events that have been held over the season.
Gus Leduc, owner of Lynnwood Ranch, said bookings are down by as much as 30 per cent this holiday season.
He said many of the ranch’s customers are corporate clients and Christmas parties are one place they will trim expenses to save money when times are tough.
“It’s a pretty good hit, a lot of our corporate clientele was oil companies and stuff like that, for some of them if they’ve laid off a big chunk of their staff there’s not much of an appetite or it’s maybe not appropriate to hold a Christmas Party,” said Leduc.
However, he said participation in the multi-group Christmas parties hosted at the ranch has been positive.
“The local companies, the smaller companies still seemed to do something,” he said.
Leduc said business was up for most of the year, but the drop started as the holiday season approached.
“Christmas was where we noticed it,” he said.
Leduc said Lynwood Ranch is a reasonable alternative for companies that used to go all out during the holidays, spending significant amounts with weekends in the mountains.
“They can come to us and have a budget to do it, where they’ve scaled down from something else,” he said.
Ultimately, Leduc said most companies still see Christmas parties as a way to reward hard working employees and the mood was good among the companies that did book parties.
“I think anybody out there that has a long vision wants to keep their team together is probably wanting to treat them a bit and make them feel good,” he said.
The manager at the Foothills Centennial Centre said some events were cancelled this year. However, manager Tina Niles-Hook said she doesn’t expect it to have much of an overall impact.
“There’s been a few cancellations, they’ve changed their mind or I don’t know what the reasons are about for cancelling, but they decided not to go through with the event,” she said.
Niles-Hook said it has regular bookings throughout the year that continue to keep the centre busy.
“We do have regular, annual bookings every week, every month,” she said. “Those are still a go. I’m getting a lot of general meetings.”
Niles-Hook said the slumping economy has been felt, but not significantly.
“We still have some pretty good bookings… so far so good,” she said. “I guess we’ll find out when we get a little more into the New Year.”
For one Okotoks caterer, 2015 is ending on a high note.
“I’m up over last year,” said Harald Wiegele, with Hansel and Gretel catering.
He said most Christmas parties are booked well ahead of time and most of his bookings were for corporate events and businesses.
