Different is Good; We Love Different

A classic June inversion and a stunning day on Monday, and Cardrona's operations team made a meal of it.

I’ve seen a lot of mountain resorts while working as an instructor and coach. I have my favorites and I definitely have my opinions about which places and companies are better at what they do. In the Eastern USA, the things that differentiate one resort from another can be subtle (like the often cited “vibe”), and the basic business models of competing resorts can seem remarkably similar. Real differentiation beyond logos, advertising strategy, and a place’s appearance can be tough, and that’s equally true here in New Zealand. Thankfully, I work at Cardrona where we’re different, and not just because our staff wear t-shirts that say “Cardrona Loves You”.

Since I’m sitting on the couch on a day off thinking of how much I Iove the place right back, here’s my semi-serious, totally unofficial, stream-of-consciousness, in no particular order, top 10 list of things that make Cardrona different (and, to be perfectly blunt, better):

1.       Comfy Pillows. Roll over; hit the snooze button; try to figure out why you’re in such a hurry to get out of bed while on vacation; put on your gear and load a lift close to your front door. End your day in your slippers sipping a glass of local pinot noir within sight of the groomers getting to work after the lifts shut. Ahh, the joys of a low-impact alpine vacation! Yes, among New Zealand’s major resorts, Cardrona is the only place where this can happen thanks to the serviced apartments in our base area at Cardrona. Mmm, did someone say slippers?

2.       Kiwis. There are Kiwis all over the place, and that definitely is different. Cardrona has more Kiwis on staff than any other major resort in New Zealand. Like our competitors, we do depend on foreign staff (like yours truly) so the resort goes to great lengths to give all of us a keen sense of place. What we do and who we are as a resort is Kiwi deep down in our DNA, whether we are individual Kiwis or not. It’s one reason we all feel so at home – all our backgrounds are woven together into our Kiwiness. One caveat, though, is that for all my feeling like a part of what makes us Kiwi, I refuse to call ketchup “tomato sauce”. That’s just too much to ask of this Vermont resident native New Yorker.

3.       A Distillery. The Cardrona Distillery is on the valley floor, right across from the bottom of our access road. I’m not a big drinker but I’m not above joking that, going forward, I’ll only work at ski resorts with ready access to a distillery, for medicinal purposes of course.

4.       We Own It. While this is true metaphorically for all that we do, it’s also true literally. Cardrona owns the land where we do business, and that’s very unusual in NZ. Similar to the U.S.A. where many mountain resorts are located on National Forest land, most of Cardrona’s competitors operate on land leased from the Department of Conservation. Not us. Thankfully, our entire leadership team has placed environmental stewardship as a core belief that informs all that we do, but it’s nice that we can get stuff done on our own time and in our own way.

5.       Cheese Scones in the Mezz Café. They’re important. Just beware, there is no methadone treatment for them.

6.       Instructors in Charge. The resort GM; the head of our very big, busy events crew; numerous patrollers; head of base area operations; lefties, baristas, rental supervisors, ticket sales folks, and a lot of other folks throughout the team have been working ski or snowboard instructors at some point. It means, for those of us working in the Snow Sports School, that they understand our view and they bring that guest-centered perspective to all that they do. And they know how to have fun.

7.       A Very Big Tiny Penguin. Cardrona's spokes-penguin Pingy is a Tawaki penguin, the third rarest penguin in the world and a South Island native (http://www.tawaki-project.org/). He rips in the park (https://youtu.be/ajmmXam0kPI), is good at handing out lollies, and is a constant presence. He’s also a buddy of mine and can get a bit unruly when the Highlanders are playing on TV.

8.       Tourism. Cardrona’s owners are not real estate developers. They’re not an unruly committee of funds or bond traders who think they know better. It’s owned by Real Journeys, a Kiwi-owned important player in the New Zealand tourism industry. That means that they’re in the guest experience business, full stop. That’s rare, it makes us better at delivering for our guests and our staff, and it’s got to be luxurious for our managers who are more accustomed to synthesizing arguments for why this or that little guest tid-bit will be good for business. Real Journeys rocks.

9.       Chondy, Baby! Yes, we have a shiny new chondola. The cabins of MacDougal’s Chondola lift are the only alpine resort gondolas in New Zealand. It’s totally awesome, it’s had an enormous operational impact on our lessons already, and we all totally love it. Cardrona’s ability to totally nail its conception, construction and marketing should scare the heck out of our competitors (see #10 below).

10.   A Plan. Every major NZ resort has a dream - base villages, sealed roads, transportation links, all manner of jazzy upgrades. Occasionally over the past decade it’s seemed as though everyone had done engineering studies for a gondola. The difference for Cardrona? The chondy is done, and we’re charging ahead with the plan. Next!

Yeah, yeah, I know. This is a bit of a love note for my employer. No, they haven’t promised me a beer in exchange for it. What I get for all this is more pep in my teaching, I get more enthusiasm for and from the guests I teach, and I get to be surrounded by a bunch of resort staff who are totally pumped. It makes for a much happier and much more exciting working life than many of us are accustomed to finding in this business, and I’m grateful to play a small part. What it really means is that after a restful day off, I’m ready to get back in the action!

Progress; Little Bits of Progress

Over the past two weeks, I’ve made significant progress towards settling into the house where I’m living with a few friends in Wanaka for the New Zealand winter. It’s taken some doing, but the house will feel like home for several months. In contrast, in my eleventh winter here, the town of Wanaka feels like home immediately, in detail, and with far more jet-lag than settling-in time. “Welcome home,” each of my friends say when I arrive back. They mean it, I take it that way, and it definitely feels like it.

Eleven years isn’t really that long a period of time historically, but things have evolved substantially down here in that time. Wanaka is in the midst of a dizzyingly enormous boom – there are more than twice as many front doors here as when I arrived in 2007 and the town will double in size gain over the next few years. The pace of the development can be worrisome in the same way and with the same issues faced by American resort towns as they grow, though I do think the new development here is far greater, far faster, and far more fraught with risk than any that I’ve experienced.

On a personal level, my presence here as this development occurs reminds me of a specific moment from my childhood. I remember vividly being on a vacation on Nantucket Island, sitting on the beach that was a little crowded and a little rowdy for my family’s liking, and watching a New York Air jumbo jet fly overhead on its way to the island’s little airport. That jet was a bright, shiny, and strikingly emblematic icon of a similar dynamic for that once bucolic, middle-class hideaway. The thought dawned on me then as it does now: does my devotion to this place make me part of the problem? I don’t think so, but I do think that sensitivity to it, by all of us who come here, is an important component of helping Wanaka keep hold of its authenticity and remain true to the reasons that draw so many people here.

So, why the photo of the ancient mobile phone? It’s my beloved, eleven-year-old, pay-as-you-go, NZ cell phone. When I bought it, having a cell phone down here was a luxury. Its battery lasts a week, it never drops a call, it’s an incredibly reliable alarm clock, and it’s as hearty as any technological device has ever been. And, regrettably, it’s being replaced this winter. I’ve seriously considered replacing it with a smart phone filled with dazzling applications, fancy graphics, and the battery life of a flea that would connect me to the entirety of the digital world. Instead, like my hopes for Wanaka and all of the resort towns where I live, I’ll replace it with a functional, efficient and useful, slightly sleeker telephone that may have some broader capabilities and more advanced technology but ultimately will serve the purposes for which it is intended with the same vigor, albeit in a more modern and efficient form.

At the bottom it and the top of all of this, Wanaka is a wonderfully warm and welcoming Kiwi town in one of the most beautiful places that I’ve ever set foot. It’s no wonder so many people want to be here, I can’t blame them, and I definitely am one of them. Hopefully my new, non-smart cell phone will help me stay connected to my community here and in the USA with the simplicity that I prefer and without losing sight of its real purpose.