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February 16, 2010
Wendover wins with bargain
trip packages
BY RAY HAGAR Reno Gazette Journal
Meet perhaps the hardest working airplane in
Nevada's resort industry: It's a Boeing 737 from Xtra Airways, which is headquartered in Elko.
Its job is to shuttle Peppermill Resorts passengers in and out of the Wendover Airfield, just on the Utah side of Wendover, which straddles the Nevada-Utah border.
The plane brought about 52,000 people to the
Peppermill's three resorts in Wendover last year.
They came from small towns to big cities, from
communities in Washington state to Wisconsin and
down to Texas and Arkansas.
"That plane is out almost everyday, taking a big
group home and bringing a big group in," said John Spillman, marketing director for Peppermill Resorts in Wendover.
About 60 cites are served by the shuttle. It has
proven quite popular, since the prices for the
excursions to Wendover range from $99 for a flight
that leaves Wednesday from Kalispell, Mont., to a sold out March 15 flight from Green Bay, Wis., for $209.
The plane seats 150, and the occupancy rate on
most flights is above 90 percent, Spillman said.
Spillman used the $129 fare from Denver to make
his point."That $129 includes the round-trip air fare, three nights lodging, all taxes and fees," Spillman said. "That is total out-of-pocket expenses, $129. We
also provide shuttle service from the airport, and we deliver your bags right to your room."
Full house
Those deals keep fly-in traffic rolling.
"It's a great little getaway for $150," said Bill Hurst, who has gone on trips to Wendover with his wife, Charleen, from Redmond, Wash. "You can't go to the beach for that."
It also keeps the plane busy.
"Let's say we have a group in from Bellingham,
Wash.," Spillman said. "We will take them home, drop them off, and then we will ferry on to Seattle, and we will pick up a new group and bring them in.
"Then the next day, we might take a group home
from Milwaukee, Wis., and go over to Green Bay and pick up a group from there," he said. "Then the next day, we might bring a group home from San Antonio, (Texas), drop those people off then ferry over to Austin, Texas, to bring in that group."
Sue Torgerson, who helps organize the flights from Wisconsin locations, said she has little difficultly finding people who want to go to Wendover.
"My March 9 trip (from La Crosse, Wisc.) is full, and I have 32 people on a waiting list," Torgerson said. "Those on the waiting list are the ones that I actually
wrote down. The rest, I just told them that the plane was full."
Torgerson said people like coming to Wendover
"because it has the best odds, and you can actually win there. I just got back from Las Vegas, and I will never go back. It is just too spendy, and there are too many little kids, and I don't think children belong where you are gambling."
The air service keeps the resorts busy through the week. The crowds from Utah, the resorts' biggest customer base, arrive for weekends.
"This provides consistency for scheduling,"
Spillman said. "It gives us customers here seven
days a week, and that makes it much more efficient in your staffing and other aspects. It actually saves us a lot of money."
The three Peppermill properties -- the Peppermill, Montego Bay and Rainbow -- attract fly-in traffic with 1,400 rooms among them with 2,700 slot machines and 100 table games combined. Wendover also offers golf, swimming pools and a 1,000-seat concert hall that books acts such as Merle Haggard, Kansas, Michael Bolton and Ray Price.
Yet without shopping or bus tours, Wendover lacks amenities that other Nevada resorts offer.
"If you don't gamble or play golf, there is not a lot to do," Hurst said.
Spillman admits Wendover is not for everybody,
although the plane continues to fly full.
"We have had people come out and look around,
and if they don't like the gambling or the shows or some of the other things that are available, they generally don't come back," Spillman said. "But the people who like to come out and play the machines and go to concerts and things like that, they really come back in droves."
Added perks
The air service also has been a boon for the
Wendover Airfield. Because of the 50,000
passengers who fly out of Wendover annually, the
airport is eligible for $1 million in grants from the Federal Aviation Administration, airfield director Jim Petersen said.
"Without the service, instead of 13 employees, we would probably have five," Petersen said. "It has enabled us to became what they call a primary entitlement airport, and that makes our airport available for much larger grants.
The airfield, which began as a training base for World War II bomber crews, has recently added a new terminal building because of the funding, Spillman said.
The airfield also is trying to make itself a tourist
attraction by rebuilding some of the components of the World War II base, including a reconstruction of the officers club and the hanger for a B-29 bomber. Long-range plans call for securing a B-29 as a tourist attraction to be housed in the hanger. The crew of the Enola Gay trained at Wendover before dropping the first atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, Petersen said.
Although the shuttle has proven popular, it makes up less than 10 percent of the business for the Peppermill Resorts in Wendover. About 85 percent of the resorts' customers come from areas surrounding Salt Lake City, Utah.
"We are only 90 minutes from the airport in Salt Lake City, and it is pretty much a straight line from Salt Lake City out to Wendover," Spillman said. "The speed limit is 75, and the road is in good condition. We don't have the mountain passes that people have to traverse to get to Reno from the Bay area, so we don't have those kinds of issues."
All five properties in Wendover -- the Wendover
Nugget and Red Garter Casino are the two properties not owned by the Peppermill -- have
another big advantage over Reno casinos: Utah has no tribal casinos to siphon customers.
"That is one of the benefits we have," Spillman said. "Utah and Hawaii are the only two states that have no form of gambling."
"That plane is out almost everyday, taking a big group home and bringing a big group in," said John Spillman, marketing director for Peppermill Resorts in Wendover.
About 60 cites are served by the shuttle. It has proven quite popular, since the prices for the excursions to Wendover range from $99 for a flight that leaves Wednesday from Kalispell, Mont., to a sold out March 15 flight from Green Bay, Wis., for $209.
The plane seats 150, and the occupancy rate on most flights is above 90 percent, Spillman said.
Spillman used the $129 fare from Denver to make his point."That $129 includes the round-trip air fare, three nights lodging, all taxes and fees," Spillman said. "That is total out-of-pocket expenses, $129. We also provide shuttle service from the airport, and we deliver your bags right to your room."
Full house
Those deals keep fly-in traffic rolling.
"It's a great little getaway for $150," said Bill Hurst, who has gone on trips to Wendover with his wife, Charleen, from Redmond, Wash. "You can't go to the beach for that."
It also keeps the plane busy.
"Let's say we have a group in from Bellingham, Wash.," Spillman said. "We will take them home, drop them off, and then we will ferry on to Seattle, and we will pick up a new group and bring them in.
"Then the next day, we might take a group home from Milwaukee, Wis., and go over to Green Bay and pick up a group from there," he said. "Then the next day, we might bring a group home from San Antonio, (Texas), drop those people off then ferry over to Austin, Texas, to bring in that group."
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