We have a range of rooms. We have rooms that start at $109, and they’re the original rooms we opened with. They’re a little smaller than standard hotel rooms. Ten dollars more gets you a small walk-out deck. From there, there’s our Superior Rooms, which all have an ocean view. Those rooms have either two queens, or one king size bed. We use those mainly for our packages. “It’s home to one of the world’s rarest plants.” We get a lot of off-season weddings. We don’t do weddings during peak season – we’re just too busy as it is. When we do weddings, though, we get people coming from all over and with different spins on their ceremonies. Sometimes the wedding is done on the grounds of the lodge, some- times it’s done at the lighthouse here on the island, or on one of the whale watching boats, or down on one of the beaches – and, of course, we do the reception either way. Do you get a lot of lodgers from outside of the tourism demographic? VT: Yes, whenever there is major construction work in the area, we are often the choice of the work crews for accom- modation. We hosted an international crew of workers who were laying underwater power cables to connect the Islands to the main grids. The project lasted over a month and the crew became like our family. What does a corporate retreat at Brier Island and the Lodge look like? VT: A corporate retreat on Brier Island is first and foremost an escape from the over stimulating urban environment. Bringing employees to Brier Island can allow them to focus on the corporate goals, each other, and themselves. It is a
that first year I must have had a hundred people tell me that this was the perfect place to build a lodge or hotel because of the view. When we built the original hotel, we received help from ACOA [Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency], but that came with a lot of restrictions. We didn’t end up with what we had in mind. One mistake we made in the original hotel was making the dining room too large. We quickly realized that we didn’t have enough rooms. We were almost imme- diately past capacity. We knew that if we were going to survive as a business, we needed more rooms. We put together the means to renovate and make some additions. With the additional rooms, it then became apparent that we needed a communal place, that wasn’t the dining room, for guests to gather to specifically enjoy the view. That’s when we built the lounge on. We can easily seat 50 people in the lounge. Our last phase of expansion was to add-on to the dining room because it became too small. It’s now licensed for a hundred people. We’ve also added several more rooms.
We now have 38 and we’re happy with that number for now.
18
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2018
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs