The 446 room Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge inside Alberta’s Jasper National Park, is booked out for 65 days by a single guest from February 23 through April 29.
In order to accommodate this big sale the hotel cancelled reservations of guests that already had bookings at the property. When something like this happened to me at a then-Starwood resort in Thailand, the property paid for an upgraded room and meals for me at another hotel.
There’s speculation over whether the property could be the site of filming for a television show, because the province’s Chief Medical Officer was asked about the booking during a Covid-19 briefing and mentioned the decision criteria for “potential requests for exemptions” to pandemic rules “as we look to this film industry framework that we’re working on.”
The hotel was the location for Rose Marie (1936) and Country Beyond (1926) and has hosted celebrities including Bing Crosby and Marilyn Monroe who “is said to have fallen in the Maligne River and twisted her ankle during the 1953 filming of River of No Return.”
Britain’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth stayed there in in 1939, and Queen Elizabeth II stayed on property in 2005 with Prince Philip who is quite the travel connoisseur and once remarked that flying can be quite comfortable “provided you don’t travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.”
Credit: Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge
Since we don’t know who the guest is though we do not know if they or members of their party would be entering Canada from abroad for the stay, and subject to the country’s new strict quarantine rules.
- Canada has effectively banned Caribbean and Mexico flights. So far we know that Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing, and Air Transat have ‘agreed’ to cease these flights though it’s not clear if they can or will continue on foreign airlines.
- International flights can only land in Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver
- PCR testing required prior to travel and once in Canada
- Travelers have to stay 3 days at an approved hotel waiting for testing results
- And then self-quarantine for 14 days in total if negative, and the booked-out Fairmont should qualify for this.
In a lot of cases, flying in economy is ghastly: people get bigger but the seats have less and less room, little meal service, Torquemada quality slimline seats, crowded planes, overhead bin arguments, etc..
Lack of operating flights shouldn’t be a concern. I’m pretty sure someone who can afford, I’m guessing, $6-10 million for the hotel stay, can also afford a private jet to get there.
The bachelorette will be filming there starting this February.
I could not care less about someone who booked 446 rooms at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge for 65 days; I care about people who had their reservations cancelled because of this. If the lodge has done nothing too compensate these customers and find them reservations elsewhere, I hope they go under and the management and owners lose their shirts. That’s a disgusting business practice and I hope they suffer for it.
It’s Jasper National Park, not Calgary’s Jasper National Park.
@Calv Austin’s Big Bend National Park
https://etcanada.com/news/740682/the-bachelorette-coming-to-canada-new-season-to-film-in-albertas-jasper-park-lodge/
That “one” person is the Bachelorette filming company. The filming that will be happening there. If you did your research you would have easily found that out. Sigh.
Calgary is about 5-6 hours drive from Jasper. Calgary is a city not a national park. Jasper however is a town and a national park 😉
This is such click-bait. There is nothing in here about “why they may be forced to cancel” beyond any of the COVID restrictions.
@salvatore In the industry, the hotel will usually require the buyout party to cover the expenses incurred by the guests with existing reservations to change their date of arrival – this typically includes airline fee, possible room upgrade, etc. That is if the guests with existing reservations are able to change the dates. This hotel will definitely do its best to persuade them (with upgrades, free spa, etc) in order to get a full buyout for three weeks.
@turningleft. This is Jasper, not Chicago. There are no alternatives there. They essentially ruined vacations for others out of greed. All for what, to book the property out for the new season of Bachelorette. Says a lot about the Fairmont brand. I promise you, a good company that was not in for the cheap cash grab would do the right thing.
This is interesting on many levels. First of all, despite my hatred of this kind of business choice, the reality is that I doubt there were that many guests booked to begin with. This is primarily a summer destination. It sucks though for the few hundred (probably Canadians) that might have booked it as a getaway weekend given few other options out there due to travel restrictions.
Of course, let’s not forget that this property is pretty basic and “whatever” to begin with. Fairmont lost its luster some 20 years ago. Beautiful area, indeed. But the hotel is hardly worth whatever Bachelorette is hoping for. It will be almost fun to watch and see the potential brides gawking at the dated rooms with spindle headboards and worn mahogany nightstands that are Fairmont trademarks nowadays.
Needless to say, assuming the two months of winter season there they booked, it’s still probably many hundreds of people displaced who were, most likely, hoping for a nice weekend anywhere they could get to. So, not only can the nice Edmonton family not go to Cancun or Florida, they just got canceled by a reality show trying to enjoy a getaway in one of the few places they can easily get to.
Just think how many cast and crew are needed to travel there, from all over, when no one else can. Welcome to our new society. The Covid cans and the can nots.
Those “nice Edmonton families” can also go to Banff &or Lake Louise for a weekend getaway!
I wonder whether their negotiated rate will allow them to earn Accor Live Limitless (ALL) points 😉 !
Marilyn Monroe was lucky to survive the fall in the river, saved by Robert Mitchum…and not just Hollywood spin. Had she not survived, we would have missed her in “Bus Stop”, “The Seven Year Itch” and “Some Like It Hot”
Even if they did not want all 446 rooms, they probably didn’t want all the little people milling around during their filming.
Last year a movie called “Let Them All Talk” starring Meryl Streep was shown. It was filmed during a summer 2019 eastbound transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2. Regular passengers were also on the ship and they could be seen in the background. Neither Cunard nor the movie producers had any problem with that.
Interesting situation at the Jasper Park Lodge, but this blog post is a hot mess on so many levels.