Posh Resorts Cash In on Business Leaders

Perched in front of a crackling fire, Steven Rauschkolb tugged at a tall red ski hat covering his ears, sipped wine and chatted merrily with co-workers after a golf outing in frigid temperatures.

Rauschkolb, director of training for the pharmaceutical Schering-Plough Corp., needed a place to inspire ideas, foster teamwork and rejuvenate his 19-member sales team after a record-breaking year.

And Skytop Lodge, a cozy, 1920s-era resort of 5,500 acres nestled in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, provided the atmosphere Rauschkolb wanted.

The posh resort has doubled its business clientele since the mid-1990s by tapping into a national trend: tailoring services to top executives who want to be coddled in comfortable surroundings and use the experience to spark creativity and cooperation. It has attracted guests from a variety of Fortune 500 companies, including Exxon, AT&T; and First Union Bank.

The resort is one of hundreds around the country that offer amenities to businesses interested in “experiential learning,” in which recreational activities are used as metaphors for the business environment. Participants learn to solve a problem or hone a managerial skill through golfing, hiking and similar activities.

“It grew out of things not related to workplace: Outward Bound and training in the military. It seems to have made a comeback in the last 10 years,” said Pat Galagan, editor of the trade magazine put out by the American Society for Training and Development, an association of 50,000 professional trainers.

Today, about 30 percent of conference centers and hotels nationally have on-site adventure courses that did not exist 10 years ago, said Ann Smolowe of Project Adventure Inc. of Portland, Ore., an international training and consulting firm.

“You can view golfing as recreation or as an educational tool,” said Smolowe. “If the group consists of company leadership, you may use it as a coaching tool.”

Smolowe works with businesses at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa in Farmington, Pa., which offers services that include a 50-foot climbing wall and a ropes course with 21 obstacles that force co-workers to rely on each other and learn cooperative skills. At Skytop, fly-fishing on a tranquil lake or putting on the expansive golf course are used to help executives apply coaching and managerial skills.

Offering the services has paid off for Skytop, which derives about $3 million of its $12 million in annual business from business retreats. During the past four years, the resort has doubled the number of companies served to 250 annually.

The resort averages two to three business groups daily, most of which drive in from surrounding states.

“It fills the midweek market and is a key to resorts like this for our success,” said General Manager Ed Mayotte, who previously managed two resorts at the Walt Disney World theme park in Orlando, Fla.

In July, Skytop opened an intimate 20-room, $5.7-million Dutch Colonial-style manor wedged between the front and back nines of its golf course. The facility offers meeting space separated by soundproof doors so businesspeople can work without distractions from other guests.

Rooms boast fireplaces and private balconies that look out on mountains. No details are overlooked; walking sticks for hiking and golf-sized umbrellas are in each closet, a small safe is in every room, and books ranging from bear hunting to relationships are available for bedside reading.

The nightly package at the inn includes three meals with gourmet entrees--such as slow-roasted, cinnamon-cured pork loin--meeting space and complimentary green fees. Prices range from about $250 to $400 per person, per night, depending on whether guests stay at the secluded inn, cabins or at the 127-room stone manor.

For Rauschkolb, the resort offered the right mix of services to spark the creative brainstorming he desired among the staff, who normally work at company headquarters in Kenilworth, N.J., a two-hour drive away.

“The results from this meeting are some of the best we’ve ever gotten,” he said. “The response I’ve gotten from the team is that this place is terrific. They’re anxious to return next year.”