Hotel group’s signature package offers Quebec getaways
The
Quebec hotel group Hôtellerie Champêtre is playing Santa Claus, but it plans a delayed start until January for the sleigh, the elves and the gifts.
Hôtellerie Champêtre is a group of 33 hotels and resorts throughout the province that vary widely in setting and style. The common factor is that they offer appealing, quintessentially Quebec experiences.
The group’s newest marketing venture is its signature gift package, featuring a getaway in one of five categories: romantic inns, gourmet cuisine, the great outdoors, bed & breakfast or spa life. We know that Hôtellerie Champêtre is a certain crowd-pleaser because it sells more than 8,000 gift cards annually. That represents a lot of regional mini-vacations for anniversaries, holidays and birthdays. The gift packages will be available as of Jan. 15, in part to avoid the holiday rush on hotels.
“The signature packages are personalized so they show that you have thought about the gift,” Yannick Beaupertuis, the director of Hôtellerie Champêtre, said. “You are offering someone a specific experience tailored to their preferences, not simply an amount of money.
“But just in case it doesn’t suit, the package can be exchanged for another service of equal value at the same hotel.”
So, I am drafting my gift list and will be ahead of the game for Valentine’s Day and other occasions of 2013. I will buy Blair a ski holiday at Le Grand Lodge Mont Tremblant. And Rae would go gaga for a sojourn at Auberge Le Moulin Wakefield Mill north of Gatineau, or Estrimont Suites & Spa in Orford, where massages and manicures are part of country life. Jean-Pierre loves Quebec City’s cuisine scene, so I’m going to set him up with bed-and-breakfast at the historic Hôtel Acadia near the Old City. Then he is free to explore Old Quebec and he can wine and dine at François Blais’s terrific Bistro B nearby.
If you have an adventurer in your life, Hôtellerie Champêtre’s most distinctive deals are at its newest hotel members, which offer a total immersion in winter sports, with varying degrees of challenge. For example, at the rustic Pourvoirie du Lac Blanc in the wilds of Mauricie, guests have an easygoing initiation to ice-fishing, snowmobiling and snowshoeing.
Also new to Hôtellerie Champêtre are the three country lodges of the Société des établissements de plein air du Québec, three hotels that make the great outdoors accessible to all. One of them, Auberge de Montagne des Chic-Chocs in the Gaspé Peninsula, is an exceptional experience that represents the ultimate in outdoor adventure, Quebec-style. The Auberge is a remarkable and remote lodge — and it isn’t kidding about being in the mountains.
After making the roughly eight-hour drive from Montreal, guests are met in the Gaspésian coastal town of Cap-Chat and transported by a tractor-style shuttle for a rollicking 90-minute drive up snow-covered mountain roads to a summit chalet. Here, you are perched 615 metres above sea level in a remote lodge. The hotel has only 18 compact guest rooms, each with a private bathroom and modern country decor, but the special aspect is the convivial, communal ambience in which both guests and guides dine family-style at one big table and hang out at a central fireplace lounge.
This is adventure travel, but even couch potatoes can apply to Auberge de Montagne des Chic-Chocs. You can cocoon indoors in front of the fireplace or in the hot tub or sauna, and venture outdoors for a short snowshoe trek or a back-country ski excursion simply to enjoy the splendid landscape.
But the most exciting and rare opportunities in the ChicChocs are for the sports-minded. You’ll need stamina and a burning desire to conquer the cold and snowy mountain environment of the Réserve faunique de Matane, with its Arctic-alpine flora, tundra and fauna, including moose.
Guides lead strenuous half- and full-day expeditions through ungroomed back country where the snowfall averages seven metres. Snowshoes are provided, as are Méta skis, a heel-up hybrid between snow shoes and back country skis with removable “skins” on the base for climbing traction.
This is likely the most cardio you’ve expended in a long time, and you’ll return after a memorable day to share stories and a glass of wine by the fire with new friends, followed by a robust country dinner with gourmet inspiration.
Still, even the best-chosen gift has its risks. Hôtellerie Champêtre has a Plan B for the recipient who is hard to please. In a welcome stroke of flexibility, the signature packages are exchangeable for a simple gift card of the same cash value to be used at the same hotel. So, Rae can trade in the $150 worth of spa services that I bought her and spend the value on diner à deux with her lover. Blair can swap my gift of skiing at Tremblant and spend a languid day at Le Grand Lodge having a massage and a long soak in the hot tub.
Gift certificates at the Société des établissements de plein air du Québec lodge aren’t exchangeable because Auberge de Montagne des Chic-Chocs is all-inclusive, but guests can choose between a lazy day and a demanding outdoor winter or summer adventure.
I hope Jean-Pierre doesn’t exchange the Quebec City deal. Besides gastronomy and history, my favourite activity is cross-country skiing on the Plains of Abraham because of the significant history and the striking views of the St. Lawrence River.