The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge has stood majestically for decades on the shores of Lac Beauvert, a constant in Jasper’s tourist landscape. Far less unchanging has been the ownership situation for the grand hotel and cabin complex. 

Earlier this year, a wealthy Saudi prince 

purchased the majority of shares in Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, the parent company that controls JPL and other luxury hotel properties such as the Banff Springs and Chateau Lake Louise. Now, the hotel industry is abuzz with the rumour that the lodge and many other prominent hotels will be up for sale soon.

When the scuttlebutt first hit the press last week, the Banff Springs and Quebec City’s Chateau Frontenac were the Fairmont destinations most widely rumoured to be destined for the new real estate listings page of Forbes Magazine. Then a more comprehensive piece appeared on the front page of the Saturday (July 1) Financial Post.

Citing several anonymous and “industry” sources, the FP story identified no fewer than 13 hotels that would be sold to the highest bidder, including the JPL. The majority owner of the Fairmont group, which was merged with the Raffles luxury hotel chain shortly after the takeover, is interested in selling off the Canadian properties in order to pay down the nearly $2.5 billion debt accrued by Fairmont in recent years.

When reached for comment, Fairmont’s corporate communications staff were tight-lipped about the speculation, informing the Fitzhugh that it was company policy to decline comment on rumours of this nature. 

“If anything does happen, we will be informing the media right away,” said one desk jockey. The Fairmont representatives also had a firm “no comment” when asked if they had been surprised to see stories about rumoured sales in prominent national media over the Canada Day long weekend.

The Financial Post story was more than just nameless sources and speculation. The paper reported that Fairmont Raffles has contacted an eminent brokerage firm to handle the future sales of the multi-million dollar hotel properties. The story went on to posit that the various elements of Fairmont’s Canadian empire may be sold off in pieces, rather than a unitary package of hotels and resorts.

New ownership would be less unusual for the JPL than its sister hotels in Banff and Lake Louise, which until the spring Saudi sale had been effectively controlled by Canadian Pacific for their entire existence. 

Fairmont was created when CP Hotels purchased the US-based Fairmont chain in 1999. More than a decade earlier, CP had purchased Canadian National’s network of hotels, including the JPL.

One industry analyst cited in the FP story claimed that the long-term land leases that national park properties like the JPL and Banff Springs are subject to would be discouraging to potential buyers, as would the existing management contracts in place at the three hotels in the Alberta Rockies.