Canada-based Intrawest Corporation has combined all of its travel and leisure businesses to form the Leisure and Travel Group.

The new group has been launched in order to provide more effective leverage for Intrawest’s assets and expertise.

The Leisure and Travel Group will include all of Intrawest’s mountain and warm-weather resorts, its golf, lodging and central reservations businesses and Club Intrawest – which generated $650m in revenues in fiscal 2003.

The new group will have a shared infrastructure of finance, IT and administration and Intrawest believes this will allow customer contact to be consolidated while cross-marketing strategies can also be employed, utilising the full range of the company’s products.

Veteran Intrawest executives, including Dan Jarvis and Hugh Smythe, have been chosen to lead the Leisure and Travel Group with Jarvis now president and chief executive officer of the group.

Joe Houssian, chair, president and chief executive officer of Intrawest, said: “The formation of the Leisure and Travel Group will enable us to draw on our legacy of innovation to offer a whole new range of experiences and benefits to our customers and to build powerful global brands.”

He continued: “Over the years, we have built a network of resort businesses of sufficient scale and diversity to present significant opportunities in marketing, sales and operational integration.

“We are now poised to take full advantage of these new opportunities.” Details: www.intrawest.com