Leisure Facilities

Riding The Waves

Posted on May 4, 2014
waves

A highlight at Golden Coast is the Wavesurfer simulator, allowing guests to brush up on their surfing and body boarding skills.

Riding The Waves

Capitalising on a prime seaside location, Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks own and operate four 4-star holiday parks around the village of Woolacombe in North Devon.

Frequently voted the best beach in Britain, the location is a unique mix of sandy beaches, rolling fields and the rugged beauty of Exmoor National Park, all within a stone’s throw of the Woolacombe Bay sites.

Kevin Darvill, sales and marketing director at Woolacombe Bay comments: “The most crucial aspect to the success of our parks has to be the beach. Woolacombe’s beach is quite simply gorgeous and offers everything from a traditional bucket and spade holiday to surfing. Of course the beach alone isn’t enough to encourage customers to stay with us and for that we try to ensure we offer lots for every age to do and great places to stay.”

The family run business was established over 50 years ago, and the four parks now welcome international and UK guests from February to November each year. The parks are hire fleet only, meaning that there are no caravan sales activities, but the company does offer caravans, lodges, villas, apartments and traditional farmhouses along with high quality camping and touring facilities at all four parks.

“We’ve seen big changes in where customers want to stay,” explains Kevin. “A few years ago smaller, older caravans were in demand as budget options, but over the past couple of years there really has been a trend for extended families with several generations or two families sharing higher quality caravans. In response to this, we recently replaced a fifth of all our caravans, meaning our average caravan age is now just 3 years old.” He adds: “Then there’s the rise in popularity of the short break. A week’s holiday in July and August is still the mainstay at those times, but in term time we’ve had to adapt to more short breaks and change the offering to suit the demographic.”

Golden Coast is the company’s biggest park, offering 342 rental units and 93 touring pitches, plus the widest range of leisure facilities, including a ten lane bowling alley, a 17th Century pub and a high ropes course. Making the most of the park’s Atlantic facing location, a surf school and unique surfing simulator enables guests to try surfing no matter what their ability.

“Customers are always looking for something new and different, wanting the best experience they can get for their hard earned holiday time. There’s a continuous demand for new activities, particularly those that can be used whatever the weather. In the run up to and after the Olympics we saw a big demand for more sports activities to, so we’ve introduced sports complexes at all our parks,” says Kevin.

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Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks
Tel. 0843 2080 377
www.woolacombe.co.uk

Park Focus: Hendra Holiday Park

Posted on May 2, 2014
Hendra

Hendra Holiday Park in Newquay is one of Cornwall’s largest parks, welcoming 380,000 visitors per year.

Park Focus: Hendra Holiday Park

For over 42 years, Hendra Holiday Park in Newquay has been a popular tourist destination for families and couples looking to explore the Cornwall coastline from the comfort of a 5-star caravan and camping site.

The family-run park has been owned and operated by three generations of the May and Hyatt families since it opened as a touring and camping park in 1972. Static holiday homes were added to the site in the mid 80’s and the park now boasts over 300 holiday homes and 500 touring, camping and motorhome pitches. Both May and Hyatt families still live on the site and are actively involved in the day to day running of the park.

Jon Hyatt, director at Hendra Holiday Park comments: “Our philosophy is to offer great family holidays for all budgets at the highest, 5 star quality standard. We invest heavily on an annual basis to improve, upgrade, build and install new facilities for our guests, to not only fulfil, but surpass their expectations.”

The park has a high profile among holidaymakers and is one of the largest in the county. The 80 acre site provides guests with various catering options, a supermarket, indoor and outdoor children’s play facilities as well as sports and entertainment activities. But as Jon explains, the park must constantly evolve to keep up with customer demand: “I would say the biggest challenge we face is continuing to meet the needs of an increasingly sophisticated market with higher and higher expectations from a holiday.” He adds: “Whilst Cornwall remains the UK’s favourite holiday destination, household spending on holidays has been reduced and competition from cheap overseas destinations with guaranteed weather is very strong.”

Continuous development and investment into the facilities and services has won Hendra numerous awards and accreditations including a National Quality Assured Scheme 5 star grading, an AA 5 Pennant award, and a Cornwall Tourism Award for Holiday Park of the Year and Sustainable Tourism. Most recently Hendra’s Fish & Chip Takeaway won Seasonal Fish & Chip Operator of the Year at the Seafish National Fish & Chip Awards.

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Hendra Holiday Park
Tel. 01637 875778
www.hendra-holidays.com

 

Work Hard, Play Hard

Posted on March 20, 2014

 Work Hard, Play Hard

work hard

Butlins are continuously investing to make sure that their resorts are up to the standards that modern British families expect.

Celebrating its 78th birthday this year, Butlins has successfully stood the test of time and remains a firm favourite among families and holidaymakers looking for a break a little closer to home.

Owned by Bourne Leisure, Butlins welcome more than 1.6million guests to their three resorts each year, spread acrossthe season from February half term through to New Year’s Eve. Around half of the guests that visit each year are repeat visitors, illustrating a strongsense of brand loyalty. The company attributes its success to being a family inclusive resort, offering a huge variety of shows, entertainment, activities and dining and accommodation choices at affordable prices. Dermot King, managing director at Butlins reveals: “We know that the key to success is continuous investment into the resorts to make sure that we keep the standard that modern British holidaymakers expect.

Our aim is to provide holiday resorts where families can happily enjoy a holiday in a safe, secure and appealing environment. Families work hard to come away and we aim to give them a break from the daily routine of normal life and let them spend quality time together, whilst we take care of the hard work.”

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Cotswolds Holiday Park Expands Leisure Facilities

Posted on February 11, 2014

Cotswolds Holiday Park Expands Leisure Facilities

The new social complex at Leedons Holiday Park offers visitors and residents additional recreational facilities.

Caravan park operator Allens Caravans has recently invested in a new state-of-the-art indoor swimming pool and social complex at Leedons Holiday Park in the Cotswolds.
Disused buildings on the holiday park site were demolished to make way for the new facility, which includes a 15m x 6m indoor swimming pool and changing rooms, a large social hall area and a hair studio.
The project was carried out by Derbyshire based pool and commercial building specialists Pinelog, who proposed a contemporary yet practical design of a timber frame building that folds into the landscape. The almost symmetrical, low profile structure, has two main wings housing the swimming pool and hall with separate mono-pitched roofs over the wings and central part of the building.
Pinelog also applied a number of sustainable design and energy efficient features to the leisure centre. In addition to the timber frame and larch cladding being constructed from sustainably produced materials, the building also includes solar roof panels, natural ventilation, extensive use of natural light, heat recovery from the extract ventilation, low energy lighting and recycling the swimming pool water.

Holiday Parks In Multi-Million Buy Out

Posted on November 20, 2013

Holiday Parks In Multi-Million Buy Out

South Lakeland Parks, which operates nine holiday parks in the Lake District and Morecambe Bay area, has been acquired by Electra Partners, the majority shareholder of Park Resorts, in a £47m deal.

Park Resorts and Electra Partners worked in partnership to secure the takeover deal of the Cumbrian-based business from White Ocean Leisure and its lenders. The acquisition comes only two months after Electra Partners led the refinancing of Park Resorts which will provide significant further investment in the parks to improve facilities across existing holiday parks.

The addition of South Lakeland increases Park Resorts’ portfolio by nine holiday parks, making it the largest holiday parks operator in the UK with 48 sites across England, Scotland and Wales.

South Lakeland Parks was founded in 1988 and was previously known as South Lakeland Caravans until June 2006. Its sites range from traditional caravan parks to larger holiday villages complete with leisure facilities and direct access to Lake Windermere.

David Boden, CEO of Park Resorts commented: “South Lakeland’s nine parks are all high quality and will perfectly complement our existing portfolio. The parks are ideally located for owners and holiday makers to experience some of the most spectacular scenery the UK has to offer.”