Haven & British Holidays
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Haven & British Holidays are a company that run many well-known holiday parks around United Kingdom under the Haven and British Holidays brands, previously two separate companies until Bourne Leisure (previously owner of British Holidays) acquired Haven via the The Rank Group[1]. The new company, owned by Bourne Leisure, owns 34 holiday parks under their own name, but previously ran a further 20+ smaller parks, which have either been sold to other providers or Park Resorts.
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[edit] Activities & Facilities
In 1998, British Holidays brought in separate brands for all their activities, which included Funworks (amusement arcades), Foodworks (fast-food outlet), Ropeworks (high rope activity centre) SplashZone (swimming pools), SportsZone (sports activities), SunZone (tanning/sunbathing areas) and ShowBar (family entertainment). Since the acquisition of Haven, these have been adopted there as well, but the generally Foodworks has been replaced by Burger King outlets. In addition to the major activities above, all parks have a general store (usually branded by Everydays, Essentials or not at all), reception and a Haven Holiday Homes centre which sells caravans. The entertainers previously named 'Haven Mates' have been replaced with the name 'Funstars' and a new improved uniform, which has been in use on British Holidays parks since 1998. The children's mascot in Haven was previously Rory the Tiger, and in British Holidays it was Bradley Bear. However, since the bringing together of the two companies, both mascots are seen in all parks.
[edit] Rebranding
In the early 2000's, Bourne Leisure purchased all of The Rank Group's UK tourism interests, which would bring up their total number of parks from both Haven and British Holidays to over 50, with over 30 owned by Haven and 20 owned by British Holidays. As a response to this, Bourne created a separate entity for 12 of the smaller and often older Haven parks, which was named Park Resorts. British Holidays on the other hand sold their Prestatyn holiday park, Lido Beach, and the smaller New Quay park, Cai Bach to unknown providers. Other parks which have been sold to companies other than Park Resorts since the above are Wemyss Bay, Pendine Sands, Cherry Tree, Warmwell and Torquay.
As the assets of the two companies was mixed together more, posters, advertisements and flyers began appearing with both companies' logos. Due to the decreasing amount of Haven & British Holidays parks, Bourne published a combined brochure for both British Holidays and Haven, as more and more of their smaller parks were re-branded as Park Resorts. In 2005, advertisements were solely branded as "Haven", and the former British-holidays.co.uk domain was re-directed to havenholidays.com, despite the British Holidays logo still being evident. On the parks themselves however, no physical re-branding has taken place and former British Holidays' parks do not possess Haven branding and vice versa. On the other hand, sites now owned by Park Resorts have undergone a massive re-branding programme, and no evidence is left to suggest it was ever owned by any other company.
Haven's website generally refers to the company as Haven, but the British Holidays logo is still evident under the Haven logo, and individual parks' homepages previously owned by British Holidays are located on the former British-holidays.co.uk domain.
It is supposed that the favouritism of the Haven brand is because is due to it being the bigger of the two prior to Haven's sale, but no evidence can be given to suggest this.
[edit] Holiday Parks
In the UK, Haven & British Holidays run thirty-four parks.
[edit] Haven Parks
- Primrose Valley (Filey)
- Blue Dolphin (Filey)
- Reighton Sands (Filey)
- Golden Sands (Lincolnshire)
- Caister (Great Yarmouth)
- Wild Duck (Great Yarmouth)
- Seashore (Great Yarmouth)
- Combe Haven (Hastings)
- Littlesea (Weymouth)
- Seaview (Weymouth)
- Weymouth Bay (Weymouth)
- Doniford Bay (Watchet)
- Devon Cliffs (Exmouth)
- Perran Sands (Perranporth)
- Riviera Sands (Hayle)
- Presthaven Sands (Prestatyn)
- Hafan y Môr (Pwllheli) - previously owned by Butlins
- Craig Tara (Ayr) - previously owned by Butlins
[edit] British Holidays Parks
- Thorpe Park (Cleethorpes)
- Hopton (Great Yarmouth)
- The Orchards (Clacton-on-Sea)
- Allhallows (near Rochester)
- Church Farm (Chichester)
- Lydstep Beach (near Tenby)
- Kiln Park (Tenby)
- Quay West (New Quay)
- Greenacres (Porthmadog)
- Marton Mere (Blackpool)
- Cala Gran (Blackpool)
- Lakeland (Grange-over-Sands)
- Seton Sands (East Lothian)
- Berwick (Berwick-upon-Tweed)
- Haggerston Castle (near Berwick-upon-Tweed)
- Burnham-On-Sea Holiday Village (Burnham on Sea)
[edit] International Parks
Until the acquisition of Haven by Bourne, Haven Holidays ran several parks in Europe. However, these have now been sold to Siblu, but children's entertainment and clubs is exactly the same as Haven UK's. British Holidays also owned resorts in Ontario in Canada and Sarasota in Florida[2], however it is expected that these have now been sold off.
