Haven Holidays

Haven
Private
Industry Leisure
Predecessor British Holidays
Founded 1964 (1964)
Headquarters Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, UK
Number of locations
 37 caravan parks in UK
Area served
 UK
Key people
 John Dunford, Chief Executive
Jane Bentall
Products Caravan holiday parks
Caravan sales
Revenue Increase £271.1 million (2010)[1]
Increase £35.2 million (2010)
Increase £25.6 million (2010)
Number of employees
 2,802 (2010)
Parent Bourne Leisure Limited
Website www.haven.com

Haven Holidays owns and operates 37 family holiday parks, providing caravan, touring and camping facilities across the UK in predominantly coastal locations. Haven provides touring holiday facilities at 24 of the 37 holiday parks it operates, with 15 of these also offering camping pitches for tents and a further five offering pitches for trailer tents. Over the years, a rolling investment programme has provided new accommodation, landscaping, spas, golf courses and adventure golf, as well as enhancements to some of the leisure pools with flumes, slides and Space Bowls.[2]

Haven holidays is part of the Bourne Leisure Group who also own Warner Leisure Hotels and Butlins Resorts. The current company was created in November 2004, following the amalgamation of the British Holidays chain with the Haven Holidays chain, which parent company, Bourne Leisure, purchased from The Rank Group in 2000.[3] It now entirely trades as Haven.

Although the Haven name is now used for the combined chain, the existing company is, in effect, a continuation of the previous company.

History

Acquisitions

The current Haven chain is formed from a number of acquisitions by its former brands including Warner Holiday Camps (now trading as Warner Leisure Hotels), from the late 1980s Haven wanted to distance itself from the old style camp sites, which resulted in Haven investing millions of pounds in the sites it acquired and re-branding them as Holiday Parks. Over the years Haven also acquired many smaller independent Holiday Parks enabling the brand to offer a wide range of Holidays by categorising their parks as All Action, Lively, Leisurely and Relaxing. After wanting to focus more on its gaming operations such as Mecca Bingo, the Rank Group decided to sell its holiday arm to Bourne Leisure, subsequently many of Haven's smaller parks were sold off and the British Holidays brand, ceased trading. Later all British Holiday Parks were re-branded as Haven.

In October 2000, Bourne Leisure purchased the Rank Group's UK leisure arm, Rank Leisure, for £700 million, which included the Haven, Butlins and Warner Leisure Hotels chains. At the time of acquisition, Rank Leisure's Haven Holidays operated 56 resorts, whilst British Holidays (already owned by Bourne Leisure) operated 22.

Bourne decided to retain larger operating units which accounted for approximately 85% of their customer flow, making it possible to upgrade the Haven parks to the same standard of the British Holidays chain.

Subsequently, the company disposed of 43 Haven and British Holidays resorts between 2001 and 2004. A number were sold to independent ventures and management buy-outs (for example, British Holidays' Lido Beach in Prestatyn, Clwyd). However a number of growing leisure chains acquired larger quantities of sites, including:-

Park Resorts, a management buy-out backed by CBPE, acquired 12 freehold resorts from the Haven chain in 2001 (such as Cayton Bay in Scarborough, Yorkshire). Parkdean Holidays acquired three Haven and two British Holidays resorts in 2004 (such as Cherry Tree in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, and Wemyss Bay in Renfrewshire, Scotland). Park Holidays UK, at the time known as Cinque Ports Leisure, purchased a further nine parks (such as Felixstowe Beach in Felixstowe, Suffolk). Far Grange Park & Golf Club, Skipsea, East Riding of Yorkshire, was purchased by Bourne Leisure in 2007, being the first acquisition by Bourne Leisure since Rank Leisure in 2000. The park appeared in the Haven 2008 holiday brochure, issued in November 2007. However it has since been removed and now trades as a separate entity to the Haven chain in the Bourne Leisure group.

In April 2015, Bourne Leisure purchased two more caravan parks, this time from Flamborough Holidays Ltd;[4] both the Thornwick & Sea Farm Holiday Centre and Greenacre West caravan park. Thornwick & Sea Farm holiday centre's complex was re developed for the 2016 season, along with it becoming a Haven park. The Haven park is now known as 'Thornwick Bay'.

Re-branding

Following Bourne's acquisition of Rank Leisure, the company began integrating its Haven and British Holidays chains during a seven-year development phase. The individual brands "Haven Holidays" and "British Holidays" continued to trade individually until November 2004, when a final three Haven parks and two British Holidays resorts were disposed of, those being: Wemyss Bay, Pendine Sands, Cherry Tree, Warmwell and Torquay. These were relatively small parks, and Bourne Leisure eventually decided to sell these off, stating that they no longer fitted well in the Haven and British Holidays brands. This reduced the number of parks in the British Holidays chain to 17 and the number of Haven parks to 18. At the same time, both brands merged as "Haven and British Holidays" and released a new brochure and website under that name. Eventually, in November 2007, the company ceased trading as "British Holidays" and the Haven name is now used throughout the chain.

Holiday parks

As of 2016 there were 37 Haven parks in the United Kingdom.

International parks

Until the acquisition of Haven by Bourne, Haven Holidays ran several parks in Europe as Haven Europe. However, in November 2004, these were sold to Siblu as part of a management buy-out.

Bourne Leisure also owns resorts in Ontario in Canada and Sarasota in Florida, United States.

Mascots

There are 9 mascots in Haven Holidays. The 2 main mascots are Rory the Tiger (in Haven parks) and Bradley Bear (in British Holidays parks). In 2002, Rory was introduced to British Holidays parks and Bradley was introduced to Haven parks. There are 7 other mascots including Greedy the Gorilla, Anxious the Elephant, Magical Merlin, DJ Ned, Polly, Manic the Parrot and Sylvester the Snake. In 2007, the team was called the Zoo Troop, then they were renamed as the Seaside Squad in 2013. Manic, Sylvester and Merlin was disposed of in 2009. From now, there are 6 mascots.

Current mascots

Former mascots

References

  1. ↑ Haven Leisure Ltd, Report and Financial Statements, 31 December 2010
  2. ↑ "About Us - Haven Holidays".
  3. ↑ "HavenHolidays.com - Review - We want Rory!!!!".
  4. ↑ "Holiday parks in national deal". Bridlington Froo Press. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
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