The first resort

CenterParcs sees itself as the leader in the UK short break holiday market and a world apart from the traditional UK holiday resort.

The 10-year old company, part of Scottish & Newcastle plc, has three CenterParcs Villages in the UK: at Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire; Elveden Forest in Suffolk; and Longleat Forest in Wiltshire. They claim to offer "a unique blend of relaxation and exhilaration" in their forest settings.

The company competes with "all of the leisure industry" from Super Bowl operations to alternative short-break holidays, says Mark Jones, CenterParcs' director of operations.

The company stresses that its catering is of hotel standards. CenterParcs does not have any franchise catering operations and an in-house team runs all restaurants and bars. "We certainly don't want to be relying on other companies to set our standards," stresses Jones.

Revenue from food represents 25% of CenterParcs' multi-million-pound turnover. The restaurants and brasseries range from the Dutch Pancake House, Trattoria, American Family Restaurant and continental-style brasserie to a more sophisticated French restaurant. A meal could cost anything from £2-£30 per head, says Jones.

All accommodation is in self-catering villas with fully-equipped kitchens, and visitors can buy their own supplies in an on-site supermarket if they prefer not to eat at a restaurant. Food is not included in the price of the holiday, which ranges from £43.33-£70.25 per person for a weekend to £64.83-£116.50 for a week.

Village is an appropriate description for what is, in essence, a small community open throughout the year. CenterParcs' 1,000 catering staff serve more than 2,000,000 meals a year to 1,000,000 visitors across its sites.

Jones insists that the CenterParcs' chefs are top calibre - "our head chef Neil Goldie at Sherwood has worked in eight Michelin-starred restaurants," he adds. And he says CenterParcs is the first company in the short-break holiday sector to receive Hospitality Assured accreditation from the HCIMA.

Butlins simply isn't plain old Butlins any more. The British leisure giant is outraged by any association with the phrase "holiday camp". With the start of the new holiday season in April, it wants to be known as Butlins Family Entertainment Resorts.

The extension in title is part of Butlins' new makeover and an improvement of its catering facilities. Two years' work (out of season) and a £139m investment and redevelopment programme has stripped Butlins of its traditional, Hi-de-Hi! image and left its three locations in Minehead, Somerset, Skegness, Lincolnshire, and Bognor Regis, West Sussex, with a more modern image.

"The Butlins product was created 60 years ago. The aim of the revamp has been to make the product more appropriate for our time and take us forward into the millennium," says Chris King, catering and marketing executive.

Catering is a big issue at Butlins. It has to cater for amounts of people that would fill a town. The resort at Minehead sleeps 8,500 people, with Skegness and Bognor sleeping about 5,500. "We could feed up to 2,000 people a day - the size of the residential catering on offer on a daily basis is one of the largest in the UK. We serve about 10,000 breakfasts and dinners a day," says Brown.

Package options

Guests have the option of residential or half-board, with 48% opting for residential. A three-night self-catering break costs from £24 per person while half-board costs from £51 per person, including breakfast and dinner.

Butlins opens its doors to show off its new brand and catering products to the public next month. Notably, this season will see the introduction of a number of "pay-as-you-go" restaurants typical of those lining the average high street.

So for the first time, Butlins will operate franchises for Burger King and Harry Ramsdens. They'll be run alongside Tom Cobleigh pubs, also due to be introduced this season, and Butlins' wholly-owned restaurant Pinewood Café and Bar, which Brown equates to TGI Friday's. The average price of a meal in the resort ranges from £2.95 to £14.95. Brown won't reveal catering turnover. "We've turned Butlins upside down, therefore you can't compare previous and present turnover levels," he says.

High-street presence

The introduction of high-street brands is a response to customer feedback. In line with this, Butlins has also revamped its traditional dining rooms.

"We've moved away from our old institutional style of service with long rows of tables and seating, inflexible eating times and limited eating choice," explains operations director Nic Brown. In its place, he says Butlins has created "a front of house environment that you can put along any good high-street-type experience".

Butlins has broken up the dining halls into modern restaurant environments where families can now eat together and choose from a menu that he promises "caters for every member of the family with a range of choice".

There are two in-house restaurants at each resort - Ocean Drive and Coral Beach. Ocean Drive restaurants are themed in a New England style, while Coral Beaches are home to an undersea fun world for children, complete with a pirate chest and murals.

The focal point of the Butlins revamp is the Skyline Pavilions, which Brown says are "about the size of Wembley". The Pavilions cover the restaurants with a weather-proof roof and house stage shows such as The Mask and characters such as Otis the aardvark. The Pavilions and the live acts create a "modern-day Covent Garden feel" with buskers and jugglers providing entertainment, says Brown.

The introduction of these weatherproof entertainments will mean that the three Butlins resorts will be open all year round. This has the benefit of also solving recruitment problems. The seasonal nature of the work in the past has meant less job security for employees, which has inevitably contributed to staff turnover, as well as creating a training burden. From now on, most staff will be working on a more permanent basis.

Brown says Butlins views the revamp as "a huge opportunity to develop talent". He stresses that Butlins is keen to encourage youngsters to start on a catering career path with the company and to show "professional individuals that there are lots of opportunities" at Butlins.

The company recruits all the catering teams - Minehead employs some 1,500 catering staff; Skegness 1,300; and Bognor 1,200. Butlins is now searching for more than 1,200 catering and housekeeping staff to work at the resorts. Butlins recruitment auditions will be touring major cities, including Manchester, Birmingham, Plymouth and Cardiff, looking for suitable recruits as well as local roadshows in Bognor, Minehead and Skegness.

For competitors, Brown cites Alton Towers and EuroDisney. "We left Pontins behind a long time ago," he says, although he admits he sees an element of CenterParcs (see panel) in the revamped Butlins. "They've moved within the AB1 market but now we'll attract some of that market segment," says Brown.

But the key focus of Butlins is family entertainment breaks and for that - according to Brown - Butlins has no real competitors at all. n