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| Company type | Public limited company (Naamloze vennootschap) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Leisure |
| Founded | 1968 |
| Founder | Piet Derksen |
| Headquarters | Rivium Boulevard 213, , |
Number of locations | Center Parcs - 26 Sunparks - 2 |
| Brands | Center Parcs, Sunparks |
| Parent | Pierre & Vacances |
| Website | centerparcs |
Center Parcs Europe N.V. (formerly Center Parcs) is a European network of holiday villages that was founded in the Netherlands in 1968, and is currently operated by Pierre & Vacances.
Dutch entrepreneur Piet Derksen started a sporting goods shop in 1953 at Lijnbaan, Rotterdam. Its name was 'Sporthuis Centrum', 'Sport House Centre'. It succeeded and Derksen expanded into 17 outlets across the Netherlands, and then added camping articles to the range.
In 1968, Derksen purchased woodland near Reuver so staff and customers could relax in small tents. The park, De Lommerbergen , was successful, and the tents were quickly replaced by bungalows. In 1987, Center Parcs opened its first UK resort at Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire. This brought the company into the sights of expanding brewer Scottish and Newcastle, which later bought the group.
In 2001, the UK locations separated from the continental Europe locations and formed a separate company, Center Parcs UK. [1]
In 2003, Scottish & Newcastle sold the Continental European sites to a joint venture of Pierre & Vacances (P&V) and DBCP, a German investment group. This was given the name Center Parcs Europe (CPE). P&V owned Europe's largest (in terms of bed-count) bungalow-vacation-supplier, Gran Dorado Resorts, a Dutch former joint venture of Vendex, [2] Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds, GAK and Philips Rentefonds. P&V brought Gran Dorado in the joint venture.
As CPE was based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the Dutch and European Commercial Competition Authority [3] did not approve of combining Gran Dorado and Center Parcs, as it would effectively control the European market. After agreeing to a reduction in beds owned, CPE sold all but six Gran Dorado Resorts to Dutch Landal GreenParks. [4] The remaining six parks were added to CenterParcs: Loohorst (NL), Port Zelande (NL), Zandvoort (NL), Weerterbergen (NL), Hochsauerland (D) and Heilbachsee (D).
After the sale, five of the six remaining Gran Dorado Resorts parks were rebranded Sea Spirit from Center Parcs or Free Life from Center Parcs. The Weerterbergen-Resort was sold to Roompot because of the cost of bringing it to standard. [5] All original Center Parcs resorts in the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Germany were sub-branded CP Original. Having completed the integration and rebranding exercise, Pierre & Vacances bought DBCP out of the partnership.
In January 2009, Sunparks launched alongside Center Parcs in Europe, as a low-cost brand. Many of the former Gran Dorado resorts were rebranded in this exercise, but the sub brand was dropped in 2011 and the parks were rebranded to Center Parcs.
There are now 26 resorts in the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Germany. Most villages are different, but some villages such as Bispinger Heide in Germany and Domaine Les Bois Francs in France (and many more) share the same Village Plaza design. They have the same styled Aqua Mundo and Sports Plaza. Accommodation is in villas or bungalows, clustered in a park and surrounded by trees and bushes. An exception is Park Zandvoort, set among sand dunes. Certain resorts also provide hotel rooms. The first village had features that have stayed popular like the swimming pool, shops and restaurants. The first dome arrived in 1980,[ citation needed ] named Subtropical Swimming Paradise in UK resorts and Aqua Mundo in European resorts. A range of sporting activities is available, with restaurants, spas, saunas, and massage.
In 2009, Center Parcs Europe divided its parks into two brands: "Center Parcs", which includes the 5-star parks, and "Sunparks", which includes the 3- or 4-star parks. At the beginning of 2011 the company decided to rename most Sunparks as Center Parcs. [6]
Center Parcs Europe owns and/or operates 26 Center Parcs resorts and 2 Sunparks resorts. Aroundtown owns the freehold of seven of these resorts. [7]
| Overview of all Center Parcs resorts | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Resort | City | Region | Opened | Added | Details |
 Netherlands | De Huttenheugte | Dalen | Drenthe | 1972 | ||
| Parc Sandur* | Emmen | 1999 | 2011 | |||
| De Eemhof | Zeewolde | Flevoland | 1980 | |||
| De Kempervennen | Westerhoven | North Brabant | 1983 | |||
| Het Meerdal | America | Limburg | 1971 | |||
| Het Heijderbos | Heijen | 1986 | ||||
| Limburgse Peel* | America | 1980 | 2002 | |||
| Port Zélande | Ouddorp | South Holland | 1990 | 2002 | ||
| Park Zandvoort* | Zandvoort | North Holland | 1989 | 2002 | ||
 Germany | Park Eifel* | Gunderath | Rhineland-Palatinate | 1979 | 2002 | |
| Park Nordseeküste* | Tossens | Lower Saxony | 1992 | 2002 | ||
| Park Hochsauerland | Medebach | North Rhine-Westphalia | 1994 | 2002 | ||
| Bispinger Heide | Bispingen | Lower Saxony | 1995 | |||
| Park Bostalsee | Nohfelden | Saarland | 2013 | |||
| Park Allgäu | Leutkirch | Baden Württemberg | 2018 | |||
 France | Les Bois-Francs | Verneuil-sur-Avre | Upper Normandy | 1988 | ||
| Les Hauts de Bruyères | Chaumont-sur-Tharonne | Centre-Val de Loire | 1993 | |||
| Le Lac d'Ailette | Chamouille | Picardy | 2007 | |||
| Les Trois Forêts | Hattigny | Lorraine | 2010 | |||
| Le Bois aux daims | Les Trois-Moutiers, Morton | Nouvelle-Aquitaine | 2015 | |||
| Villages Nature Paris (Disneyland Paris) | Marne-La-Vallée | Île-De-France | 2017 | Originally a joint-venture with Euro Disney S.C.A. | ||
| Les Landes de Gascogne [8] | Beauziac | 2022 | ||||
 Belgium | Erperheide | Peer | Limburg | 1981 | ||
| De Vossemeren | Lommel | 1987 | ||||
| Terhills Resort | Dilsen-Stokkem | 2021 | ||||
| Park De Haan* | De Haan | West Flanders | 1989 | 2007 | ||
| Les Ardennes* | Vielsalm | Luxembourg | 1992 | 2007 | ||
| Sunparks | ||||||
| Kempense Meren | Mol | Antwerp | 1994 | 2007 | ||
| Oostduinkerke | Oostduinkerke | West Flanders | 1981 | 2007 | ||
| Resorts in development | ||||||
 Denmark | Nordborg [9] | Nordborg | Southern Denmark | 2024 | ||
| Germany | Pütnitz [9] | Ribnitz-Damgarten | Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | 2026 | ||
| France | Forêt de Poligny [8] | Poligny | Bourgogne-Franche-Comté | T.B.D. | ||
| Forêt du Rousset [8] | Le Rousset | T.B.D. | ||||
 China | Hanshui Hometown [10] | Shiyan | Hubei | T.B.D. | Joint-venture with CCTID | |
| Former resorts | ||||||
| Netherlands | De Lommerbergen | Reuver | Limburg | 1968 - 1996 | Sold to Creatief Vakantieparken | |
| Het Vennenbos | Hapert | Noord-Brabant | 1970 - 1994 | |||
| De Berkenhorst | Kootwijk | Gelderland | 1975 - 1990 | |||
 United Kingdom | Sherwood Forest | Rufford | Nottinghamshire | 1987 - 2001 | Spun off into Center Parcs UK and Ireland [11] | |
| Elveden Forest | Brandon | Suffolk | 1989 - 2001 | |||
| Longleat Forest | Warminster | Wiltshire | 1994 - 2001 | |||
| *Former Sunparks | ||||||
Circuit Zandvoort, known for sponsorship reasons as CM.com Circuit Zandvoort, previously known as Circuit Park Zandvoort until 2017, is a 4.259 km (2.646 mi) motorsport race track located in the dunes north of Zandvoort, the Netherlands, near the North Sea coast line and 35 km (22 mi) west of Amsterdam. It returned to the Formula One calendar in 2021 as the location of the revived Dutch Grand Prix.
America is a parish village in the Dutch province of Limburg, known historically for its peat extraction.
Zeewolde is a municipality and a town in the Flevoland province in the central Netherlands. It has a population of approximately 22,000 (2017). It is situated in the polder of Flevoland with the small lake called the Wolderwijd to the east. To the south is a large deciduous forest called the Horsterwold. The area to the west is principally agricultural.
Zandvoort is a municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is one of the major beach resorts of the Netherlands; it has a long sandy beach. It is bordered by coastal dunes of Zuid-Kennemerland National Park and the Amsterdam water supply dunes. It hosts the country's most prominent motor racing circuit, Circuit Zandvoort.
PortAventura World is an entertainment resort in Salou and Vila-seca, Tarragona, on the Costa Daurada in Catalonia, Spain. It was built around the PortAventura Park theme park, which attracts around 5.3 million visitors per year, making it the most visited theme park in Spain and the sixth most visited theme park in Europe.
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Telfort was a brand of Dutch mobile telecommunication company KPN.
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Center Parcs UK and Ireland is a short-break holiday company that operates six holiday villages in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, with each covering about 400 acres (1.6 km2) of woodland. The company's first village opened at Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, in 1987 and its sixth, at Longford Forest, Ireland, opened in 2019.
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Gran Dorado was a holiday villages company based in the Netherlands. Until the merger in 2002, it was the biggest holiday villages company of Europe. Today's owner is the French company Pierre et Vacances, and is merged with the Center Parcs company.
Zodiac Zoos is a Dutch corporation that owns and operates Aqua Zoo Friesland, Zoo Wissel, Zoo Labyrinth Boekelo, Zoo Park Overloon, and Castle Arcen.
Sunparks is a European Brand of Holiday Villages from Center Parcs Europe. Sunparks runs eight parks: four Belgian Parks, two Dutch Parks and two German Parks. In 2011 Sunparks will take over a third Dutch park from Landal Greenparks.
Eurocamp is a British holiday company based in Cheshire that provides pre-sited outdoor holidays in Continental Europe. The company works with third-party partner campsites and holiday villages to offer beach, city, and countryside holidays at approximately 180 parks in Europe, including destinations in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Croatia.
Groupe Pierre & Vacances Center Parcs specializes in tourism services, providing holiday and entertainment villages, leisure activity residences and hotels under the brands Pierre & Vacances, Maeva, Center Parcs, Sunparks, and Adagio. The headquarters of the company is in France and the core area of the company's activities is France, but it also has facilities in Belgium, Mauritius, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy and Spain.
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