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Xanterra Travel Collection (formerly Xanterra Parks & Resorts,Amfac Resorts and Amfac Parks & Resorts) is a privately owned American park and resort management company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado. The company is controlled by Denver-based entertainment magnate Philip Anschutz. [1]
Xanterra is contracted by the National Park Service to provide lodging and other tourism services inside several national parks. Current concessions contracts include Glacier National Park, Grand Canyon National Park (South Rim), Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Rocky Mountain National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and Zion National Park. [2] Xanterra Travel Collection also owns and operates the Grand Canyon Railway and Hotel, The Grand Hotel at The Grand Canyon, Cedar Creek Lodge, The Oasis at Death Valley, Country Walkers, Vermont Bicycling Tours, Holiday Vacations, and Windstar Cruises. [3] [ better source needed ]
A legacy of the 19th century Fred Harvey Company, after the death of the founder's grandson in 1965, the company became affiliated with Chicago-based JMB Realty, which acquired large Hawaii landholder Amfac in 1968 and broke it up into independent corporations including Amfac Resorts. In 1995, Amfac bought the large national parks management concession TW Recreational Services from Flagstar. [4] [5] In 2002, Amfac changed its corporate name to Xanterra after the bankruptcy of Amfac Hawaii. [6] The name comes from a combination of Xanadu and terra (Earth). [7] The Anschutz Company bought Xanterra from JMB in 2008. [8]
Xanterra specializes in tourism in U.S. National Parks, and has a presence in Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, Glacier, Rocky Mountain, and Zion, as well as Mount Rushmore National Memorial. They are contracted by the US National Park Service to provide lodging and services in these parks. Accommodations and pricing vary widely and include quality hotel rooms, lodges, rustic cabins, motel-style lodging and camping.
The most notable of the original Harvey operations is the Grand Canyon, South Rim concession, including the El Tovar Hotel.
In addition to its National Park contracts, Xanterra Travel Collection also owns and operates several gateway hotels (Grand Canyon Railway & Hotel in Williams, Arizona, The Grand Hotel at The Grand Canyon in Tusayan, Arizona, Cedar Creek Lodge in Columbia Falls, Montana, The Oasis at Death Valley in Death Valley National Park), adventure travel companies (Country Walkers based in Williston, Vermont, Vermont Bicycling Tours (VBT) in Williston, Vermont, Holiday Vacations in Eau Claire, Wisconsin), and the yacht-style cruise line Windstar Cruises based in Miami, Florida. [3]
Xanterra operates the Grand Canyon Railway in Arizona on the line originally built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Since their takeover of the operation in 2007, the line has removed its historic steam locomotives and ALCO FA diesels from service in favor of their modern EMD F40FH diesels. Although, two of the FAs, #6793 and #6860, are still operational to pull the Williams Flyer train, and steam locomotives #29 and #4960, modified to run on waste vegetable oil, are also still used on special occasions. [9]
Grand Canyon National Park is a national park of the United States located in northwestern Arizona, the 15th site to have been named as a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often considered one of the Wonders of the World. The park, which covers 1,217,262 acres of unincorporated area in Coconino and Mohave counties, received more than 4.7 million recreational visitors in 2023. The Grand Canyon was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. The park celebrated its 100th anniversary on February 26, 2019.
Windstar Cruises is a cruise line that operates a fleet of small luxury cruise ships. Its six yachts carry just 148 to 310 guests and cruise to 50 nations, calling at 150 ports throughout Europe, the South Pacific, the Caribbean, and Central America. In May 2014, Windstar added to its sailing yachts by adding the Star Pride power yacht, followed by Star Breeze and Star Legend in May 2015. The additional capacity opened up new itineraries such as voyages to Iceland, the Panama Canal, and Costa Rica and allowed Windstar Cruises to sail Tahiti year round.
Amfac, Inc., formerly known as American Factors and originally H. Hackfeld & Co., was a land development company in Hawaii. Founded in 1898 as a retail and sugar business, it was considered one of the so-called Big Five companies in the Territory of Hawaii. At its peak, it owned 60,000 acres (24,000 ha) of land, and was a dominant sugar company in Hawaii, as well as the founder of one of its best known department store chains, Liberty House. It ended with the completion of a bankruptcy proceeding in 2005, with a small successor company, Kaanapali Land, LLC, owning 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) of land in Kaanapali on the island of Maui.
Delaware North is an American multinational food service and hospitality company headquartered in Buffalo, New York. The company also operates in the lodging, sporting, airport, gambling, and entertainment industries. The company employs over 55,000 people worldwide and has over $3.2 billion in annual revenues.
The Fred Harvey Company was the owner of the Harvey House chain of restaurants, hotels and other hospitality industry businesses alongside railroads in the Western United States. It was founded in 1876 by Fred Harvey to cater to the growing number of train passengers.
The Grand Canyon Railway is a heritage railroad which carries passengers between Williams, Arizona, and the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.
The Anschutz Corporation is an American private holding company headquartered in Denver, Colorado, United States. The company was started in 1958 by Fred Anschutz, a wildcatter, who developed and operated oil wells. Philip Anschutz, Fred's eldest son, assumed control of the company in 1962 and diversified it with holdings in the entertainment and hospitality industries.
The Utah Parks Company, a subsidiary of Union Pacific Railroad, owned and operated restaurants, lodging, and bus tours in Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks, the north rim of Grand Canyon National Park, and Cedar Breaks National Monument from the 1920s until 1972. Operating as a concessionaire of the National Park Service, the company operated from a base in Cedar City, Utah. The company's bus tours connected there with Union Pacific trains as well as tour buses from Los Angeles, San Francisco and other west coast cities, and offered a loop tour of the region's parks and monuments, escorted by a Utah Parks Company driver/guide.
Star Pride was the first of three German built cruise ships that were initially built for the Seabourn Cruise Line. She was known as Seabourn Pride and is now operated for Windstar Cruises and was the first of her class.
The Oasis at Death Valley, formerly called Furnace Creek Inn and Ranch Resort, is a luxury resort in Furnace Creek, on private land within the boundaries of California's Death Valley National Park. It is owned and operated by Xanterra Travel Collection.
The Rising Sun Auto Camp, also known as the Roes Creek Auto Camp, East Glacier Auto Camp or simply Rising Sun preserves a portion of the built-up area of Glacier National Park that documents the second phase of tourist development in the park. Rising Sun is located along the Going-to-the-Sun Road, approximately 7 miles (11 km) from the east entrance to Glacier National Park, Montana, United States. Rising Sun is a wayside area that has a National Park Service campground, a camp store and gift shop, picnic area, restaurant, as well as a motel and guest cabins which are managed by the park's concessionaire, Xanterra Parks & Resorts. In the immediate area, there is also a boat dock as well as sightseeing boats which allow visitors to tour Saint Mary Lake, the second largest lake in the park. "The most popular spot for [Glacier] tourists is Rising Sun, an overlook of Goose Island in St. Mary Lake and one of the most photographed spots in the park."
National Park Service rustic – sometimes colloquially called Parkitecture – is a style of architecture that developed in the early and middle 20th century in the United States National Park Service (NPS) through its efforts to create buildings that harmonized with the natural environment. Since its founding in 1916, the NPS sought to design and build visitor facilities without visually interrupting the natural or historic surroundings. The early results were characterized by intensive use of hand labor and a rejection of the regularity and symmetry of the industrial world, reflecting connections with the Arts and Crafts movement and American Picturesque architecture.
Viad Corp provides experiential leisure travel and face-to-face events in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Iceland, and the United Arab Emirates via two divisions: GES and Pursuit.
Maswik Lodge is a lodge in Grand Canyon National Park that is run by Xanterra Parks & Resorts. It is named after a Hopi Kachina figure said to watch over the Grand Canyon. Maswik Lodge is located about 0.25 miles (0.40 km) from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It is on the west side of Grand Canyon Village. The lodge contains a cafeteria, lounge, and many spread out room complexes.
Grand Canyon Depot, also known as Grand Canyon Railroad Station, was constructed in 1909–10 for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, in what is now Grand Canyon National Park. It is one of three remaining railroad depots in the United States built with logs as the primary structural material. The station is within 330 feet (100 m) of the rim of the canyon, opposite the El Tovar Hotel, also built by the railroad. The depot is designated a National Historic Landmark, is listed the National Register of Historic Places, and is included in the Grand Canyon Village National Historic Landmark District.
Grand Canyon Village Historic District comprises the historic center of Grand Canyon Village, on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. The district includes numerous landmark park structures, many of which are National Historic Landmarks themselves, or are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town design as a whole is also significant for its attention to integration with the Grand Canyon landscape, its incorporation of National Park Service Rustic design elements, and for the idiosyncratic design of park concessioner structures such as the El Tovar Hotel.
Crater Lake Lodge is a hotel built in 1915 to provide overnight accommodations for visitors to Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon, US. The lodge is located on the southwest rim of the Crater Lake caldera overlooking the lake 1,000 feet (300 m) below. The lodge is owned by the National Park Service, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As of 2024, the hotel is a Historic Hotels of America program member, and has been so since 2012.
JMB Realty was a real estate investment company based in Chicago. In 1993, after suffering during the early 1990s recession, the company spun off its retail properties as Urban Shopping Centers, Inc., which was acquired by Rodamco in 2000 and broken up. After selling off its remaining assets in the late 2000s, JMB Realty was defunct; although its debt finance group was spun-out as JMB Financial Advisors and still exists as a going concern based in Chicago.
Busch Properties, Inc. (BPI), is a corporation, which operates resort, residential and commercial properties in the United States. It was established in 1969 as a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch, Inc. (AB), the largest brewing company in the United States, which is based in St. Louis, Missouri. BPI's four main functions include business park development, resort and residential development, corporate real estate and employee residential relocation for the parent company and other AB subsidiaries.
The Canyon Village Lodge at Yellowstone National Park is the largest single lodging property in Yellowstone National Park. Its renovation, first envisioned in 1988 as part of the Canyon Redevelopment Plan, is part of a larger undertaking to improve the dining and lodging prospectus park-wide.