We’re delighted to announce an extension of our strategic partnership with Haven Holiday Parks, with the launch of 3 new projects and our Service Contract in recent months. The total number of our attractions now at Haven parks is now over 25, a significant milestone, plus we are continually supporting Haven with spare parts, service engineers and specialist staff training on our attractions.
One of these exciting projects was a new high ropes adventure course and junior low ropes course at Haven’s Cleethorpes Beach site, completed in Summer 2022. We took the time to speak to Matt Batey, Head of Activities at Cleethorpes Beach in August 2023 to hear about the project in detail…
The Thorpe Park project
As one of the largest parks in the Haven estate and having recently received significant phased investment over recent years, Cleethorpes Beach was the ideal candidate for an exciting expansion to their activities offering.
Having successfully launched numerous Innovative Leisure adventure attractions at other Haven parks in recent years, Haven were keen to repeat the winning formula at Cleethorpes Beach, opting to commission two new ropes courses to challenge and delight their guests and caravan owners.
About the courses
High Ropes
First up, the high ropes course (branded Aerial Adventure Max by Haven) caters for guests over 1m in height accompanied and 1.2m in height unaccompanied. Towering at over 10m tall across two levels and featuring a variety of challenges, including zip lines, rope bridges, and suspended platforms, it’s quickly established itself as one of the flagship attractions at the park, as Matt Batey, Head of Activities for Haven Cleethorpes Beach explains:
“The Aerial Adventure Max course really has been the focus and centrepiece for the Adventure Village. It’s a wonderful piece of kit and really is one of the most popular activities that we’ve got here at Thorpe Park. Guests can test their skills and courage as they climb, swing, and balance their way through the course. It’s multidirectional, so they can choose to go any direction they wish. We’ve even got one particular section where you can kind of hang off the edge just by the harness, real adrenalin, heart pumping kind of stuff. It’s fantastic to enjoy, but also to watch as well.”
Low Ropes
In contrast, the junior low ropes course, or Mini Aerial Adventure offers a more family-friendly experience for younger guests to enjoy with their parents – enabling Haven to cater for the full age range of their audience demographic, as Matt elaborates:
“The beauty of working with Innovative Leisure and having multiple courses means we are catering for the full age range. If the under sixes look at the big one and think, actually I really fancy having a go, but they’re not quite big enough, we’ve got that Mini Aerial that they can really enjoy as well. Mums and Dads can jump onto the course with their little ones and support them as they walk around the course.“
Operation
Thanks to the high capacity and throughput of both courses, and the ability to pre-book in advance up to 12 weeks before their visit, or book on the day, Haven have the ability to be flexible with their staffing, ensuring they can strike the optimal balance of sessions available versus bookings to maximise capacity and revenue potential:
“If we start to see the Aerial Max course during a busy summer season really reaching its capacity, we then have time to bring in additional teams to make sure that we support additional activities and sessions.” explains Matt, “As you pass through our Adventure Village and you see the sheer scale and the height of the Aerial Max, it really does create that wow factor before you even step onto it.
So, what we tend to find is that we probably receive around 20% of advance bookings for this particular activity, but once people actually get onto park, that volume then goes through the roof…It’s almost full capacity during our peak seasons.”
Training & Support
As with all our clients and projects, the Innovative Leisure team looks after the whole process – from initial planning and scoping, through install to full staff training, annual inspections and ongoing maintenance.
We pride ourselves on our consultative approach and quality of service, so it was fantastic to hear such positive feedback from the team at Haven:
“Innovative Leisure have been fantastic in terms of communication and the way in which they’ve held our relationship. There’s often a sense of a project being completed and you’re kind of left to it, and that’s never been the case with Innovative Leisure.
They’ve always been at the end of the phone, they’ve always been there to support and talk us through anything that they can help us with. But in addition to that, they’ve continued to provide the training and the support that we need to make sure we operate to the best that we can do. If you’re a business that’s looking at trying something different, looking to expand, certainly in terms of the high ropes courses, I would recommend Innovative Leisure.“
The Results
Since the launch of the new ropes courses, Haven Cleethorpes Beach has seen more people on park than ever before and a significant uplift in a number of their key performance metrics, including guest satisfaction, revenue and footfall, as Matt elaborates:
“One of the things we have seen is a huge increase in our NPS results since the investment of the Aerial Max course, so not only are we seeing a huge uptake in terms of our revenue in our sales on park, but we are also seeing a much better and improved satisfaction rate from our guest and our owners.“
About the Partnership
Already being familiar with our projects at Center Parcs and other UK sites, Haven installed their first Innovative Leisure attraction in Spring 2019. Since then we’ve had the privilege of helping Haven capitalise on guest experience trends for active family fun, launching 9 climbing walls, 6 high ropes and 12 low ropes courses at over 19 out of 38 Haven parks.
Speaking of the partnership, Phil Pickersgill, Managing Director said:
“We have worked hard to help Haven develop adventure attractions over recent years and its satisfying to see their customers enjoying these at so many locations this summer. With the cost-of-living pressure on families its been interesting to see revenue on leisure activities perform well this season even if spending on other areas of their holiday has retreated slightly. We think this reinforces the importance of experiences and parent’s willingness to spend on outdoor activities.”
What’s Next?
Interested in learning more about how a ropes course could benefit your holiday park or resort? Get in touch with our friendly team today to arrange your free consultation.