ANALYSIS Seasons T
his August, Great Wolf Resorts (GWR) announced that Ruben Rodriguez, formerly of Carnival Cruise Line, will take the reins as CEO in September. The news came hot on the heels of the buyout by
Centerbridge Partners, who in May this year fi nalised its reported $1.35bn (£867m, €1.23bn) acquisition of the company – one of North America’s leading brands and operator of indoor waterpark resorts. The transaction represents the fourth iteration in Great Wolf’s rapid evolution from a privately-held, locally-focused company to its place of scale and dominance today.
GREAT WOLF 2000
My relationship with GWR really started in the summer of 2000, when I was director of global strategy and business develop- ment with the Tussauds Group. I visited the Wisconsin Dells – a popular family tourism area in the upper Midwest, within driving distance of Chicago and Minneapolis – where I toured several properties with Chuck Neuman, founder of waterpark design fi rm WTI. A standout property was Black Wolf
Lodge, which had recently been acquired by GWR’s predecessor, Great Lakes Companies (GLC). Our hosts were Jack Waterman – who, with his brother Turk, had developed the property and other leisure facilities, including the nearby Noah’s Ark waterpark – and Bruce Neviaser, who co-founded GLC with Marc Vacarro. At that time, Black Wolf Lodge had been expanded to comprise 309 rooms and a 40,000sq ft (3,716sqm) indoor waterpark, on-site dining and other facilities. When it opened in 1997, it had just 117 rooms and a 20,000sq ft (1,858sqm) waterpark.
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of the Wolf
As Great Wolf Resorts – recently acquired by Centerbridge Partners in a reported $1.35bn deal – appoints a new CEO, former executive vice president and managing director Nikki Nolan looks back on the company’s history, growth and development and offers perspectives on the future
As we walked through the impressive craftsman-style North Woods-themed resort – which may be modest by today’s standards – I knew these guys were onto something special. So much so, we at the Tussauds Group were inspired to invest in an integrated indoor waterpark resort of our own, opening Splash Landings and Cariba Creek at Alton Towers, UK, in 2003.
BRAND DEVELOPMENT & PHASE I EXPANSION When Neviaser and Vacarro acquired the Black Wolf Lodge property and brand, they’d recognised the inherent scalability of the “staycation” model. Great Wolf set about refi ning its concept, operating systems and development model to enable rollout super- regionally – and, ultimately, to markets across the US and perhaps internationally. During this initial phase of expansion, GWR grew its in-house team and solidifi ed supplier relationships. New site
Michigan and Kansas City, Kansas (2003), and Sheboygan, Wisconsin (2004). These initial properties, with the Dells
fl agship, came to be referred to as the Generation I resorts, characterised on the basis of scale (300 rooms or less) and market strength (located in smaller markets, primarily in the upper Midwest). Although the Generation I properties went a long way towards both defi ning the brand and its operating model, and providing a runway for further expansion, the average project scale – at 270-300 rooms, and with indoor waterparks of 40,000sq ft to 60,000sq ft (3,716sqm to 5,574sqm) – seems modest when compared with the company’s current standards.
IPO & PHASE II EXPANSION Great Wolf began to weigh strategic options and position itself for an IPO in 2004. Though it had just a handful of existing properties, several others were in the
As we walked through the impressive craftsman-style North Woods-themed resort I knew these guys were onto something special
development was supported by single site fundraising – including, in some cases, pre-sales of ownership units. Development was further supported by a rather buoyant fi nancing market environment and incentives from local and regional authorities. Despite the heavy lifting required to realise the development of a $50m (£32m, €45m) resort property, GWR was successful in rolling out to new markets, including Sandusky, Ohio (2001), Traverse City,
pipeline, including Niagara Falls, Ontario, in partnership with Ripley Entertainment / the Jim Pattison Group. Plans for resorts in the Poconos, Pennsylvania, and Williamsburg, Virginia, were perhaps most important from a strategic perspective, each representing drive-to destination tourism regions with feeder markets including greater New York and Washington DC, respectively. John Emery, formerly of Interstate, was brought in as CEO by Neviaser and
AM 3 2015 ©CYBERTREK 2015
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