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Alton Towers 2014: new log cabin accomodation

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Sent to TowersStreet earlier today:

TowersStreet said:
Major new accommodation boost for resort

Alton Towers have today revealed they plan to construct 'themed lodges' as part of a major expansion of the resort hotels, for the 2014 season - with a planning application coming soon.

With the news coming as a surprise to many, they will be built on the meadow adjacent to the Alton Towers Hotel, on land which has been previously used for scare mazes and overflow car parking.

The news, which broke from the staff newsletter 'The Pulse', has come at a time when interest in theme park developments is already sky high, with Scarefest underway, Fireworks coming soon and the £18million investment in 2013 rollercoaster, Secret Weapon Seven.

Mark Kerrigan, Operations and Development Director at Alton Towers Resort, has told the Pulse that "around 30% of our guests currently stay overnight, whether with us or in the local area and we're expecting that figure to grow even more when SW7 opens".

The planning process is expected to take up to 3 months, with a decision likely sometime early in 2013.

Further information from the Alton Towers Heritage website indicates that the new development will be phased with around 85 lodges planned to be opening in 2014, with the remainder to follow in a second phase of the plan. The further information also confirms the plans to theme the log cabins with Mr Kerrigan stating "They will be individually themed and will reflect the style that people expect from Alton Towers Resort."

Whilst the exact location of the new accomodation has yet to be exactly confirmed with the plans submitted, we mocked up roughly the area we believe could house the new site, although there are clues that the site could be further north on car parks J&K or even in land further up from that.

With this combined investment, it would seem that Alton Towers' position as the UK's most popular theme park resort is assured for years to come, and we look forward to bringing you more news on this exciting development very soon!
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Next year will mark a decade since there's been any sort of expansion in the resort capacity. This is long overdue.

Hopefully this will be a high quality development with its own bar and entertainment facility, like Tipidorf at Europa. :)
 
I'm not sure you could argue it's overdue given the number of offers they've put on this year to shift rooms at the existing hotels.

Perhaps this will branch out to a different target market - fat cats perhaps.
 
Yeah, I don't really see this as overdue. How booked up do the hotels actually get? Personally I think they've priced them way too high and I can see these new cabins being even more ridiculously expensive, surely this isn't catering to their target market?

I'm intrigued by these plans. Wasn't more accommodation announced the other year anyway as their long-term plan?
 
Maybe they are hoping the new coaster will attracted people.

As said by others it's just too expensive to stay on site and there is nothing to do in the evening.
 
Surely these cabins will be cheaper than staying at the hotel...?

Unless they're palatial, I think it'd be pretty outrageous if they weren't. I'm sure they will be, Alton already know that their hotel prices will be pushing it for most people. :)
 
marc said:
Maybe they are hoping the new coaster will attracted people.

As said by others it's just too expensive to stay on site and there is nothing to do in the evening.
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Well there is this cool little water park, oh wait, they close it at 6.
 
Really? More accomodation? I bet the locals who run b&bs etc are gonna love that...

Its a nice enough idea and offers a different kind of accomodation. I will say that in that (rather hard to tell I grant you) they look nothing like a log cabin though! I daresay these will turn out more like Chalets with quirky rooftops... or worse... a dressed up shipping container :p

I agree with the others that have questioned the real need for expansion of the hotel side of the business though. Do they really need it? Unless they are planning on lowering their prices a bit across the existing hotels and thereby enticing more people to stay, I doubt it. I was under the impression, given the number of last minute cheap deals that they offer on a frequent basis, they are not filling what they already have. Add another 85 rooms which are likely to be even more expensive than the hotels and surely that will just mean more empty rooms to do last minute deals on? I guess they make a tidy sum even when they do offer cheap deals tbh.

I also agree, that if they are going to continue expanding the accomodation side of things, they really need to start thinking about how they entertain guests when the parks are closed. A hotel bar just doesn't cut it. This makes me wonder if they would ever go down a sort of CityWalk/Downtown Disney type route with shops and restaurants to eek out a bit more cash from peoples pockets?
 
I like the idea of log cabins, maybe they'll go down the Davy Crockett route and make a little ranch out of it.

Seriously though, what they need to focus on is evening entertainment if they're serious about this project, either that or EXTEND THE BLOODY PARK HOURS LIKE EVERY EUROPEAN PARK WITH HOTELS!! Even if it's just an hour longer, Alton of all the major UK parks should seriously be thinking about this, especially if they want to encourage more people to stay!
 
Maybe these cabins will come with self catering facilities for those families that stay for longer breaks. This could be justified with a higher price as they are offering services that the other rooms don't. I doubt they would do this as they will get less money in their restaurants and bars but it may attract people to stay longer.
 
peep said:
I'm intrigued by these plans. Wasn't more accommodation announced the other year anyway as their long-term plan?
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I can't remember if it was these on that LTDP or the Christmas huts they built. I think it may have been these though tied to the "Downtown Alton" plans they vaguely had, with an entertainment complex and Spinball on the Air carpark.

They need something like that, because apart from drink, there's bugger all else to do on site after the park closes at 3:30 or whatever they cut it back to next year ;)
 
To be honest, I'm with everyone saying that the expansion is not overdue. The hotels aren't fully booked out at any point in the year, if I was Alton, I'd lower the prices before adding yet another expansion and try to gain more customers, justifying purchasing yet more rooms.
 
I think that the funniest thing is that they said in the planning application for SW7 that "they didn't expect the new ride to cause a massive increase in visitor numbers".

Little liars :lol:
 
I imagine that these will be aimed at a lower budget market than the hotels. I guess the best way to describe it is that (in accommodation terms) I'm picturing something similar to Centre Parcs. They will be self catering (which in itself should appeal to families watching the pennies) and will probably only be serviced at the start/end of the stay (ie, you won't have people making your bed every day like in the hotels).

It'll be cheaper than a hotel, but as far as self catering chalets go, they will still be pricey compared to real budget places (ie Pontins et al) I can only think of one or two fairly small scale places near Alton that offer accommodation in this kind of category (unless I'm missing something).

I'm guessing that they're counting on middle class families hit by the credit crunch who accept that they need to lower their sights a bit, but still don't want to feel like they're "degrading" themselves. That may be a bit niche, but I don't know, I think it has potential.

Although, as others have pointed out, with nothing much to do in the evenings, will people want to bother?
 
See, I'm thinking they would be marketed as more fabulous and 'exclusive' than the hotel rooms. Kind of like a villa instead of a hotel in Spain or one of those other hideous resorts? Sure, you cook your own food and don't get maids in every day, but you pay for having a larger private space.

If that's the case I can't see it working, really. Those awful creatures who go to PretentiousParcs and think they're amazing would probably stick their noses up at what has become a rather tacky and chavvy 'resort'.

Yeah, that would be typical Alton. Market and price it as something really posh, when it's actually just Pontins.
 
Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking too Jake. I couldn't imagine Alton even attempting to do 'budget'. It's not the image they want.
 
Log cabins would look absolutely amazing at Alton Towers; Accommodation which compliments the surrounding scenery and country feel perfectly.

However...a project like this would be a little ambitious, when hotels in the area offer similar style accommodation for a fraction of the price. Chained Oak Farm, anyone?
 
Were going to Alton this Saturday and are staying in a Hotel Friday night. Alton wanted £247 for the friday night. Were now staying in a hotel just 9 miles away for £29. We do like staying at Alton but the price difference is huge. As others have pointed out there’s nothing to do after the park shuts and it’s just plain boring!

I thought I read a while ago that the overflow carparks were going to be used to build a CityWalk style area. Alton need to address the lack of entertainment, hopefully they will do this when they build these lodges.
 
To be honest though, the hotel complex is nowhere near big enough to actually have it's own shopping/entertainment area. Sure, it works at places like Disney where there are loads and loads of hotels which are always full, but Alton (especially the hotel area) is tiny compared.

Plus, it's not the sort of place where non-hotel guests would randomly decide to mince. It's in the middle of nowhere, a bitch to get to, and doesn't have a strong brand behind it like the larger resorts.

They've got a bar and a restaurant, and that's probably all they'll ever have. People have a different mentality when they stay there - most of the hotel bookings are probably people who only stay there for the convenience, whereas at somewhere like Disney they go there and intend to spend loads of money doing ridiculous stuff.

It's hard to explain, but yeah.
 
I know exactly what you mean Jake.

I think it's a difficult one to try and work out.

When I first went to the resort to stay about 8-9 years ago, it was fantastic. We had the fancy (cough cough) room, had dinner and breakfast (breakfast included) and the water park was open from about 8 a.m. - 8 a.m for guests to use. You also got a day on park as part of it too.

There was also the crap bar entertainment as well, but you felt you were getting you monies worth and there wasn't a "dead spot" from the moment we arrived until the moment we left.

When we return a few year's later, we needed to pay for the water park (it was when they introduced the water park pass for £30, so we got that and did the water park a few times that year), but it wasn't open after 6 p.m. or before the park opened. So we only got an hour in the water. I think breakfast was still included though, but you just had nothing at all to do all evening. It was really dull, and then being up with the kids early in the morning with nothing to do was a chore as well.

I don't know if the day on park is still included with the ticket, but they put the price of the water park passes up to £65 so we never renewed those and as a guest, you had to pay £12 or something each to use the water park.

It's still like that, but I don't know if hotel numbers are falling off as the years go by. As a customer, the prices have remained high, but what is on offer is much lower.

So the whole thing I just don't get. They have a LOT of rooms, and the potential to capture a larger audience with these extra lodges. However, their approach is dreadful. How can they gauge if a "Downtown Disney" (in miniature) could work if they availability of what they currently have is massively reduced, or over priced? The golf thing is superb, but it's a tenner to do the full course, and only hotel guests would be around to use it (everyone else is busy passing by). Yet it's a little out of the way from the main hotels.

I just don't know what they're thinking and I can't understand. They were either losing a lot of money running the water park and are covering costs, or they suffered with greed (the water park pass HAD to be greed, there's no way it costs extra to have additional people in the pool, but there's no way anyone is going multiple times at £12-£14 per head - so the £30 price was perfect to encourage revisits, but £60+, you'd have to be local and adore the pool (and it's really not THAT great).

The whole thing is a confusing mess. They were talking about an "entertainment complex" for after hours with Spinball open to hotel guests out of hours. It's a great idea if the park is expanding guest numbers. However, they're making no effort at the moment to see if by giving guests access to what they already have, it will increase numbers returning anyway. How do they judge these things and why is it all so screwed up?

A small theatre (say a 100 seater or something) I'll bet would work at the park, as would a little bowling alley and stuff - nothing outrageous or "town scale", but like Butlins have only even smaller (though you'd need to have been to Butlins to understand :lol: ). They just need to not over-price, which I think is the main issue at the moment with the hotels, too much for too little.

Oddly Jake, they do sell the room as worth it as "brand". It's the way they're marketed and priced - "Come stay at the Alton Towers magical hotel, only £250 per night" - like it's really special and wonderful.
 
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