Center Parcs Europe
European network of holiday villages
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.
History
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 soon replaced with 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.
In 2003, Scottish & Newcastle sold the continental European sites to a joint venture of Pierre & Vacances (P&V) and Deutsche Bank Capital Partners (DBCP), a German investment group. This was given the name Center Parcs Europe (CPE).
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This entry incorporates text from “Center Parcs Europe” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.