OUR BRAND NEW HILTON GARDEN INN HOTEL IS TAKING SHAPE
Our new Hilton Garden Inn Hotel is taking shape
It’s set to be one of the largest hotels in North Wales, and it is rapidly taking shape on the edge of our world-first inland surf lagoon in the magnificent Conwy Valley.
The envelope of our flagship 106-bedroom Hilton Garden Inn is now complete, with work starting this week on internal walls, along with the mechanical and electrical fit out.
Single storey steel works will be complete in the coming week, and the first of 250 floor-to-ceiling windows also now being fitted.
Our construction project has been underway since July 2019. To ensure minimal environmental impact throughout construction and operation, we’re building it to BEEAM ‘very good’ standards.
The BREEAM rating measures design impact and carbon emissions, design durability and resilience, adaption to climate change, and ecological value and biodiversity protection.
Key measures being taken to reduce the environmental impact of the Hilton Garden Inn Snowdonia include an innovative waste-water management system, FSC-approved timber and photovoltaic roof panels.
We’re proud to have brought a one-of-a-kind adventure parc to North Wales, and we reckon our Hilton Garden Inn is going to seriously enhance our visitor experience.
Our landmark hotel will have its own adventure concierge service
This is the first time that the Hilton Garden Inn brand – which also operates at a number of the UK’s leading sporting venues including Doncaster Racecourse and the Emirates Old Trafford cricket ground – has been brought to Wales.
It will welcome its first guests in winter 2020 and promises unparalleled views across our world-first inland surf lagoon and the Conwy Valley’s mountains-and-forests landscapes beyond.
The hotel will be complemented by high quality hospitality facilities, including an indoor / outdoor wellbeing spa, corporate conference and meeting facilities for up to 230 delegates, and a destination dining restaurant overlooking the surf lagoon.
The Hilton Garden Inn will also launch with our new Adventure Concierge service, which will help our guests to explore a variety of instructor-led activities in the natural playground of North Wales.
Our concierge service will create bespoke itineraries which showcase the best of the region’s adventures, landscapes, food, heritage and culture.
The Hilton Garden Inn will create more than 90 new full-time hospitality roles, bringing the parc’s peak-season workforce to over 200, and now it’s taking shape, we’re able to see just how impressive the guest experience is going to be.
Hilton Garden Inn Snowdonia in numbers
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250 – floor-to-ceiling windows
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230 – delegate capacity at adjoining conference facility
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106 – bedrooms with long reaching views over surf lagoon and Conwy Valley landscapes
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90 – new full-time hospitality jobs
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£18 million – total investment
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10 – secure mountain bike lock ups
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8 – electric car charging points
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5 – motorbike lock ups
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1 – dog wash facility
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1 – gym / fitness suite
Sign up to our newsletter to get all our latest updates, and come and check it out as the build continues throughout 2020. We will be recruiting later in 2020. For all vacancies, please check our jobs page here.
What schools can teach you about how to grow your business
What schools can teach you about how to grow your business
Is it time to step away from the desk and find out what you could learn from adventure?
Life is not just about what we learn, it’s about how and where we learn. And aren’t we all still learning? The many benefits of getting out of our daily four-wall confines to refresh, invigorate and inspire is something schools have long been onto for a long time. In fact, there is even a government-backed Council for Learning outside the Classroom with its own policies and manifesto. There are a few good reasons for that.
A simple Google search will show you a wealth of resources which clearly demonstrate the benefits of taking students out of their daily grind. Countless academic studies point to evidence that it can fast-track students’ skills, values, personal and social development, as well as their behaviour and motivation to learn. In other words, it’s a great way to nurture young minds, and to help students achieve their full potential.
We reckon the very same benefits could apply to your workplace, too.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADVENTURE
What’s really interesting to us, is what the teachers who visit Adventure Parc Snowdonia have to say about the psychological impact of adventure.
Typically, schools come to us to take part in a surf lesson, or to get stuck into team challenges on ninja assault and extreme slides at Adrenaline Indoors (by the way, we have our own brilliant version of the Crystal Maze here – shout if you’re interested in finding out more).
They might equally be booked in for a gorge walking or high ropes session, too.
What they do with us isn’t really the point. What they take home with them is. The feedback we get from our teachers is both heartening and invaluable. Here’s a quick snapshot:
- Getting out of the classroom immediately re-sets the usual social dynamics of the student group. As one teacher recently put it: “We get to see a whole other side to the young people we work with. Previously unknown talents, abilities and character traits shine through”.
- Students develop valuable social skills by having to share decision making about how to overcome challenges.
- Taking part in an adventure encourages a sense of ‘team’. And it’s not always the most obvious person who ends up leading it.
- Pushing students out of their natural comfort zone has a noticeable impact on their confidence and determination. This can really help with motivation in the classroom. It has had a tangible impact on behaviour.
- Taking part in an adventure helps students to develop the psychological and emotional tools that they need to navigate different personalities, and to deal with their stress. That has a positive impact on their lives both in school and at home.
- A positive adventure experience can have such a long-term positive impact. “A year on, our students still talk with such joy about their experience at Adventure Parc Snowdonia”.
TIME FOR A WORKPLACE MANIFESTO?
By creating a nation-wide policy for its approach to outdoor learning and adventure, the UK’s education sector has stolen a march on the world of business.
Human beings don’t stop learning and growing when they leave school – at least, they shouldn’t. Maybe it’s time for the business world to create its own manifesto too. Maybe your business could lead the way.
If you’d like to find out more about our corporate team building events and packages, or our LOtC accredited school adventures, just drop us a line on info@adventureparcsnowdonia.com or call us on 01492 353 123.
We won the National Geographic Traveller Award
We won the National Geographic Traveller Award
We are delighted to report that we have just scooped the One for the Kids (family experience) award at the National Geographic Traveller Reader Awards, in association with Audley Travel.
The awards ceremony, which took place at The Montcalm Hotel in Marble Arch, London on Wednesday night, showcased industry innovation and expertise from attractions and destinations across the planet, from Snowdonia to Antarctica, China to Patagonia.
Regarded as the last word on the best places, experiences, hotels and operators which go ‘above and beyond’ to make travelling meaningful and memorable, the National Geographic Traveller Reader Awards celebrate the best new additions to the world of travel.
Candidates are shortlisted by judges, and then readers of the National Geographic Traveller are asked to vote for their favourites. Adventure Parc Snowdonia beat off competition from The Bear Grylls Adventure in Birmingham and Tiger Lodges Reserve in Kent to win in its category.
It’s such a big honour for us to be recognised by the National Geographic Traveller and its readers in this way, and we’re grateful to everyone who voted for us.
The award is testament to the exceptional work of our dedicated team who are passionate about delivering engaging, family-friendly experiences to encourage and celebrate the instinct for challenge and adventure which is in all of us.
National Geographic Traveller Reader Awards 2019
The full list of winners
One to watch (city/region): Antarctica
Firm favourite (country): Italy
New national treasure (UK attraction): National Maritime Museum, London
Far & away (overseas attraction): Skywalk at Fuxi Mountain, China
One for the kids (family experience): Adventure Parc Snowdonia, Conwy
Right track (rail): DiscoverEU and Interrail
Across the waves (cruise & expedition): Celebrity Cruises’ Xpedition Class ships
Domestic bliss (UK hotel): Titanic Hotel Belfast
The destination hotel (overseas hotel): The Retreat at Blue Lagoon Iceland
Unique stays (accommodation worldwide): Panorama Glass Lodge, Iceland
High-flyer (airline): Emirates
The big operator (tour operators & travel agents): Trailfinders
The small-medium operator (tour operators & travel agents): Exodus Travels
The innovator (industry movers and shakers): Aberdeen Airport’s therapy dogs
Book worm (travel books): Around the World In 80 Trains, by Monisha Rajesh
Sound & vision (TV & radio): Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond The Lobby (BBC Two)
Beyond the recipe book (food & travel): Around the World in 80 Food Trucks, Lonely Planet
Tastiest food & travel show (TV, radio, podcasts): The Hairy Bikers’ Mediterranean Adventure (BBC Two)
Foodie hotspot (destination): Lisbon
The wish list (destination): Japan
Special contribution to travel: Felicity Aston MBE
A world-first stop for the Adaptive Surf Championships
This week we are seriously delighted to welcome some of the world’s best adaptive surf athletes – including former world champions Mark ‘Mono’ Stewart (AUS) and Bruno Hansen (DEN) – to a very sunny North Wales.
They are here at Adventure Parc Snowdonia to take part in a world-first inland surf competition which we are the very proud hosts of.
A world-first for adaptive surfing
The Welsh Adaptive Surf Championship will take place Friday 5 and Saturday 6 July 2019, on our man-made waves. It will be the first international adaptive surf championship to be held on an inland lagoon anywhere in the world.
Twenty-four surfers – male and female – representing thirteen nationalities will take part in the event. The current adaptive surfing circuit sees competitions in Hawaii, Bali, South Africa, USA and Europe. It serves as a qualifier for the ISA World Adaptive Surf Championships which have been held in La Jolla, California, since 2015. This is the first time Wales has hosted a stop on the circuit.
Each of the surfers taking part has overcome significant personal challenges – including limb amputations, cancer, life-changing accidents and paralysis – to excel at their sport at a globally competitive level.
The main sponsor is Abersoch Land & Sea, and competitors include Welsh surfers Ethan Jolosa from Monmouthshire, and Llywelyn Williams from Abersoch.
Llywelyn, who lost his leg after a skateboarding accident, is a member of the organising committee who brought the event to North Wales. He said:
“Surfing is in the lifeblood of so many people living in Wales. I grew up surfing at local beaches like Porth Ceiriad and Porth Neigwl.
“I always wanted to see a Wales stop on the adaptive surf circuit, but the uncertainty of waves and unreliable weather was always a limiting factor. On top of that, access to beaches can be difficult for adaptive surfers.
“That changed when Adventure Parc Snowdonia launched its world-first inland waves. It ticks all the boxes for us: guaranteed surf, fantastic food and accommodation, and world-class facilities in the most beautiful location. The international surfers coming here will get a real taste for Wales whilst seeing the great facilities that are on offer.
“Competing on consistent and reliable inland waves will make for a better competition, and the fact that spectators can get so close up to the waves makes it a much more interesting event."
The event has been generously sponsored by Tony Ford and powerboat specialists Abersoch Land & Sea.
Consistent & reliable inland waves
The surfers will compete in three categories: standing, kneeling and prone.
Standing surfers are typically able to stand on their board and steer, kneeling surfers will surf on their knees or one knee, and prone surfers lie on their board.
Australian Mark ‘Mono’ Stewart is amongst the competitors. In September 2015, at the age of 53, he won the inaugural International Surfing Association World Adaptive Surfing Championship in La Jolla, California. He said: “The wave here is amazing, well worth the two-day journey from Australia. The accessibility, quality and consistency of the waves is a game-changer. Inland waves are without doubt the future of our sport.”
Andy Ainscough, managing director of Adventure Parc Snowdonia said: “A few of the competitors arrived early to enjoy a bit of North Wales sunshine and to get some practice before the big event.
“Watching them surf is technically impressive and genuinely inspiring. We hope we’ll get a good crowd down on Friday and Saturday to watch some world-class surfing and soak up what will be a great atmosphere.”
The popularity of adaptive surfing has grown significantly since the first ISA World Adaptive Surf Championship in 2015. The International Paralympic Committee, the body which oversees the Paralympics, will make a decision on whether to include it in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games later this year.
This year’s international adaptive surf competitive circuit will culminate in the ISA World Adaptive Surf Championship at La Jolla, California, in Autumn / Winter 2019.
Event details
- Come and support these amazing athletes! Admission to the event is free.
- The Welsh Adaptive Surf Championship has been organised by the Welsh Adaptive Surfing Society and sponsored by Abersoch Land & Sea.
- Adventure Parc Snowdonia has accessible facilities and viewing areas.
- Competition takes place 11am – 3pm Friday 5th July and 11am – 1pm Saturday 6th July.
- A podium presentation will follow the last waves on Saturday.
- Parking is free.
- Delicious food and drink served all day at our deli, and out surf side Bar & Kitchen.
Learn to Surf in North Wales
Fancy getting on board with surfing and having a go yourself? We offer surf lessons and waves and paddleboard sessions to all abilities from age 5+, from £35. Please contact us in advance to arrange a chat with our expert coach team if you are a first-time visitor and an adaptive surfer. Find out more here.
