Center Parcs or Butlin's: Forest luxury or budget chalets: which holiday giant takes home the real profits?

Which holiday park business is bigger?

Center Parcs, by a factor of roughly 1.9 on both turnover and headcount. Its operating company reported £540m of turnover for the year to April 2026, up 2.6% on the prior year, with 7,544 employees. Butlins Skyline reported £288m for the year to December 2024, down 1.8%, with 3,915 employees. Five forest villages against three seaside resorts, and the gap between the two is £252m of turnover.

What the figures do not show is a productivity gap. Turnover per employee lands at about £71,600 at Center Parcs and about £73,600 at Butlin's, which is close enough to call level. Payroll tells a slightly different story. Butlin's spent £98m on staff costs, an average of £25,000 a head, while Center Parcs spent £157m at an average of £21,000 a head. Staff costs absorb 34.0% of turnover at Butlin's and 29.1% at Center Parcs, a difference of about five pence in every pound.

The two also sit under different SIC codes, which is a small but real signal about how each entity is set up. Butlins Skyline files under camping grounds and holiday parks, the trading classification you would expect. The Center Parcs operating company files under activities of head offices and management consultancy, which is common for a company sitting inside a larger financing and property structure.

Which balance sheet carries the debt?

Center Parcs, by a wide margin, and its balance sheet is built to hold it. Estimated borrowings run to £1,157m, about 2.1 times turnover, against £211m at Butlin's, about 0.7 times turnover. Interest payable follows: £80m at Center Parcs against £14m. Set against estimated profit before tax of £111m, that interest bill is the single largest call on the Center Parcs result.

Net assets run the other way from what the debt alone would suggest. Center Parcs holds £1,041m of net assets against £83m at Butlin's, 12.5 times as much, which is what a large asset base financed with long-dated debt looks like on the face of a balance sheet. Butlin's is the lighter structure on both sides, £83m of net assets and £211m of borrowings.

Working capital is thin at both, as it usually is in a business paid up front for holidays. Center Parcs held £47m of cash and £110m of current assets, of which only £3m sits in debtors. Butlin's held £10m of cash and £38m of current assets, with £10m in debtors. Center Parcs also reported £3m of interest received; Butlin's reported none.

Who owns each business, and who owns the bricks?

Both are wholly controlled by a single corporate parent, but the parents are very different animals. Companies House records Center Parcs (Holdings 3) Limited, company 07647130, as a person with significant control over the Center Parcs operating company in the 75 to 100% band, notified in April 2016. For Butlins Skyline, the register shows Accuro Fiduciary Services Limited, company 08709604, in the same 75 to 100% band, notified in October 2022. These are control bands rather than exact stakes, and PSC data describes who controls a company, not how the accounts are drawn up.

The October 2022 notification date lines up with the change of ownership at Butlin's. Press reporting at the time described the buyer as a new company backed by the Harris family trusts, the family that co-founded Bourne Leisure, buying the operating business back from Blackstone. Center Parcs has been under Brookfield ownership since 2015. Both of those ownership facts come from press reporting rather than from the filings in this dataset, and are flagged as such.

The charges register shows the same split. Butlin's carries a live charge dated November 2022 in favour of Ares Management Limited, acting as security agent for the senior secured parties, secured on real property and intellectual property including named trade marks. The Center Parcs operating company's charges in this extract are historic and discharged, a 2006 Barclays charge released later that year and two 2007 Capita Trust charges released in 2012, which is consistent with financing sitting elsewhere in the group.

On the bricks, the filings are clear about one thing: Butlin's does not register a single freehold. All seven of its registered property interests are leasehold, covering Bognor Regis, Minehead and Skegness, with no price disclosed on any of them. That follows the 2022 sale of the Butlin's freeholds to Universities Superannuation Scheme, reported at the time at around £300m, which left the company operating resorts it leases rather than owns. The Center Parcs operating company registers five interests, one freehold at Millbrook near Bedford and four leasehold covering Longleat, Elveden, Whinfell and Sherwood, again with no prices disclosed. Neither company discloses a price paid on any registered title, so no property value is quotable here.

What do the accounts say about the staycation summer?

They point in opposite directions on revenue and the same direction on profit. Center Parcs grew turnover 2.6% to £540m in the year to April 2026, with headcount effectively flat, down 0.05% to 7,544. Estimated profit before tax barely moved, £111m against £109m the year before, a rise of about 1.8%. That is a business trading at a steady level rather than one riding a surge.

Butlin's is the more eventful set of accounts. Turnover slipped 1.8% to £288m for the year to December 2024, while headcount edged up 0.6% to 3,915. The result moved from a £24m loss to an estimated £28m profit, a swing of £52m in one year, on lower revenue. On the face of the filings that is a margin story rather than a demand story.

One caution before reading either as a verdict on the current staycation season. Butlin's most recent accounts here close in December 2024 and were filed in December 2025. Center Parcs closes in April 2026 and filed in July 2026. Only the Center Parcs figures touch 2026 at all, so neither set of accounts covers the summer now under way.

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