Mineral spring holiday park sale has tourism operators ‘fizzing’

One of the few New Zealand holiday parks and camping grounds to contain its own thermal bore-spring pool facility has been placed on the market for sale.

The Te Aroha Holiday Park campground in the historic Waikato township is located on some 2.427 hectares of rurally-zoned freehold land on the town’s urban fringe.

Te Aroha is one of New Zealand’s oldest mineral springs resorts – dating back to the late 1800s. The township features the only hot water soda spring in the southern hemisphere.

Te Aroha Holiday Park has a smaller selection of calcium-based mineral spring bathing pools. When first built in the 1960s, the park’s main swimming pool was used as the town’s public swimming venue by local residents and primary school pupils.

Te Aroha’s therapeutic thermal waters were discovered in the late 1880s when the town was a domestic tourist magnet - drawing thousands of visitors from across the Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions. In its heyday, Te Aroha’s thermal waters rivalled those of the now more famous Rotorua region.

The Te Aroha Holiday Park at 217 Stanley Road South on the outskirts of the town contains a multitude of accommodation options – ranging from powered caravan and tent sites, through to variously configured budget cabins and self-contained cottages.

Nightly rack rates range from $33 for a two-person camp site or $38 for two people in a campervan, up to $ $85 for two people in a cottage or $110 for two people in a self-contained motel unit.

The site has been operating as a campground for five decades – servicing a ‘core’ group of holidaymakers who regularly camp at the holiday park every Christmas/New Year break, as well as the short-stay ‘free independent travelers’ sector, and most recently by a growing number of recreational cyclists.

Te Aroha Holiday Park freehold land, buildings and business are being marketed for sale at auction on November 9 through Bayleys Hamilton. Salesperson Josh Smith said the business was being sold as a going concern at a time when Te Aroha was currently undergoing a resurgence in tourism popularity off the back of the Hauraki Rail Trail, which opened in 2012 and has steadily been expanded over the past five years.

“Te Aroha is directly on the Matamata to Paeroa axis of the trail, and as a result the town is benefitting from cyclists coming in to use the main mineral pools or staying at the Te Aroha Holiday Park to combine both the pool facility and accommodation in park-like setting,” Mr Smith said.

“The Hauraki Rail Trail Charitable Trust is confident that the current route will be extended even further - with the Te Aroha to Matamata leg expected to be operational within two years.”

The Te Aroha Holiday Park campground is being sold as a ’turn-key’ operation - coming complete with all necessary operating infrastructure, including:

• 20 individual grassed sites for tents

• 35 powered sites for caravans and camper vans and tents

• Four ‘family cabins’ which can sleep up to four people

• Two motel-style two-bedroom units which sleep up to seven people

• Eight free-standing cabins which can sleep up to three people

• Five self-contained free-standing cottages which can sleep up to five people

• Five ‘retro’ style caravans

• A communal toilet and bathroom block

• A communal kitchen amenity with fridge, freezers, electric hobs and microwave oven

• A communal coin-operated laundry facility

• A children’s adventure playground built among mature oak trees, and featuring a flying fox and multi-level obstacle course

• A games room with TV lounge and pool table

• Grassed tennis court

and

• A swimming pool complex consisting of a heated plunge pool, a 16-metre-long swimming pool, and separate toddlers pool.

Mr Smith said the business was also being sold with a four-bedroom owner/managers home, which included the campground’s office and reception area.

He said the calcium-rich bore water used to fill the Te Aroha Holiday Park plunge pool was heated to around 40 degrees Celsius by gas burners, while the main swimming pool – operated primarily throughout the busy summer season – operated naturally at around 24 degrees Celsius.

“The opportunity here is for a new owner to take on a well-performing business and invigorate it to the next level off the back of growing tourism activity in this part of the Waikato,” he said.

“There is also underutilised space within the property which could easily house new accommodation units aimed at the higher-spending end of the tourist market.”

ENDS

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