Attractions

A farm, with its mixture of land, landscape, buildings, machinery and history offers many and varied opportunities to become a place for families to visit for entertainment, study or information. With increasing leisure time, people - visitors and locals alike - are looking for new experiences and the farm can provide them.

Pros: a growing market; can be started small and grown with experience; with imagination, can utilise redundant buildings of any age or type.

Cons: needs continuous refreshing and new activities; seasonal (though under-cover activites can lessen this); lots of visitors, with consequent traffic to handle.

This website helps your fill out our generic business plan, which you can download to your computer by clicking here.  Listed below are sections which relate to the sections in the business plan, giving you detailed information, case studies, useful documents and links to make the writing of your business plan easier.

Edward Stanton: Park Farm, Snettisham
Background. Edward Stanton inherited the farm in the 1980s, and brought with him a herd of deer. The present business developed gradually as people expressed interest in seeing the deer. The farm now receives 70,000 visitors a year, who come to see the farm animals, feed the lambs, and go on trailer ‘safaris’ to see the deer in the park. Managing diversification Mr Stanton commented that the visitor centre and the farming business are inter-dependent. The farm consists of 329 acres, with 600 ewes, sugar beet, wheat and barley, all managed by contract. The deer are sold as venison nationally. The farming business has to make a living, and the tourism is super-imposed on top. Lambing is geared to happen during February half-term and the Easter holidays which is more labour intensive, but the profits make it worth while. Non-commercial animals earn their keep through sales of hand feed to visitors. For this kind of business you have to enjoy dealing face to face with the public, and to be committed seven days a week. At the beginning Mr Stanton and his wife ran the whole business but he thinks it is important to bring other people in, to bring fresh ideas and maintain interest. Development of new features are needed all the time. This particular business is very capital and labour intensive. At present 40 people are employed in the summer, and the business is no longer making sensible returns. Mr Stanton feels that it is important to continually reassess the business. In this context he has recently decided to build a new visitor centre on another site, and convert the present farm buildings to residential, in order to release capital. The new site will require less employees, but, as Mr Stanton points out, this is better than closing down. The tea room and shop margins are important to the business. Funding The business developed organically and there was no business plan at first. The tea shop was created in year three at £100,000 – at that point the business either had to expand, or pack up. A business plan was produced in order to access funding. Grants were received from English Heritage, Countryside Commission and the Tourist Board, which came to around 30% of the total cost. Plans for the new site have been delayed because of the withdrawal of the RES grants. Marketing Key customers are schools. Flyers are sent to all schools annually. This generates a lot of repeat business. Season tickets are promoted to local people. Events are organised such as food festivals, cycle events, vintage car shows etc. The business is also a member of HAPPY, a group of tourist attractions in the Hunstanton area. This group produces a joint leaflet which is available in racks at 50 local places of interest. The business spends £15,000 a year on promotion. Legislation Working with children and animals requires stringent compliance with Health & Safety legislation. Leaflets are handed out to every visitor informing them of the need to wash hands after handling animals etc. Posters are visible all over the site, and hand basins are available in a number of locations. The site is assessed by the insurance company every year. No problems related to this issue have arisen during the twenty years in which the business has been running. Planning permission did not pose any serious problems. A new access and car park were created to satisfy highway concerns.
http://www.snettishampark.co.uk/	Caroline Davison