Gran Dorado

Gran Dorado was a holiday villages company based in the Netherlands. Until the merger in 2002, it was the biggest holiday villages company of Europe. Today's owner is the French company Pierre et Vacances, and is merged with the Center Parcs company.

Gran Dorado Resorts was originally found by the owner of the Dutch chain store company Vendex, famous of the Vroom & Dreesmann company. Therefore, the first name of the company was Vendorado. Vendorado Leisure N.V. was founded in 1980, in 1989, the name is changed to Gran Dorado Lesure N.V.

In the beginning of 1996, the company has 6 big holiday villages. In the same year, Gran Dorado takes over another Dutch holiday villages company, called Creatief Vakantieparken. The company immediately grew to a company with 40 holiday villages and around 7500 bungalows, and was by then the biggest holiday villages company of Europe. The two companies are operating 2 years under name Gran Dorado/Creatief, in 1998 the company gets the new name Gran Dorado N.V.

In the beginning of 2002, Pierre & Vacances became the overall owner of the Gran Dorado company. Shortly after that, P&V took over the Center Parcs-chain from Scottisch & Newcastle. By that time, the two largest holiday villages companies are in the same hands. Halfway the year, Center Parcs and Gran Dorado are merged. The Netherlands Competition Authority does not allow a merger with all 40 holiday villages, so the following was decided:

Note: when nothing is written in either the column "Today's owner" or "Today's name", then the name of owner and park is still the same as in the columns "Name after merger" and "Owner after merger". A * indicates that the holiday village was first owned by Creatief Vakantieparken.