Founded by Fred Pontin in 1946, Pontins is a British company that operates holiday parks in the U.K. The company specializes in half-board and self-catering holidays that include entertainment at resorts, or “holiday parks,” as they call them. Accommodations are typically chalets (which Pontins calls “apartments”).
The first-holiday camp built by Fred Pontin took advantage of the former U.S. army base near Weston-super-Mare in Somerset (where he had operated hostels for construction workers during the Second World War). The ex-stockbroker, who had left school at fifteen without any qualifications, did not have the £23,000 to buy it. Pontin formed a syndicate to own the camp, in which he held 50% control. By the end of the year, he owned six camps. He bought more camps and ran them personally for a year before selling them to the syndicate as the years passed. At its peak, the company operated twenty-two-holiday camps with a million visitors a year.
