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Colliers Destination Consulting shares insights from Surf Park Summit 2022

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young surfer at The Wave, Bristol's new inland surfing destination

Colliers Destination Consulting, the destination development expert, attended this year’s Surf Park Summit, which took place from 16 – 18 October in San Diego, California, US. This growing sector is full of passion for the sport and lifestyle, an energy which has fuelled the development of innovative surf technology and the establishment of more and more surf parks around the world.

Matt Hyslop Colliers at Surf Park Conference

It is also, however, a complex business, says Matt Hyslop, who leads Colliers’ destination consulting team. The sector’s early development stage requires determined professionalism to deliver these projects and get them open:

“The critical challenge has been raising the capital investment for these $50m+ projects,” he points out. “The wider investment market needs to be confident these projects are commercially investable, and de-risked as much as possible.”

Hyslop chaired the first panel discussion on day one of the Surf Park Summit, looking at surf park investment. Here, he shares some of his key takeaways from the event,

Planning is key

Firstly, he says that a good approach is to break the project down into stages:

“The challenge isn’t to raise all the money straight away. Break it down into manageable chunks starting with seed funding, project development funding and then into construction etc.”

Within these stages, he also recommends using valuation along the way: “Get the project valued at stages along the journey to show project partners how the value proposition is growing and being secured.”

Another of the lessons he shares is to build your valuations based on solid business planning:

“A valuation is only as good as the forecasting it is founded on when a project is in the development stage. Get expert, independent market and financial feasibility advice to give investors confidence the projections are robust and reliable. Data in a young sector is hard to come by so the benchmarking and reference points an investor seeks aren’t readily available, which is a challenge for building certainty.”

Surf Park Summit 2022
Networking at Surf Park Summit 2022

Hyslop also says that it is vital to identify the key risk areas and mitigate them:

“Investors, rightly, will have many hard questions: Is the land formally secured? Are the development permissions in place? Is the surf experience high quality? Is the surf technology reliable and deliverable? Are the capital cost projections realistic and up to date? Does the team have the experience? Has water and energy sustainability – specific to the location – been appropriately resolved? Are the local community in support? All of these need confident, accurate answers.”

The right location and the right investors

Surf Park Summit sign

His next tip is to recognise the role of land and real estate:

“Surf park projects need either freehold land ownership to give security, or long leases/ground rents (40 years minimum, 80-100 years ideally). Projects increasingly are part of larger-scale mixed-use schemes – that can help dilute the risk in the surf element and allow for developer/investor partners to work with what they know – hotels, residential, workspace, leisure and retail etc. Control of the land also allows for investment vehicles like sales and leaseback.

Finally, he looks at HNWI/Private investors, followed by institutional investors:

“The typical first-mover investors have been High Net Worth Individuals, family investment offices or syndicates, often with a personal interest in surfing and the ability for quick, independent decision-making. The sector has the attention of more institutional investors like venture capital/private equity/funds but the growth potential needs to be proven, as well as the exit point. In this sense, they’re less interested in funding one project at $50m but are more alert to doing five projects deploying $250m.”

In conclusion, Hyslop adds:

“Surf Park Summit 2022 has been a great success and is a hugely valuable event by bringing a really focused group of people together, in person. The passion for the sector is obvious and is increasingly being matched by a professionalism that is critical to proving the surf park business is commercially investable.”

Colliers has provided its expertise for several projects including The Wave in Bristol (pictured, top) and Adventure Parc Snowdonia, and has previously shared insights into what makes a surf park successful.

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charlotte coates

Charlotte Coates

Charlotte Coates is blooloop's editor. She is from Brighton, UK and previously worked as a librarian. She has a strong interest in arts, culture and information and graduated from the University of Sussex with a degree in English Literature. Charlotte can usually be found either with her head in a book or planning her next travel adventure.

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