Center Parcs, the Queen’s funeral and the pitfalls of the performative ‘mark of respect’

Want to tank your reputation with both booked and potential guests in 48 hours? The Center Parcs team has just given a masterclass, says Lucy Thackray

Center Parcs’ ‘Subtropical Swimming Paradise’ is one of the main draws of the holiday parks (Center Parcs)

Of all the many uniformed and plumed soldiers, glum-faced clergymen, stoic princes and glossy steeds, who would have thought that middle-class holiday favourite Center Parcs would have played such a visible role in the first day of the Queen’s Lying-in-State?

They didn’t have to be involved at all, of course. But someone at the top of the company – presumably seeing that everyone from knicker merchants Ann Summers to dough ball legends Pizza Express were lowering their metaphorical flags to half-mast – felt that the UK’s family-friendly forest retreats should join in with such PDMs (public displays of mourning).

So Center Parcs said something. Not merely that it offered its condolences to the royal family or sincerely felt for its customers at this sad time... but that it would be booting out guests for the entire day and night of the Queen’s funeral.

Mid-morning on Tuesday, it released a statement saying all guests would have to evacuate its parks at 10am on the morning of the funeral, Monday 19 September, and would only be allowed to return at 10am the following day. This decision, it explained, had been taken “as a mark of respect and to allow as many of our colleagues as possible to be part of this historic moment.”

“We hope our guests will understand our decision to support our Queen on her final journey,” typed the unlucky communications professional as a sign-off. The brand said that it would contact booked guests by email to factor in a small discount to their trip price.

Needless to say, holidaymakers were more than a tad miffed. Center Parcs mainly attracts families and large groups – i.e. the people who can least afford to be flexible and last-minute about their travel plans.

“Very angry about this – we are not travelling directly to you, so this has left us stranded half way up the country without accommodation for a night. Thirty per cent [discount] offered is nowhere near close enough to covering the extra costs,” wrote one guest on Twitter.

“When do we receive a refund for the activities we had to cancel for Monday/Tuesday morning?” wrote another. “Ours come to over £300 as we had the spa booked for my friend’s birthday. This is not a small amount of money.”

“You’re closing your sites at very short notice as a mark of respect, while showing very little respect for your customers,” summarised one irked patron on the group’s Facebook page.

Thousands of astonished replies later, on Tuesday evening Center Parcs frantically backpedalled, posting: “We recognise leaving the village for one night is an inconvenience… we have listened and made the decision to allow guests to remain on village on Monday, however, the village will still be closed.”.

Customers, understandably, still had questions about how a Center Parcs could be simultaneously open to guests, but closed. Undoubtedly no one was planning to hold a funeral fiesta in their woodland cabin or expect a lavish champagne lunch at the very moment the late monarch was being lowered into the ground.

But many were confused as to why a quick dip in one of the parks’ much-vaunted swimming pools was quite so disrespectful. And where did the parks draw the line? Maybe the Wild Water Rapids would have Her Majesty turning in her grave, but what about a solemn row across the onsite lake?

Would they be able to use any facilities? With no Huck’s American Bar and Grill on hand, would they have to forage for mushrooms and nettles in the forest? The prospect of a stay with only accommodation on offer seemed more and more nonsensical.

Still, the faux pas may not have escalated into a full-blown “Center-Parcs-gate” had one staffer not made a further blunder. In answering one such customer query, an employee signing off as Amy wrote: “We recognise leaving the village for one night is an inconvenience, we have listened and made the decision to allow guests to remain on village on Monday, however, the village will still be closed, so guests will need to remain in their lodges.”

Remain in their lodges? Social media exploded with jokes and memes about the Black Mirror episode that would unfold were CP guests to be put under house arrest. How would this be policed? What would happen were one to step outside for a mid-mourning gasp of fresh air?

After several social media users accused Center Parcs of creating a hostage situation, Amy was quick to correct the misstep, writing in a follow-up reply: “Apologies for my wording, you will be allowed to walk around the village, but the facilities will be closed.”

As a mark of respect, we will be allowed to walk around the village. What a jolly holiday.

To most holidaymakers in 2022, closing certain sites in London while a huge-scale state funeral takes place makes sense. Closing supermarkets makes… slightly less sense. But cancelling one day of people’s long-held holiday bookings – some of which extended before and after the funeral date – is, surely, nothing more than performative madness. Involving leisure travel in the wave of closures and cancellations, with less than a week’s notice to paying customers, is a quick way to plummet in the estimation of patrons loyal and new.

Though nine-to-five businesses who can afford to release their staff for the day on Monday are offering a kind option, service industries such as travel and hospitality (much like media) cannot afford to down tools entirely. It may not be peak season for Center Parcs, but holidaymakers – young families, groups of celebrating pals, those who’ve waited out the price-surge weeks of high summer for an affordable September holiday – are no less entitled to a stress-free trip than guests in busier times.

Center Parcs vying to become the official staycation partner of The Queen’s Funeral is a sad but clear example of how rushing to show how serious, mournful and British a brand you are can backfire horribly. Many people reading the car-crash communications around this closure, then reopening, then apparent house-arrest-situation won’t ever have thought of booking a stay at Center Parcs. Now, perhaps, they never will.