Racecourse owner bets on hotel scheme

The racecourse, which was fully redeveloped and reopened in 2007, is now working on plans for a hotel and residential scheme.

Planning consent is in place for a 120-bedroom hotel and 34 residential units.

Arena said it is confident this is a commercially attractive opportunity that will provide a good fit with the racecourse operation.

The present grandstand facilities provide 3,400 square meters of exhibition space, which the group believes could become a major venue for trade shows and other events.

Doncaster staged its second full year of trading following its reopening in August 2007 and its third St Leger festival in the new facilities.

A crowd of 27,000 at the St Leger itself on the Saturday beat the 2008 attendance by 1,000. Total attendance over the four days of the St Leger was down from 59,000 to 53,000. Arena blamed the shortfall on the lack of corporate hospitality clients from the banking and construction industries.

Doncaster hosted a number of post-racing music evenings over the summer.

Arena's chief executive, Mark Elliott, said: "These events have successfully attracted a broader audience to racing and we are reviewing the best way to provide a whole package of entertainment at Doncaster and all of our courses.

"Outside of racing, the meeting and exhibition facilities at Doncaster Racecourse have developed very well in tough market conditions and are establishing themselves as a venue of choice for major local and national events."

During 2009, Arena staged 370 fixtures, representing 26 per cent of all UK racing fixtures.

Total attendance at the seven racecourses increased by two per cent, to 639,000.

The group maintained average attendance per fixture at 1,727, down from 1,733 last year.

Arena warned that the economic outlook remains uncertain, but its trading performance in the year to date has been robust and is in line with expectations.

While the industry suffered multiple abandonments due to the prolonged cold weather in January and February, Arena's all-weather racecourses meant it was able to stage additional fixtures at short notice.

Attendance from corporate and private hospitality was down from 53,700 to 38,600 as a result of the economic downturn.

This lower number accounted for a net reduction in profitability of about 1.1m, and margins were also generally lower.

In anticipation of these difficult trading conditions, the group took action at the end of 2008 to realign the cost base of the operation to match reduced levels of business.

Major savings were achieved at Doncaster Racecourse, and the progress of the in-house catering operation has seen significant margin improvements across all of the racecourses.

Mr Elliott said: "We have delivered another robust operational performance this year. We are proud of this achievement in what remains a challenging consumer market.

"Last year has clearly demonstrated our ability to realise further significant value from Arena's assets, in addition to the core business of owning and operating a leading portfolio of racecourses."

Within the pre-tax profit figure of 4.1m, the racecourse operation delivered operating profits of 6.8m, which was down from 7.7m last year.

The group said that while the economic outlook for 2010 remains uncertain, it expects public attendances to continue to be stable. However, the football World Cup could hit summer attendance levels in June and July, although in 2006 this was not noticeably significant across UK racing as a whole.

Joint venture for a global market

Arena Leisure has embarked on a joint venture to sell UK and Irish horseracing broadcast rights across the world.

The company has entered the joint venture with Racecourse Media Group, which owns the international distribution rights to 30 UK racecourses, including Beverley, Thirsk and York.

The deal is via the media rights distribution firm At The Races, which is 46 per cent owned by Arena.

Arena said it expects the joint venture, which starts this month, to deliver savings of 500,000 this year for At The Races, as well as revenue growth in the longer term.

Arena said the joint venture will create "a new, unified broadcast service" which will target markets such as Italy, France, South Africa, Turkey and Australia as well as expanding into markets such

as Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

At The Races also owns the international distribution rights to all 26 Irish racecourses.