Challenges require creative response, resort leader says
By B.C. Manion
When Saddlebrook Resorts, Inc. opened in 1980, it was built with a specific purpose in mind.
“We built it basically for corporate meetings,” Thomas L.Dempsey, chairman and CEO of the resort, told those gathered at a business growth conference in Pasco County last week.
Over time, however, the resort’s role expanded to include training facilities for professional golfers, tennis and baseball players.
It also added a school that provides college-preparatory and athletic programs for young athletes who come to the Wesley Chapel facility from all over the world.
Over the years, like any business, Saddlebrook has had its share of challenges. Dempsey told those attending the conference organized by the Pasco Economic Development Council.
Initially, the resort built about 500 suites, some hotel rooms, two golf courses, a tennis facility, a huge swimming pool and some meeting space, Dempsey said. It soon needed more meeting space, which it added.
That was just the first of many challenges, said Dempsey, who has more than 40 years of diversified business experience in publishing, manufacturing, resort development and the hospitality industry.
“Challenges. I have to tell you, they come every day,” he said.
While the resort was booking hundreds of corporate meetings a year, business fell off when there were holidays, such as Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July and Labor Day.
“Corporations are closed on holidays, so you’ve got zip meetings. You really have nothing to come in the door,” the business leader said.
Eventually, that became a positive because the resort had to find ways to diversity its business, he said.
“Sometimes a problem turns out to be an opportunity,” Dempsey said. “You kind of have to look at life that way or it gets tough because those problems should be opportunities. There’s always a solution to something if you think hard enough or get creative enough.”
Over the years, the resort has seen significant changes in the market, Dempsey said. In the early days, a meeting might have a half dozen women and 300 men, he said.
“Today, sometimes there are 60 percent women and 40 percent men. Some meetings are all women. It’s a totally different market. It’s completely changed over the past 30 years,” he said.
In response, he said, “We’ve put in big spas. When men are golfing, women who don’t golf want the spa or want the pool. A lot of them play tennis.
“The character of the market has changed, and when the character changes that is one of your challenges.”
Over time, the resort branched out and became a training facility for professional athletes in tennis, baseball, football, hockey, golf and other sports.
“Derek Jeter has trained at Saddlebrook now for about four years,” he said.
“Every spring, 32 professional players from the teams come to Saddlebrook and stay with us for five weeks and go through our training and then they leave on a Wednesday and the next week they’re going to spring training.
“They go there absolutely in perfect condition,” he said.
“It’s very serious stuff,” Dempsey said, noting that millions of dollars in contract negotiations can be riding on an athlete’s ability to perform.
The resort also is working with aspiring athletes. One of those is a 12-year-old boy from China whom some believe could one day surpass the accomplishments of Tiger Woods, Dempsey said.
Besides adding profit centers to its business through its athletic training facilities, the resort has adapted in other ways.
At the moment, it is rewiring the entire resort with fiber optics to accommodate new technology and it is installing 43-inch, flat-screen televisions.
Being able to adapt is important, but businesses must be forward thinking, too, Dempsey told the crowd of more than 80 gathered in a conference room at Pasco-Hernando Community College’s West Campus in New Port Richey.
“What if there’s an airplane strike. What if they don’t fly to Florida? They can’t come here. What are you going to do? Well, you’ve got to a have plan.”
