Cardiff climbing centre reaches new heights in first year

A Cardiff-based climbing centre is celebrating its first profitable year in business with an expected record turnover.

Boulders Indoor Climbing Centre is expected to reach £1m by the end of 2009 after opening last August.

The brainchild of business partners Rob Lawrence, a former British Army officer and Ollie Noakes, a former soldier in the Territorial Army, Boulders is one of the largest indoor climbing centres in the UK housing over 2,000 square metres of climbing wall.

The two friends came together last year through a passion for climbing and with the help of Finance Wales and two business angels, Peter Saunders and Keith Thomas, their dream of opening an indoor climbing centre in Wales became a reality.

Twelve months later, having been recently shortlisted for a HSBC Start-up Award and South Wales Business Award, the centre is not only catering to experienced, established climbers, but has opened up the sport to a host of first time climbers, young and old, who are using the centre as an alternative to the conventional gym, as well as the corporate market who are using the centre to host team building days for staff.

Rob Lawrence, managing director, says: “Since launching the centre last August, we have been fortunate to defy the economic downturn and go from strength to strength. Despite the high start-up costs, Boulders now enjoys extremely low cost of sales and the high margins has allowed Boulders to enjoy strong profits in the first twelve months of operation.

“Launching in the middle of an economic recession was undoubtedly a challenge, however we have survived through continually innovating what we do, introducing new routes with around 300 routes at any one time to continually challenge our climbers, and by looking for new ways to introduce people to climbing for the first time.

“While of course we measure our success by profit margins, for us success is more personal than that and comes through seeing people enjoying the sport we have come to love.”

Business angel Peter Saunders says: “Rob and Ollie have a real passion for the business. Keith Thomas and I have been pleased to invest in Boulders and give the founders the benefit of our wider business experience. It has been a great first year and we’re looking forward to continued success going forward.”

Not resting on their laurels, Lawrence and Noakes realize there are still improvements to be made but the future is looking bright with sights set on rolling out the successful business model to further locations across the UK.

Rob continues: “For the next 12 months, the focus will remain very much on continuing to build the Cardiff centre. Ensuring operational efficiency and the development of good managerial systems will allow for a delegated structure to be implemented giving us the capacity to work on looking for more sites to be introduced in Wales and beyond. The inclement nature of the British climate means there is plenty of scope to develop a series of indoor climbing centres across the UK, so it’s definitely a case of onward s and upwards!”

For further information on this press release, please contact freshbaked PR at pr@freshbaked.co.uk. freshbaked PR is a Cardiff based public relations agency which represents a number of private and public sector organisations in the Cardiff, Swansea and Bristol business communities, as well as Newport in south Wales, home of golf’s 2010 Ryder Cup at the Celtic Manor Resort Hotel. For clients based in Cardiff PR agency services are provided from the Head Office in The Maltings.