The Elkhorn Resort in Canada has been a family destination since 1961. In an effort to boost family visits in the slow winter months, the resort recently opened an indoor water park, including a Soft Play water walk, and reports that it “definitely helped January business.”

Located in Central Manitoba, The Elkhorn Resort, Spa & Conference Centre borders the Riding Mountain National Park and offers hundreds of kilometers of hiking and cross-country ski trails.

According to General Manager Chris Phillips, the resort has always been a family destination but the winter months are typically slower than the summer. Last year, in an effort to improve their family amenities, the resort opened a brand new, 10,000-square-foot building that includes a game room, fitness area and indoor water park.

“It’s only been open three months and our weekends have been almost totally sold out since Christmas, which is typically not our busy time,” he says. “The facility definitely helped our January business.”

The water park, which was designed and built by Collyer Construction, includes a Soft Play nature themed water walk system.

“Soft Play has fantastic products but it was their customer service that got them the job,” says Mike Collyer. “They responded to questions in a timely manner and the cost of their products was comparable to other companies. So they won this job with their customer service.”

Soft Play manufactures a wide selection of classic and custom water play elements, including water walk systems, spray parks/ splash pads, climbers, floatables and kiddie water slides.

Soft Play finishes its water play elements with their proprietary HydroTuff™ coating; a strictly designed and robustly tested solution that makes the product UV- stable, chlorine-stable, and abrasion-resistant.

The Elkhorn Resort chose Soft Play’s lily pad water walk design and Phillips says it is very popular.

“Kids love it,” he says. “When we were trying to figure out what to put in the pool, our maintenance manager and Mike Collyer, who both have kids, said, ‘If you want water activities, you’ve got to do a water walk.’ They were right. There are kids on it every day.”