Former Royal Marine Commando behind thrilling Zip World brand
Sean Taylor had an unusual way of knowing that he was onto a successful business venture: The chemical toilet was stinking.
After more than two decades as a Royal Marine Commando and a few years in private security, Sean had returned to his native North Wales to start a high wires business among the forests near Betws-y-Coed.
It brought him full circle to his first job among the trees of the Conwy Valley when he worked for his dad as a lumberjack.
Sean started Tree Top Adventures with a mobile military office, a shipping container, and a chemical toilet in 2007.
“We opened in April,” recalled Sean, “and by May the chemical toilet was quite smelly. I always say that that was a smell of success as we had so many people turning up.”
(Image: Handout)
These days Sean has an easier way of judging the success of his business… he meets with his team and gets a helicopter view of all the Zip World sites.
In the next few years, Sean believes the business will have a much larger footprint in the UK, more world class products and double the visitors numbers
The company was valued at £45m two years ago when the investment arm of Lloyds took a minority stake in the adventure business.
Lloyds Development Capital assisted in the buyout of the two other shareholders, amicably Sean adds, while also providing a cash injection and additional expertise to expand the business further. Sean kept his holding in the business and has plans for building the Zip World brand.
But going back to the start, the journey from Tree Top’s to the burgeoning Zip World empire began with two staples of a Welsh diet: appetite for adventure and rugby.
Tree Top Adventure had been going well and winning awards, but after six years Sean was looking to expand, and it was while playing a game of rugby that he spotted his next opportunity .
“I actually saw the site when I was playing for my local club against Bethesda in a cup game. I looked up and saw Penrhyn Quarry.
“We won the game, got drunk together, and on Monday morning I went to see the managing director. He said this is a crazy idea, but if the planners allowed it we could go for it.”
Sean created the fastest zip line in the world and says the company got a cult following straight away.
The zip line was followed the next year in 2014 with Bounce Below at the Slate Caverns site in Blaenau Ffestiniog, another Iconic site and another world class product.
Sean persuaded his then partners to buy out Tree Top Adventure and to rebrand it as Zip World Forest and invested heavily into that site.
It meant in a few short years they were suddenly a major employer in the community. And it also coincided with North Wales’ stature as an adrenaline sports destination grow, being name-checked in media titles across the world. In 2017 North Wales was listed as one of the top 10 regions in the world for travellers, and last year the tourism economy for North Wales was put at around £3.2bn.
Sean is too modest to take any credit for this, but it is hard to not link the increase in tourism to his business, as well as others such as Adventure Parc Snowdonia (formerly Surf Snowdonia) and Rib Ride in Anglesey.
(Image: Robert Parry Jones)
“As we as we speak, I’m in Zip World base camp, which is in Llanrwst and I went to school about 200 metres away,” said Sean.
“I’m born and bred in the Conwy Valley. I went to school in Llanrwst until I left and joined my father’s lumberjack business, which in the 80s was quite a brutal, brutal job.
“So, I joined the Royal Marine Commandos to escape in 1984 and had a pretty amazing experience for 20-odd years.
“I was in a parachute display team, I was a jungle warfare instructor, I played rugby in the marines, I was a ski instructor, abseil instructor, and a combat instructor … which comes in handy on a Saturday night in Llanrhos in the square, well it used to.
“I had a great, great career and made many lifelong friends, saw places, and took the rough with the smooth. I went to some fairly unsavory places as you can imagine but also some great places.
“I left in 2004 and went into private security, also in some unsavory places, and I called time on that in 2007.”
It was then that he returned home. During his time in the armed forces, he always planned to eventually come back to North Wales, as despite all the places he has visited he never found anywhere better than the Conwy Valley and Snowdonia.
At the moment Zip World has four sites.
The Tree Top Adventure site evolved into Zip World Forest, then there is Zip World Penrhyn Quarry in Bethesda and Zip World Slate Caverns in Blaenau Ffestiniog, all in North Wales. And, this year they were joined by Zip World Tower, in Rhigos near Aberdare, in South Wales.
“We just thought they needed cheering up in South Wales,” he joked.
“It’s a bit of a cliche but what we’ve done for slate in North Wales, we’ve done for that with coal in South Wales.”
The target of making Zip World a world leading adventure brand is definitely achievable Sean said.
“There is three ways that we can grow,” he said.
“We are looking at bringing in accommodation, self-catering accommodation, but creating a real wow. Everything for us has to be a wow.
“Then we are developing our existing sites, adding more products as that’s in our DNA.
“And then we are looking at new sites. We’re looking at a site in Scotland, at sites in three national parks in England, and one south of Dublin in Ireland.”
Zip World is also looking at creating urban experiences in a couple of large cities in England as well.
Zip World was granted planning permission for a 450ft attraction to be built between St John’s Beacon – also known as the Radio City Tower – and Liverpool Central Library last year, but the plans were eventually dropped after opposition from residents, councillors and heritage groups.
Sean doesn’t talk about this incident, but it did lead to a trip to Las Vegas to clear his head and a helicopter trip he did stateside has him thinking about incorporating helicopter trips into the business, maybe between a site in Ireland and North Wales.
(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)
As a businessman Sean is someone who knows his limitations and brings in people to do the jobs he knows he can’t.
“I’m surrounded by people who do their job far better than I will ever do,” he said.
“I’ve got to be, and that de-stresses me. I’ve got strengths, I’ve got weaknesses, and I think one of my strengths is I do know my weaknesses.
“I do know my weaknesses, which are varied and vast! But I’m trying to build a team for the future, for growth.”
A strength Sean admits to having, and it seems hard for him to be humble or take praise, is resilience. But he manages to almost turn it into weakness by saying that he doesn’t always realise other members of the team will have the same mentality.
Another strength he admits to is talking to people – not phoning or emailing but actually getting in the same room as someone, which he says is one of his keys to success. He has built relationships with councils and is very enthusiastic about his relationship with the council in Rhondda Cynon Taf, which is home to Zip World Tower.
He’s now engaged in talks with councils in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Devon is the leading contender for the next Zip World site and the first outside of Wales.
He said: “It’s very important to me that Zip World continue to make a positive impact to communities we operate in, afterall the teams we recruit come from those communities and we want to have great relationships.”
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But Sean is not having to go looking for these sites, they are coming to him. He says he has four or five expressions of interest a week. These are from all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, Dubai, the Mediterranean, and the Far East.
Sean says he has a duty to maintain the brand and think about the people that will take on Zip World after him.
“We don’t want 35 Zip World sites in the UK,” he said.
“We want to create probably eight to 10 world-class destinations in key regions of the UK, the prerequisite being iconic areas you get a wow in.
“I’m incredibly confident of where we’re going. We offer something different from an amusement park. And, I think it’s generally a pleasurable journey to get to us, which helps.
“Having that world-class experience, and having a great team with the pure focus to keep you safe and give you a great time.”
He says that the company has grown quickly and Zip World is now a big fish in a small pool. Sean believes they have a great relationship with other tourism providers in the region, adding that 80% of Zip World suppliers are local.
“We’re passionate about keeping the money in the local community,” he added.
“We’re not the finished article, I accept that. We’ve got things to improve, things we need to do differently, but you know, I think everyone is learning all the time.
“I’m hugely honoured, as a Welshman, to be in my town, that I grew up in and went to school, and now run an organisation that I’m very proud of.
“In the future, I don’t ever see it not being based in Wales. We’ll have new sites outside of Wales, but our HQ will always be here, we will always be regarded as a Welsh company.”