Xanterra Travel Collection® (formerly Xanterra Parks & Resorts, Amfac Resorts and Amfac Parks & Resorts) is a privately owned American park and resort management company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado, controlled by entertainment magnate Philip Anschutz. Denver-based billionaire Anschutz, who has an extensive history of developing and operating mineral, railroad, newsmedia and entertainment enterprises, is one of the largest private promoters of live events in the world, most notably soccer.^[1]

Xanterra currently partners with the National Park Service to provide lodging and other tourism services inside National Parks. Current concessions contracts in the national parks include Glacier National Park, Grand Canyon National Park (South Rim), Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Rocky Mountain National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and Zion National Park. In addition to its National Park contracts, Xanterra Travel Collection also owns and operates the Grand Canyon Railway & Hotel, The Grand Hotel at The Grand Canyon, Cedar Creek Lodge, The Oasis at Death Valley, Country Walkers, Vermont Bicycling Tours (VBT), Holiday Vacations, and Windstar Cruises.^[2]

History

A legacy of the 19th century Fred Harvey Company, after the death of the founder's grandson in 1965, the company became affiliated with Chicago-based JMB Realty, which acquired large Hawaii landholder Amfac in 1968 and broke it up into independent corporations including Amfac Resorts. In 1995, Amfac bought the large national parks management concession TW Recreational Services from Flagstar.^[3][4] In 2002, Amfac changed its corporate name to Xanterra after the bankruptcy of Amfac Hawaii.^[5] The name comes from a combination of Xanadu and terra (Earth).^[6] The Anschutz Company bought Xanterra from JMB in 2008.^[7]

Xanterra specializes in tourism in U.S. National Parks, and has a presence in Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, Glacier, Rocky Mountain, and Zion, as well as Mount Rushmore National Memorial. They are contracted by the US National Park Service to provide lodging and services in these parks. Accommodations and pricing vary widely and include quality hotel rooms, lodges, rustic cabins, motel-style lodging and camping.

The most notable of the original Harvey operations is the Grand Canyon, South Rim concession, including the El Tovar Hotel.

In addition to its National Park contracts, Xanterra Travel Collection also owns and operates several gateway hotels (Grand Canyon Railway & Hotel in Williams, Arizona, The Grand Hotel at The Grand Canyon in Tusayan, Arizona, Cedar Creek Lodge in Columbia Falls, Montana, The Oasis at Death Valley in Death Valley National Park), adventure travel companies (Country Walkers based in Williston, Vermont, Vermont Bicycling Tours (VBT) in Williston, Vermont, Holiday Vacations in Eau Claire, Wisconsin), and the yacht-style cruise line Windstar Cruises based in Miami, Florida.^[2]

Grand Canyon Railway

Xanterra operates the Grand Canyon Railway in Arizona on the line originally built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Since their takeover of the operation in 2007, the line has removed its historic steam locomotives and ALCO FA diesels from service in favor of their modern EMD F40FH diesels. Although, two of the FAs, #6793 and #6860, are still operational to pull the Williams Flyer train, and steam locomotives #29 and #4960, modified to run on waste vegetable oil, are also still used on special occasions.^[8]