Efteling was founded in 1952 by a foundation, not a company. The foundation was set up by R. J. M. van der Heijden, mayor of Loon op Zand (the municipality that contains Kaatsheuvel), Anton Pieck, and the sports official Peter Reijnders. Reijnders contributed the mechanical know-how for the animatronic figures. Pieck contributed the design. Van der Heijden contributed the bureaucracy and the financing. The foundation still owns the park.
The four expansions
The park has had four large expansions:
- 1956–1968: the original fairy-tale forest grew from seven tableaux to twenty. The original perimeter was a wooded plot of about two hectares; by 1968 the park occupied approximately twelve hectares.
- 1981–1986: the first non-forest attractions were added: Python (the looping coaster), Carnaval Festival, Fata Morgana. The park doubled in size to about twenty-five hectares.
- 1993–2002: the dream-and-fantasy expansion. Droomvlucht (1993), Pagode (1998), and the Grand Hotel were added. The park reached its current footprint of about seventy hectares.
- 2015–present: the modern thrill-ride expansion. Baron 1898 (2015), Symbolica (2017), the Wonder Hotel (2024). The park is still in this phase.
Why the foundation still owns it
Most large theme parks are owned by entertainment conglomerates. Efteling is owned by a non-profit foundation whose board is partly elected from the village of Kaatsheuvel and partly appointed from cultural institutions. The foundation reinvests all profits into the park (or into the four hotels, which the foundation also owns). The board has, on several occasions, declined offers from private equity and from larger theme-park operators. The most recent of these offers, from a U.S. group, was declined in 2019 with a single-sentence statement from the chair: "The park is not for sale, the park is for visiting."
This ownership model is, in European theme-park history, almost unique. The closest analogue is Tivoli in Copenhagen, which is owned by a publicly traded company but operates under a perpetual lease from the city of Copenhagen. Efteling is the only large park I know of that is owned by a non-profit specifically.
What this means in practice
Two things you can observe as a visitor that follow from the ownership model: there is no surge pricing on park entry, even on the busiest days of the year, and the park closes at the time printed on the daily schedule rather than at the time most-profitable. The first reflects a board policy that the park should be accessible to the village; the second reflects a board policy that staff working in the park have predictable hours. Both policies are unusual at this scale. Both, I am told by a friend who works at the park, are non-negotiable.