STAFF at Waterside and Chesil holiday parks are preparing for the peak summer season in Weymouth.

They expect tens of thousands of visitors to pour through the gates of Waterside at Bowleaze Cove and Chesil Holiday Park, near the Fleet Lagoon and Chesil Beach.

The family-run business has invested an average of at least £500,000 every year for a number of years and has spent about £750,000 on its new spa and refurbished leisure centre at Waterside.

It has extended and revamped the swimming pool and fitness centre and used space left to create the new spa - complete with treatment rooms, a hydrotherapy pool, steam room, sauna and changing rooms.

Both Waterside and Chesil Holiday Park sites have five- star status from Visit Britain - Waterside, since 1996.

Company chairman Philip Jacobs said that their philosophy was to provide quality accommodation and facilities at the top end of the caravan holidays market.

"This does a bit extra for the town as we are bringing people into the town who have money to spend. We are trying to bring in this type of customer that the Weymouth tourism department sets its sights on."

There are 585 caravans at Waterside and 220 at Chesil, although there is room for 250. The company employs 70 people all the year around, which rises to 150 full and part-time jobs in the summer.

The sites are open for eight months to holidaymakers but people who own caravans on the sites can use them for 10-and-a-half months of the year. Mr Jacobs stressed that there was a misconception about holiday parks locking' people into their sites.

He said that they promoted the local area and attractions, and that staff booked restaurants for visitors and sold tickets for local attractions. Attractions and events are also heavily featured in the park's brochures.

"We offer a concierge service. If we wanted to lock people in, we wouldn't have the space available in our entertainment centre to take half the number of people who stay here."

He added that there was a huge capacity for local businesses to trade from visitors and that caravan parks in the area, not just Waterside and Chesil, contributed a huge amounts into the local economy. He added that most visitors wanted to go off the site to visit local attractions and eat out.

Waterside's facilities include the spa, a leisure centre with four pools, an outdoor heated pool, reception, café, take-aways, bar meals, a shop, a gym with state-of-the-art fitness equipment and Boomers children's Fun House with ten-pin bowling and play areas.

Its Waterside Venue entertainment complex has bars, club rooms, dance floors, a restaurant and entertainers every night of the week. It can take up to 850 people. The site's facilities also include a boatyard so visitors can bring small vessels and jetskis on holiday with them.

Mr Jacobs's parents Ralph and Esther Jacobs founded Waterside after moving to Weymouth in 1951. They built their business from a shop on a caravan site to letting caravans and then starting and expanding the Waterside site to the 45 acres it now covers. The company bought the Chesil Holiday Park six years ago and revamped it, bringing it up to five-star status.

Mr Jacobs said it was difficult to estimate because different numbers of visitors stay in each caravan, but expects more than 50,000 visitors a year to pour through the gates each year.

The parks employ as many staff in permanent, year- round jobs - not just jobs for the summer.

Computer models indicate that for every two jobs in tourism, another job is created in the local area in the knock-on effect on the local economy.