Type Privately held company Website arcticspas.com | Industry Hot tub manufacturing | |
Headquarters Thorsby, Alberta, Canada | ||
Arctic Spas is Blue Falls Manufacturing's flagship brand of portable electric hot tubs, developed as a niche product for cold climates. The line is made and sold in Canada, and exported to the United States, Australia, and Europe.
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History and growth
Blue Falls Manufacturing was founded in the late 1980s as Koko Beach Hot Tub Manufacturing in Edmonton, Alberta. It was purchased in 1997 by its current owners, at the time employees of Blue Falls. The new owners soon began producing the Arctic Spas brand, intending it to be a "Mercedes" spa created for the Canadian market.
In 2001 the company moved to Thorsby and constructed a 70,000-square-foot (6,500 m2) facility (later expanded to 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2)), largely because land for a new factory was much cheaper in Thorsby than in Edmonton. The owners, from farming backgrounds themselves, also appreciated the rural community's work ethic. In 2003, the company purchased a 90,000-square-foot (8,400 m2) facility in Coleman, Alberta to manufacture some of their models. A third facility opened in 2005 in Breton, Alberta, to produce the company’s cedar accessories and gazebos. This period of rapid expansion resulted in attention by government officials, by way of an Industry Canada profile late in 2006. Given the company's reliance on winter climate branding, energy efficient technology introductions were key; testing by provincial authority Alberta Innovates Technology Futures (then the Alberta Research Council) determined that Arctic Spas hot tubs were thirty percent more energy efficient than the leading competitors.
The company has since launched a second brand of hot tubs, "Coyote Spas", and sells various other spa-related products and accessories. Eager to demonstrate their gratitude to the community in which they manufacture, 2011 saw Arctic Spas enter into an innovative partnership with Thorsby's recreation centre, whereby the company was granted naming rights in exchange for a sponsorship. They have also launched a new brand of swimming machine, called the All Weather Pool, in early 2013.
Overseas operations
The company focused on the European export market from the beginning, especially the colder climates of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Instead of relying on independent distributors, the company formed joint partnerships in order to maintain control their brand, and opened showrooms and warehouses in England, Eastern Europe, France, the United States, and Australia. They also opened a distribution center in Ireland, which went into liquidation in 2007. The company has received acclaim for participating in apprenticeship ventures, which are economically favoured in the UK.