EXCLUSIVE: Can Dollywood Turn a Day in the Smokies Into a Whole Vacation? Pete Owens Has a Plan

Ask most families to picture a theme park vacation and they'll picture Orlando. Dollywood would like a word.

Over the past decade or so, the Pigeon Forge park has built itself into something much bigger than a day trip in the Smokies: two resorts, a water park, hard-ticket events and a steady pipeline of family attractions, all designed to keep you on property for the whole trip. Since so many of our readers work in this industry, I wanted to know how that strategy is playing out. So on Oct. 29, I sat down (virtually) with Pete Owens, Dollywood's vice president of marketing and public relations.

"Our mission is to make memories worth repeating, but our vision is to bring families closer together," Mr. Owens told me. "And the more families that we have the opportunity to come in contact with, the more opportunity there is for us to share our love with them."

A decade of building toward a destination

Mr. Owens traces the current push to 2012, when Dollywood added Wild Eagle, which he called the first wing coaster in the U.S., and promised a big announcement the following season. That announcement was a $300 million expansion of the Dollywood brand, starting with the first of its planned resorts, Dollywood's DreamMore Resort and Spa, which opened in 2015.

The attractions that followed, starting with FireChaser Express in 2014, were built around one idea: rides the whole family can do together.

"We focused on families that had children that were in that, say, 2 to 12 age group," Mr. Owens said. "So parents, kids, grandparents, aunts and uncles could all go and they could do things together."

The last piece of that $300 million was Wildwood Grove, which he said was needed in part because the first phase worked a little too well. "The first part of our expansion was so successful, we needed extra room for all of the new guests that we were welcoming to the property," he said. Whether it's Black Bear Trail, Mad Mockingbird or Dragonflier, "it's something that parents and grandparents could ride with kids as well. And that was the objective."

Then, in 2019, Dollywood came back with a bigger number, and my favorite line of the interview. "We made a subsequent announcement and said, basically, we're out of money," Mr. Owens said. "We need to continue to expand."

That half-billion-dollar expansion brought HeartSong Lodge & Resort, the Dolly Parton Experience, Big Bear Mountain and, this year, NightFlight Expedition. All of it, he said, "follows that same formula. Multi-generational family experiences, high-quality resort lodging, but a place that families can come together."

The goal behind it is nothing if not ambitious: "to become the number one family destination in the U.S."

Five resorts planned, two built

Five resorts are master planned for the Dollywood campus, as Dollywood president Eugene Naughton recently said, and two are open. According to Mr. Owens, the first one answered a question that had long followed the Smokies among families from bigger cities.

"If I'm going to go to the Smokies, isn't that kind of a rustic place? And is there a place that I can stay that I am comfortable and used to staying?" he said. "When we opened DreamMore, that checked that box immediately."

Resort guests can park once, ride Dollywood's transportation between the parks and the resorts, and add perks like TimeSaver. Guests, he said, "have told us that's exactly what we're looking for. It is much more of a destination experience."

The two resorts share some programming, like Camp DW, but each is tuned a little differently.

"DreamMore is very much attuned to families with kids," Mr. Owens said. "And it's much more like you going to visit Dolly in her home."

HeartSong, by contrast, leans toward group travel. "It's a mini convention center, but it's also a large family resort," he said. "HeartSong is really more about why Dolly came back to the Smokies year after year, why this is the place she liked to come and write, why this is a place that grounded her."

It's a smart split. Rather than build two versions of the same hotel, Dollywood gave each one its own story to tell, which is exactly the kind of thing that makes a resort feel like part of the park instead of a place to sleep.

The pitch to Disney and Universal fans

I'll admit this was the question I was most curious about. For families who default to Orlando or Southern California, Mr. Owens didn't knock the competition.

"If your mindset is very IP-driven or pop culture-driven, Disney and Universal are great experiences," he said. "They utilize their IP better than any other place on the planet."

Dollywood's pitch is the setting itself. He called the Great Smoky Mountains "one of the most beautiful places in the world" and the park "a beautiful, natural, authentic experience."

"If you want an authentic experience that is really focused and catered on your family, Dollywood, for me, is the place to go," he said. "It is true Southern hospitality. It is Southern food. It's entertainment that came out of the mountains."

And, crucially, it's calmer. "If you want to have a place to be able to come with your family that is not quite as hectic as a vacation to LA or to Orlando, then Dollywood is a great choice for families."

Original stories and NightFlight Expedition

This is where Dollywood really sets itself apart, and, to be perfectly honest, where I wish the big two would take notes. I've long wanted Disney and Universal to go back to doing more original concepts, and Dollywood is quietly building an entire world of its own.

The park tells Smoky Mountain stories, and Dolly Parton stories above all. But the world of Wildwood Grove, Big Bear Mountain and now NightFlight Expedition is Dollywood's own creation, grown from what Mr. Owens called "a spark of a story of Dolly as a kid."

That story follows Rebecca, a girl who gets lost in the woods and finds Wildwood Grove, where she meets characters including Flit and Flutter, Benjamin Bear and Franklin Frog, and the ranger who oversees it all. Ned, the main character of Big Bear Mountain, is out searching for Big Bear. In NightFlight, his niece and nephew go looking for Secret Lake, which Mr. Owens described as "the source of all the bioluminescence that there is in the Smokies."

It began, he said, with a real Dolly story: as a child, she got lost in the woods chasing a butterfly.

"What's important of that is that allows us that differentiation," Mr. Owens said. These original characters "are differentiators within the overall landscape of our competitors."

NightFlight hasn't had the smoothest debut. Mr. Owens acknowledged "growing pains," with both Dollywood and the ride's manufacturer finding issues they didn't anticipate. "That happens when you innovate and you try to do things that no one else has ever done before," he said.

But when it's running at full capacity, the numbers say the ride is a genuine trip driver. "We'll have between 50 and 60 percent of the park ride the ride," he said. "And that shows that that is an attraction that they circled and said, 'Well, we're going to Dollywood because we want to do that.'"

Work continues on the pre-show and other elements, he said, "but the ride itself is a fantastic attraction and that's what our guests are telling us." Having ridden it a couple of times myself, I'm inclined to agree.

Splash Country and the summer stay

Dollywood's Splash Country, which opened in May 2001, works both as a standalone water park and as an amenity for resort guests. Mr. Owens said the Splash and Stay package is the resorts' top seller in summer.

He expects the water park to evolve the way Dollywood did: fewer new thrill rides, more for the whole family, and more events.

This year Splash Country tested Neon Nights, a glow experience after dark. Mr. Owens said it "was quite successful in our initial test" and will run all summer next year.

The point, of course, is giving resort guests another night. "If they're going to come to Dollywood in the summertime and stay for the dance party and stay for the drone and fireworks show one night, then they can stay for Neon Nights the next night and it gives them an opportunity to extend stay for us," he said.

A market of 21 million visitors

Mr. Owens said 21 million people visit the Smokies market each year, and the typical family trip is "a three, four-day getaway." Guests coming from farther away, including international visitors and travelers from the coasts and Canada, tend to stay four or five days.

That audience is broader than you might think. He named Orlando (yes, Orlando) as one of Dollywood's top markets, along with Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Cincinnati, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. "Most of those folks are pretty affluent people and they have the opportunity to want a more premium experience," he said.

Events that fill rooms

Asked which special events drive hotel stays and repeat visits, Mr. Owens pointed to Run Dollywood.

"It is a big driver for room nights," he said. "Runners are pretty quirky. They like to run multiple times a year."

This year's two Run Dollywood events "definitely drove occupancy at both resorts," which served as headquarters for much of the race activity, and multiple races are planned for 2027.

Premium perks, affordable base

At a time when theme park prices only seem to move in one direction, affordability is the question I always want answered. Mr. Owens said it "is one of the things that Dolly always spoke about," given how she grew up. Dollywood's answer is a ladder of options.

The Silver pass is the base season pass, and a Summer Fun pass is cheaper still, with multiple summer visits. A Gold pass adds parking and other discounts, and the top-tier Diamond pass covers both parks with exclusive perks. Resort guests get their own level of exclusive extras.

For guests who want to spread out the cost, Dollywood runs a 10-month payment plan. "It's a no-interest program," Mr. Owens said. "We run it ourselves."

He acknowledged that serving every income level is a balancing act, but said the full package compares well. A stay at DreamMore or HeartSong with park tickets, he said, "is a much more affordable experience than other destination resorts around the country."

What's next: an RV resort, more rides and the next three hotels

Asked what's still missing, Mr. Owens pointed to an outdoor resort, an idea both Dolly Parton and Mr. Naughton have talked about. It is, he said, "one of the things that she really wanted to accomplish before her untimely passing."

"She was a big RV camper," he said. "Believe it or not, she and Carl had RVs all around."

Mr. Owens described an elevated take on camping, possibly with its own dinner show, comparing it to Disney's Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue at Fort Wilderness. A Dollywood version, he said, "could not only service the outdoor resort, but could also service the rest of the folks that are staying with us." (I spent a night in a Fort Wilderness cabin just recently, so color me very intrigued.)

Beyond lodging, he sees room for more multi-generational rides that Dollywood doesn't yet have, and "maybe some unique dining opportunity" inside the park, all "very consistent with what the look, feel, and experience that you've come to know and love that is Dollywood." I'm personally hoping that means a dark ride. More dark rides are always a good idea.

Mr. Owens also noted that the Herschends, Dollywood's partners, are building a resort at Silver Dollar City that will open next year.

As for where the remaining resorts will land on price, whether a value option or something a step above DreamMore and HeartSong, Mr. Owens said that's still open. The process starts somewhere else entirely.

"Almost everything that we do here starts with a story," he said. "So the question is, what story do we want to tell? How does that interface with the Smokies and Dolly?" Only then does the team decide whether a project is "an upscale thing. Or this is a family thing. Or this is a thrill thing."

For the next resorts, he said, "affordability or exclusivity will both be factors."

The trick for Dollywood now is the same one every growing destination faces: getting bigger without losing what made people fall in love with it in the first place. Based on our conversation, the people running it know that better than anyone. Only time will tell how the next three resorts shake out.

In the meantime, Dollywood's Smoky Mountain Christmas opens Nov. 6, after the park closes Nov. 1 to 5 to change over from Harvest Festival. As for the bigger picture, I'll be watching with great interest.