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NASHVILLE, Tenn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Two of a biggest names in Tennessee tourism are teaming adult to pierce a
vital family party section to Nashville. Gaylord Entertainment
(NYSE: GET – News) and Dolly Parton’s Dollywood Company have entered into a
chit of bargain (MOU) for a 50/50 corner try to rise a
114-acre family party section adjacent to a Gaylord Opryland
Resort Convention Center. The Dollywood Company will offer as the
handling partner. Phase one of a plan is a nonetheless unnamed
approximately $50 million H2O and sleet park, a initial of a kind in
a United States. A late 2012, early 2013 groundbreaking date is
approaching with a park opening slated for summer of 2014.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and Nashville Mayor Karl Dean assimilated Dolly
Parton and Colin V. Reed, authority and arch executive officer, for
Gaylord Entertainment during today’s proclamation during a Grand Ole Opry
House during Gaylord Opryland.

“Tourism is a second largest attention in Tennessee, generating more
than a billion dollars in taxation income annually and contracting some-more than
170,000 Tennesseans,” Haslam said. “This plan will be a welcome
serve to a far-reaching accumulation of attractions and destinations opposite our
good state, and we extol a partnership and suggestion that has led to
this announcement.”

“Music City has turn a transport end distinct any other in the
country,” Dean said. “The serve of this family party complex
nearby Opryland adds a vicious blank square to a traveller offerings. It
provides a singular convenience captivate that will serve raise our
already sepulchral liberality industry, that is one of a city’s top
private section employers.”

The H2O and sleet park will anchor a plan that offers room for
destiny expansion. The park will yield a brew of high appetite water
activities for a summer deteriorate and designated sleet activities for
winter play. Once open, initial year assemblage is projected during 500,000, a
vast apportionment of that will come from out of state, bringing in
estimable tourism income to Tennessee and Nashville. Dollywood
expects to occupy 450 full- and part- time employees.

This due captivate furthers Gaylord’s concentration on flourishing a leisure
side of a business and stability to expostulate income by its
top-notch party attractions via a year. The Dollywood
Company is obliged for handling Dolly Parton’s Dollywood and
Dollywood’s Splash Country in a Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, as
good as her cooking party attraction, Dixie Stampede. Annually, these
attractions attract approximately 4 million visitors and have won
some of a industry’s many desired awards including “world’s best theme
park” and “America’s many pleasing H2O park.”

“I’m so vehement about this opportunity,” Dolly Parton said. “I am
assured that partnering my Dollywood Company with a good association like
Gaylord will emanate something truly special. We’re all operative on new
forms of party to do in a daytime and night for a whole
family so we pierce new folks to a area year round.”

“We are anxious by a awaiting of bringing to Nashville a family
focused party core with one of a preeminent thesis park
owners and operators in a country,” pronounced Colin V. Reed, authority and
arch executive officer, for Gaylord Entertainment. “I am assured this
due attraction, that will be a end not usually for a hotel
guest though also for a whole Nashville community, will meaningfully
raise a transitory and convenience plan by providing a fun, family
sourroundings during a doorstep of a Opryland Hotel. With Dolly Parton’s
nation song bequest and clever ties to Nashville, we can consider of no
improved partner for this try than Dolly’s Dollywood Company.”

“We wish that some other developers with good ideas will join us for
proviso dual of this project. We’re observant a H2O and sleet park are the
initial phase, though who knows, if we see some good ideas we could be
building a whole section by a time a sleet and H2O park open.
Wouldn’t that be good for Nashville and a state,” Parton said.

“We are in a early stages of formulation and will make certain that any
plan we pursue is finished so underneath a suitable mercantile conditions
and provides adequate earnings for a shareholders,” pronounced Reed. “We are
renting approximately 35 acres for enlargement and complimentary
informal attractions and we have been operative closely with state and
city officials to safeguard we have a correct infrastructure agreements in
place for a plan to pierce forward. We are looking brazen to working
on a subsequent stairs of this plan and to it apropos a profitable partial of
a Nashville tourism community.”

Based in a lifelike Great Smoky Mountains, Dollywood is a 150-acre
family journey park that operates 9 months a year (late March
by December) and offers some-more than 40 rides and attractions;
award-winning live party featuring country, bluegrass, gospel
and towering music; and a dozen crafters authentic to a East Tennessee
region. A family-friendly vacation destination, Dollywood also includes
a 35-acre Dollywood’s Splash Country, voted America’s “Must-See
Waterpark.” Dollywood offers comprehensive vacation formulation with a
accumulation of overnight camp options. For some-more information, call
1-800-DOLLYWOOD or revisit dollywood.com.

Gaylord Entertainment (NYSE: GET – News), a heading liberality and
party association formed in Nashville, Tenn., owns and operates
Gaylord Hotels (www.gaylordhotels.com),
a network of upscale, meetings-focused resorts and a Grand Ole Opry (www.opry.com),
a weekly showcase of nation music’s excellent performers for 85
uninterrupted years. The company’s party brands and properties
embody a Radisson Hotel Opryland, Ryman Auditorium, General Jackson
Showboat, Gaylord Springs Golf Links, Wildhorse Saloon, and WSM-AM. For
some-more information about a company, revisit www.GaylordEntertainment.com.

For B-roll, photography and some-more information,
visit: http://www.dollywood.com/dollywood-q10214-c1-Press_Room.aspx
or
http://www.gaylordhotels.com/gaylord-opryland/media-room/index.html

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