It took me a while to realise that this article does not seem to involve any price-gouging of any sort but is actually about pricing a private equity deal. Still an interesting read.
E.g. Center Parcs makes insane gross margins e.g. food and drink because prices for those ARE insanely expensive relative to other places you could go out and eat. BUT that doesn't actually lead to crazy levels of profitability because it's a capital intensive business that requires lots of capex and/or debt financing to sustain.
The whole point is to take a deeper dive than most surface-level commentaries of "bloody hell Center Parcs is expensive" and see what's actually going on under the hood of the business.
And calling it 'price-gouging' is a bit of a nod to that, and it's a bit of a joke about how expensive a crap steak is there, and it's a way to get people's attention. Like other people have said, Center Parcs is mostly just a function of supply and demand. They have a great product, and people like me are willing to pay for it.
You could do all the activities (apart from the swimming pool), better, cheaper and in nicer surroundings, in a cottage in Wales or similar, but that would take planning and effort and (as the article points out) probably involves some driving rather than cycling/walking everywhere.
Plus if you really hate their catering prices, there's nothing stopping you driving to the cafe or supermarket in the next village and bringing your own bikes
If someone goes to a luxury accommodation experience and then become perturbed at being charged luxury prices, that seems to be a problem with their expectations.
Better still, you can cycle out with their rental bike no problem. Thetford is a nice cycle from Elveden... though the rental bikes maybe aren't the best for those sort of distances.
I don't mind spending a lot on holidays and travel, but we didn't return to Centre Parcs for this reason. It crossed the line from expensive to unreasonable.