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In my final episode of Series 3, I have a special guest, the wonderful and oh-so-stylish Lorraine Jarvie, General Manager of the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath.

This hotel has a five-star (red) rating and is one of the top 2% in the country. With 40 bedrooms and 140 staff (180 during busy periods), the Royal Crescent is not only one of the West's most impressive hotels, it is also one of the ultimate jobs in the UK for a hotel manager.

In our conversation, we talk about:

• Lorraine's career and how she came to work at the Royal Crescent.
• The wonderful history of the hotel and how the Royal Crescent was one of Bath's roughest areas in the 1980s and 1990s.
• How the American and Middle Eastern markets are busy with the Chinese market definitely coming back.
• Types of guests willing to pay upwards of £1,100 for a junior suite.
• The impact of Bridgerton and film tourism on the hotel and Bath as a visitor destination.
• Getting trained staff to the service level required.
• Going into schools to talk about her job to inspire the next generation of hospitality recruits.
• The launch of a new set of toiletries with Jo Loves - the first hotel range in association with Jo Malone outside of London.
• The Golden Keys concierge team who can access pretty much anything their guests require in the UK - no one else has this status in the West Country.
• Her favourite places Iford Manor and Castle Farm, Midford.

It was such a pleasure chatting with Lorraine. My only issue was the sound quality of my microphone. I am so sorry.

Please stick with it, as Lorraine is who you most want to hear from, and she shares some wonderful insights into life as a General Manager in a luxury hotel.

Enjoy the episode.

Huge thanks to podcast sponsor Noble Performs.

Noble provide Unstoppable digital marketing to maximise your performance. From SEO to Paid Social and more, we have the tools you need.

Find out more about host Kelly Ballard and the Visitor Elves here.

Subscribe to the Visitor Elves newsletter, to receive the latest podcast releases and inspirational tips to help you with your visitor economy business.

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Welcome to this week's podcast, where I’m going behind the scenes of Bristol City Centre and talking to Tom Swithinbank.

Tom's work involves helping businesses become more sustainable and making the city a more appealing place to visit. Tom works for Visit West, specifically for the Business Improvement Districts, which support around 1,200 businesses in the city centre.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How Tom’s work contributes to the Bristol City Council’s ambitious target to be carbon neutral by 2030.
• A free bike check service called Dr Bike
• An initiative for city centre workers to bring their own lunch boxes to Finzels Reach food market to cut down on packaging waste - a great initiative that all of us can consider, no matter where we work.
• The use of cargo bikes for businesses who need local deliveries
• Making the city look more appealing using planters, murals and green walls, all of which make the city centre a better place.

We also discuss the future of the historic Castle Park and the exciting plans to redevelop that rather colourful derelict building on the corner. Along with the plan to landscape the area next to Cabot Circus to strengthen the park's link to the shopping centre.

I hope you enjoy the episode.

Bristol City Centre BID

Redcliffe & Temple BID

Broadmead BID

Connect with Tom Swinthinbank on LinkedIn

For more links to things and businesses discussed (podcast on website)

Huge thanks to podcast sponsor Noble Performs.

Noble provide Unstoppable digital marketing to maximise your performance. From SEO to Paid Social and more, we have the tools you need.

Find out more about host Kelly Ballard and the Visitor Elves here.

Subscribe to the Visitor Elves newsletter, to receive the latest podcast releases and inspirational tips to help you with your visitor economy business.

To share your views on this subject and ask questions about the episode, head over to:
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LinkedIn

If you have enjoyed this podcast episode, please take a moment to give me a few stars on Apple podcasts or Spotify, it helps to encourage more people to listen and learn from our stories. 🙏

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In today's episode, my conversation with Graham MacVoy, Managing Director of the visitor attraction Wake the Tiger in Bristol, truly blew my mind.

Wake the Tiger is the permanent 'baby' created by the team running the unique Boomtown festival.

The pandemic has much to answer for, but it gave Graham and his directors the headspace to provide a more permanent base for their creative ideas, so the 'amazement park' Wake the Tiger was created and opened in 2022.

I listened in awe in this episode as Graham revealed how his love of snowboarding led to his career running snowboarding events in Europe, which led to his owning a company that led operations at festivals such as Creamfields, BST Hyde Park, and Boomtown.

Graham talked about how the Wake the Tiger was a huge punt of an idea which thankfully saw 190,000 in its first year of operations.

Wake the Tiger has brought Boomtown's talent and creativity into a permanent space that blows people’s minds and challenges us to think differently and creatively to make a difference to our lives and our planet.

He discusses everything from learning to run a visitor attraction to the importance of the arts and creativity in changing society.

Graham is an inspiration, and his out-of-the-box thinking about how we should behave as human beings and what is important certainly left me questioning everything about life!

He also talks about his love for his hometown of Dursley, Gloucestershire, on the Cotswold Way.

I hope you enjoy the episode.

Read the transcript here https://visitorelves.co.uk/podcast/

Learn more and follow Wake the Tiger:

Website

Instagram

LinkedIn Company page

Huge thanks to podcast sponsor Noble Performs.

Noble provide Unstoppable digital marketing to maximise your performance. From SEO to Paid Social and more, we have the tools you need.

Find out more about host Kelly Ballard and the Visitor Elves here.

Subscribe to the Visitor Elves newsletter, to receive the latest podcast releases and inspirational tips to help you with your visitor economy business.

To share your views on this subject and ask questions about the episode, head over to:
Instagram
LinkedIn

If you have enjoyed this podcast episode, please take a moment to give me a few stars on Apple podcasts or Spotify, it helps to encourage more people to listen and learn from our stories. 🙏