March – a month for planning and pitching
March is always a busy month as we shake off the last vestiges of winter and look forward to the summer. It’s a time for planning visits to new places and pitching to new markets. And where better to start the month than at TravMedia’s International Media Marketplace (IMM) event, held for the first time at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London.
As always,the event provided an opportunity to make contacts with travel suppliers, hotel groups and tourist boards and to catch up with journalist colleagues and friends. IMM is specifically designed to bring the media and the travel industry together in a less frenetic setting than at the World Travel Market (WTM). The purpose built conference centre has a historic location in the heart of Westminster (opposite Westminster Abbey) and is more spacious (if less plush) than the Dorchester Hotel’s ballroom, where IMM was held last year. They also served up a good lunch and copious amounts of tea and coffee throughout the day.
Despite making few advance appointments this year, I managed to visit most of the stands and delegates I wanted to meet and a few others. At lunch, I shared a space on the window box with Rowena Thomas, co-owner of the Lyall, one of Melbourne’s most stylish 5-star boutique hotels. The hotel has a lovely spa and celebrity clientele include tennis star Novak Djokovic and his team, who stay there every January during the Australian Open championships.
I also met up with Charlotte Hanna from Thermae Bath Spa again. Charlotte had invited me to visit the spa at last year’s IMM, but work commitments and life somehow got in the way and I never made it down to Bath! There are now even more reasons for a visit in 2015!
Thermae Bath Spa is the UK’s only natural thermal spa and opened eight years ago. It has overcome its initial problems (launching four years late and £30m over budget) to become a significant tourism driver for the city, attracting about 260,000 visitors a year and contributes £14.6m to the local economy.
The Bath Spa Project is a combination of new buildings and restoration. Centrepiece is the splendid state-of-the-art New Royal Bath; designed by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners, encompassing the large Minerva Bath, steam rooms, a café/restaurant and the spectacular Open-air Rooftop Pool. The old Roman Hot Bath and the small Cross Bath were also restored. Today, visitors can book a 90-minute session in the Cross Bath, where the thermal waters are fed from a poolside fountain. Thermae Bath Spa also offers a wide range of body and beauty treatments using Pevonia and Aromatherapy Associate products.
The surprising news is that this most quintessential of British spas is now operated by a Malaysian company. Bath Hotel and Spa Limited (BHSL), a subsidiary of YTL Hotels of Malaysia have taken over the operating contract for Thermae Bath Spa with Wessex Water. YTL Hotels own and and manage a prestigious collection of award winning Asian resorts and Spa Villages and later this summer open the Gainsborough Bath Spa Hotel, their first UK property. Central focus of the 5-star hotel will be Spa Village Bath, the only natural thermal spa within a hotel in the UK, which promises to be a stunning new addition to this beautiful city.
So I will have to take up Charlotte’s invitation to experience Thermae Bath Spa later this when I can combine it with a visit to the Gainsborough Bath Spa Hotel – the UK’s most exciting new spa hotel in decades.
