Out of the Bedroom into the Vault for Bristol Travel Massive

Bristol Harbour Hotel

We rounded off our first year of Bristol Travel Massive in style, holding 2016’s fourth and final meet up at the newly refurbished Bristol Harbour Hotel & Spa. This impressive venue is something special and will be familiar to many Bristolians as the contemporary hotel fuses two iconic former bank properties in Corn Street, right at the heart of the city’s famous historical banking quarter.

Our group of travel professionals including writers, bloggers, hotels, visitor attractions and PRs all gathered for a drinks reception, networking and a brief welcome talk. Just because it happened to be available that evening, we were hosted in the enormous Sansovino Hall and it was quite amusing to see how small our group looked in this former banking hall which is now surely one of Bristol’s most impressive events spaces!

What a splendid array of canapés to fuel all that networking …

… and for once I wasn’t driving so the fizz was very welcome too!

Bristol Harbour Hotel proved to be excellent hosts and once we’d had our fill, guests were given the chance to tour different parts of the hotel. Firstly we popped into the award-winning Jetty Restaurant. I’d already had a positive experience of this elegant dining area as, when I’d arrived early and ordered coffee, I was presented with this welcome selection.

The decor and lighting design gives this large space quite a cosy feel.  Alongside the Jetty’s à la carte, the “Catch” of the day menu, with it’s strong emphasis on fish, provides a number of affordable set menus including whole fish from £15.50 and two courses for £17.50.

Having studied the menus and chosen what we fancied when we have time for a proper visit to the restaurant, we went upstairs to look around one of the 42 bedrooms which had quite a wow factor. You could tell this from the way several of us said “Wow!” as we walked in!

Take a look at the Facebook Live video I recorded that evening if you fancy a peek at the room.

Bedrooms feature White Company decor, bank themed art work and complimentary gin and sherry as standard. The decanters are not complimentary, although apparently a few overzealous clients have decided that they should be!

Finally we had the opportunity to go behind the scenes and descend into the basement which used to house the bank vaults but is now shaping up to become a spa. I think some of the bank features will be left in place and incorporated into the spa. Can you imagine how hard it would be to remove that enormous Chubb door below?

You wouldn’t have to worry about your iPhone getting pinched while you were in the steam room, would you?

Another interesting evening was had by all and everyone who came seemed to enjoy the friendly atmosphere and beautiful venue as well as being impressed by the hotel and facilities. Heather and I would like to thank Bristol Harbour Hotel for hosting our Travel Massive event and giving us a tour of the hotel from top to bottom!

If you’re a travel professional in the South West and didn’t make it this time, there will be other opportunities. We’re running about four meet ups each year. Some may be more structured and offer the opportunity to learn about a travel related subject, others will be purely networking. If you’d like to hear about future events then sign up to the Bristol Chapter now so we can keep you informed.

You may like to read about how we set up our regional chapter and how #TravelMassiveBristol went from zero to trending on Twitter in just a few weeks.

If you have any comments or questions about Travel Massive, please leave them below and I’ll be happy to try and answer them!

Our next event is at Bristol’s Hotel du Vin on 16th January 2016. You can register here.