Bath BID awards: Providing a warm welcome to everyone

Bath BID is a welcome new addition to our sponsors for the Bath Business Awards and has also launched its own honours, the Bath BID Awards for its levy payers. This will highlight organisations that are making a difference in five areas – welcome, smart, safe, clean and prosperous. This week they look at welcome The aspiration for Bath is that everyone is given a warm welcome – residents, students, day shoppers and tourists. The Bath Business Improvement District (BID) is one of the organisations in the city that helps make this happen on behalf of its city centre members. The Bath BID awards are new for 2018 and aim to recognise organisations in the city across its five areas of focus; ‘welcome’ is one of those areas. The award for this category will highlight those businesses that create events that bring footfall to the city or those that use existing events to extend the experience of those that are visiting the city. The judges were particularly keen to look at those that looked at continually improving their offer, those that extended the demographic reach of the city and those that were innovating. The nominees include a wide range of well-known names. The Bath Christmas Market has been shortlisted. The massive appeal of the market is undeniable and brings significant business for nearly everyone in the city. If the award was on footfall alone, this would surely be the winner. Southgate is known for its globally renowned installations, customer service and its role as headline sponsor of the hugely successful Minerva Owls. Excel Tennis which runs Bath on Ice, the Glow in the Dark Mini Golf and Bath on the Beach have been nominated for their innovation. The Jane Austen Centre was nominated for its global appeal, bringing in a diverse, higher spending audience and the cross-links with other organisations large and small across the city Jolly’s is admired for the way, over the last year, it has adapted to the retail environment with interesting use of its promotional space and concierge service, which includes a native Chinese language speaker. Dr Martens has been nominated as a newcomer to the city. It is admired for its vibrant launch and community engagement. Judging of the Bath BID Awards took place this week and the winners of the welcome category and the other areas of focus, smart, prosperous, clean and safe were announced at the Bath BID AGM at the Hilton Hotel. The overall winner, the Bath BID Business Awards Champion, will be announced at the Bath Chronicle Business Awards in November. To find out more go to www.bathbid. co.uk/the-bath-bid-awards.