A Charity can be a great Business, too!

No.1 Royal Crescent won the Leisure and Tourism Business of the Year award at the Bath Chronicle Business Awards (11 September), proving that you don’t have to be a corporate business to be competitive. In this popular category were businesses of all sizes including hotels and festival events, but No. 1 demonstrated the best overall prowess with evidence of growth, investment and innovation. In particular, this grand Georgian townhouse museum showed the value it adds to Bath as a visitor destination – for both residents and tourists – and that it is a caring and responsible employer.

Collecting the award, Caroline Kay, Chief Executive of Bath Preservation Trust which owns and operates No.1, said:

“We re-opened a year ago after a £5m restoration and expansion project and it is testament to the dedication of the project team, staff, guides and volunteers that we were able to complete ahead of schedule and below budget. With a much improved visitor experience our customer satisfaction ratings have increased dramatically, our staff and volunteers are better trained and we estimate that in the first six months of opening we brought £300,000 income into the local economy.

Winning this award means a great deal to us, coming as it does so soon after winning national awards for our permanent collection, the quality of our historical education programme, and the gold award for best tourist attraction at Bath’s inaugural BEHTAs. Our thanks go to the judges and to sponsors Thrings and The Francis Hotel.”