Bowood bags double success at tourism awards

Securing Gold in the ‘Business Tourism’ category and Bronze as ‘Large Hotel of the Year’, Bowood Hotel, Spa & Golf Resort was one of just two Wiltshire winners – and four ‘double’ triumphs – at the recent South West Tourism Excellence Awards 2012/13 at Cornwall’s Eden Project.

The 2012/13 Awards winners were drawn from as far west as Scilly and east as Wiltshire, south as Devon & Cornwall and as far north as the Cotswolds, being judged across best hotel, event, attraction, activity, holiday park and self catering holidays categories as well as for customer service, access, sustainable tourism and business tourism.

Amongst the winners were Business Development Manager, Frances Charman and Head of Sales & Marketing, Hayley Potter who collected the pair of awards on behalf of Bowood.

This is the second consecutive year that the 43-bedroom Bowood Hotel, Spa & Golf Resort gained Bronze in the ‘Large Hotel of Year’ category which was open to ‘Hotels, Town House Hotels, Country House Hotels and Metro Hotels with over 35 bedrooms and a current quality assessment from a recognised independent body’.

The 2012/2013 Awards are the first time, though, that Bowood was named a winner in the ‘Business Tourism Award’ category.

 Out of those judged as “..quality tourism businesses that are aimed at the corporate sector or weddings market, for example event and exhibition venues, convention hotels, conference and banqueting venues’’ it was Bowood Hotel, Spa & Golf Resort that gained Gold.

The South West Tourism Excellence Awards are the official tourism awards for the region, offering entry to businesses in Somerset, Dorset, Bath, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Bristol and the Isles of Scilly as well as linking closely with the award schemes in Cornwall and Devon.  

They also form the regional heat of the national VisitEngland awards to which Bowood Hotel, Spa & Golf Resort  will now progress, flying the flag once more for Wiltshire.

From a total 300 entries considered for the Awards (with all entrants undergoing a rigorous short-listing process and 164 going on to be visited by a team of over 30 judges and mystery shoppers), Bowood was the only Wiltshire hotel included in this year’s list of winners.

Bowood Hotel, Spa & Golf Resort was officially opened by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall in May 2009. 

Located in the western corner of Capability Brown’s 2,000 acre Grade I Listed Great Park, Bowood Hotel adopts a distinctively English country house tone yet with contemporary twists.

Alongside Bowood’s 18-hole Dave Thomas-designed championship golf course – which belongs to 2-FORE!-1 and offers half-price green fees to 2-FORE!-1 voucher holders – the three-story hotel features 37 bedrooms and six suites, the Shelburne Restaurant & Bar and two lounges (The Library and the Morning Room).

With its own dedicated entrance, the spa offers a 15×6 metre infinity swimming pool, hot pool, crystal steam room, rock sauna, aromatherapy showers, four treatment rooms, gym and spa bar.