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There are thousands of talented people working behind the scenes in tourism, hospitality, events and destination marketing. Are you one of them?
Join me, Kelly Ballard, as I chat with award-winning business owners and those making magic in attracting and delighting visitors in the West of England, UK.
If you're wanting to connect with and learn from others in the visitor economy, this show is for you.
For more information about me and the show, visit www.visitorelves.co.uk
50 Episodes
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Send us a textAre you looking to grow your corporate bookings in 2025? Business events like meetings, conferences, and team-building activities are key revenue sources, especially during off-peak times in the visitor economy.In this episode, Kelly chats with Helen Applin, Head of Business Events at Visit West, about the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions) market opportunities in the Bristol, Bath, and North Somerset area. Many businesses miss out on opportunities ...
Send us a textIn this episode of I chatted with Damien Martin, General Manager of award-winning The Parkgate Hotel in Cardiff. Just a year after opening its doors in 2021, The Parkgate Hotel scooped the prestigious AA Hotel of the Year for Wales title. Damien gives us an inside look at the hotel’s success and shares what it takes to run a standout hospitality business. One of the hotel's big highlights is its restaurant, The Sorting Room, which has earned two AA Rosettes...
Send us a textWelcome to today’s episode! I’m super excited to chat with Charlotte Laing, the amazing founder of The Content Emporium. Her agency is thriving, with a team of 46 talented people, and they’re doing fantastic work for clients, including 20 shopping centres across the UK.Who’s This Episode For?If you’re creating content for businesses, especially in the visitor economy (think shopping centres, town or city centres), this one’s for you. Charlotte’s sharing some great tips and...
Send us a textWelcome to Series 4 of The Visitor Elves Podcast!We’re back, and I couldn’t be more excited to kick off Series 4 of the Visitor Elves podcast. Whether you’re a long-time listener (you’re a total rockstar!) or it’s your first time tuning in, I’m thrilled to have you here. We’re two years in, with 46 episodes and over 4,200 downloads—so what’s next? This series is packed with insightful guests, actionable tips, and real stories from those on the frontlines of tourism, h...
Send us a textIn my final episode of Series 3, I have a special guest, the wonderful and oh-so-stylish Lorraine Jarvie, General Manager of the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath. This hotel has a five-star (red) rating and is one of the top 2% in the country. With 40 bedrooms and 140 staff (180 during busy periods), the Royal Crescent is not only one of the West's most impressive hotels, it is also one of the ultimate jobs in the UK for a hotel manager. In our conversation, we tal...
Send us a textWelcome to this week's podcast, where I’m going behind the scenes of Bristol City Centre and talking to Tom Swithinbank. Tom's work involves helping businesses become more sustainable and making the city a more appealing place to visit. Tom works for Visit West, specifically for the Business Improvement Districts, which support around 1,200 businesses in the city centre.In this episode, we talk about: How Tom’s work contributes to the Bristol City Council’s ambitious target...
Send us a textIn today's episode, my conversation with Graham MacVoy, Managing Director of the visitor attraction Wake the Tiger in Bristol, truly blew my mind. Wake the Tiger is the permanent 'baby' created by the team running the unique Boomtown festival. The pandemic has much to answer for, but it gave Graham and his directors the headspace to provide a more permanent base for their creative ideas, so the 'amazement park' Wake the Tiger was created and opened in 2022. &nbs...
Send us a textIn today’s podcast, I’m heading to the Somerset levels to chat with Vicki Jones, owner of the award-winning Tractors & Cream glampsite. Vicki and her husband Bryan worked in the hotel trade before they decided to upsticks and create their own hospitality business. After feeling the pain of putting up the yurts each year, they decided to invest in these fantastic architectural geodomes. Their beautiful site, with five domes and a large event dome, is extreme...
Send us a textIn this episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Sarah Bagg, founder of ReWork Consulting, about getting the best ticketing or booking system to support your business needs. As a marketer, I've worked with several solutions, and I've noticed that most of them lack the automated link from email to CRM system. As a result, it's challenging to execute smart marketing strategies without manual intervention. This can be frustrating and time-consuming. It restric...
Send us a textIn this podcast episode, we focus on increasing bookings from inbound travellers or overseas tourists through the travel trade. My guests are Jon Chamberlain, Head of Marketing for VisitWest, and Mike Newman of B2Me Tourism Marketing. Jon has been working for 11 years to promote Bristol, Bath, and the surrounding areas as a European leisure destination. Mike helps destinations and businesses prepare their offers for the travel trade and represents them at shows worldwide.&n...
Send us a textToday's Marketing Insights is all about the 'groups' market. For many years, the domestic group travel or coach tour industry has been an important part of the UK’s tourism industry. Groups have historically been guaranteed business for many tourism organisations, with up to 50 people on a coach coming often during week day and shoulder periods. However, because of the pandemic, hundreds of coach companies, many of them well established, went out of busines...
Send us a textToday’s episode is all about email marketing and the simple things you can do to make it work more effectively to drive bookings. Joining me on the show is Sarah Orchard of Get Fully Booked. Sarah runs a marketing programme that helps small independent accommodation businesses improve their marketing and increase their direct bookings. Sarah was also my very first guest on the podcast back in 2022. In that episode, she spoke about her luxury treehouse, Hudnalls...
Send us a textIf large open-air events or air shows are your thing, you'll love this episode. In today’s podcast, I chat with Simon Hough, Head of Commercial Activities and Hospitality at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT), the largest military airshow in the world. We chat about the event and everything that goes into its creation across the year, including the logistical challenge of dealing with 253 aircraft coming into a single location for a week and the event's import...
Send us a textToday's episode is the first of my Marketing Insights series. In it, I’m talking to the lovely Claire Robinson, founder and Creative Director of WeekendCandy.com, about the world of influencer marketing and how to work with Influencers in 2024. Claire shares several tips on how to find the right people to work with and get the most out of the relationship, including:How to identify the right influencers for your target audience based on demographics and content tone/...
Send us a textDigital marketing is constantly evolving, and it can be a challenge to keep up. I recently had a conversation with Jarrod Lopiccolo (CEO) and Kate Sikora (Managing Partner) from Noble Performs, a digital agency that specialises in travel and tourism marketing. With over 20 years of experience in the US, they established a UK agency in Bristol in 2019. Their clients include destinations like Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park, Cotswold Tourism, and St George's music venue in...
Send us a textWelcome to episode 35 of the Visitor Elves podcast. Today, I’m joined by Fiona Matthews, Creative Director of Super Culture, an organisation that creates cultural experiences in Weston-super-Mare. Super Culture creates large-scale events such as the annual light festival GLOW and Whirligig and works on initiatives involving the entire community. Super Culture is providing a key component of the regeneration plans for Weston. This episode will be useful for ...
Send us a textWelcome back to the first Visitor Elves episode of 2024. I hope you had a good Christmas season and your plans for 2024 are shaping up. In today's conversation, I'm going behind the scenes of Ashton Gate Stadium, home of Bristol City Football Club, Bristol Bears, and Bristol Flyers, with the wonderful, Dublin-born CEO Mark Kelly of Ashton Gate Sporting Quarter. We chat about:The exciting plans to develop a new Bristol Sporting Quarter with a 5,000-capacity conf...
Send us a textIn this festive episode just before Christmas, we have a returning guest, the lovely Kathryn Davis, Managing Director of VisitWest, shedding light on the key aspects of the recently launched Destination Management Plan (DMP). The VisitWest regional area, including Bristol, Bath, South Gloucestershire, and North Somerset, brings in a staggering £2 billion to the local economy each year from tourism. Proving once again the importance of our industry. In our conver...
Send us a textToday's podcast episode features the delightful George Combe, talking about the growth and popularity of the Mendip Activity Centre in North Somerset.Spread across 250 acres, Mendip Activity Centre is the largest independent activity centre in the West. With a dry ski slope, toboggan run, watersports on the river, rock climbing, and much more.During the pandemic, the team made the decision to open their campsite to the public, where previously it had only been accessible to scho...
Send us a textWith one in five households having someone with an impairment or disability, it is crucial for businesses in the visitor economy to prioritise accessibility. Your consideration and awareness of this market can make or break a visitor's decision to choose your business. Supporting people with access needs has always been essential, but in recent years, more information has become available, and businesses in the visitor economy are responding more proactively than ever befor...
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