Royal Bath Hotel to be given new life with £1m+ refurb

Bosses at the Royal Bath Hotel admitted the iconic hotel in Bath Road has had a tough time in recent years and change was needed. 

And that is now coming with a million-pound two-year plan to redecorate all 208 bedrooms and bathrooms within, fix various structural issues and spruce up the vast halls, dining rooms and bars. 

These include new carpets, curtains and furniture and extended bar space. Meanwhile the whole hotel has been replumbed, there’s a new conservatory and the pool has been retiled. 

Glinys Luff, general manager (left) with Tracey Wyke, sales manager (Image: Daily Echo)

Glinys Luff, general manager of the Royal Bath Hotel (part of the Elite Venue Selection), said the revamp will “bring the hotel back up to some sort of standard”. 

She said: “There’s a lot of infrastructure at the back of house which needed this refurb; the hotel itself is 200 years old and with that comes a lot of issues. 

“We’ve looked at the business and where we are going with it, and we want to generate more families coming into Bournemouth. 

“People's expectations these days are higher and they travel more and we need to make Bournemouth a bit more of a venue again.  

“We’ve got a fantastic beach here and a lot going for us. But we need to keep up with trends.” 

'Bournemouth is worth investment'

She added: “We feel as a company that Bournemouth is worth investing in. We're very lucky that we are quite an affluent company that don't just rely on one or two hotels, we’re privately owned. 

"We just thought we needed to sort of reinvent ourselves a little bit. We’re very diverse here. You can spend a night and pay very little or you can come here and spend a lot or whatever your budget is."

Glinys said the hotel will be keeping its tradition style and character known by nearly two centuries of visitors, but is keeping a firm eye on being user friendly. 

“We’ve got extra amenities coming such as coffee machines, fridges, upgrades on everything,” she said. 

“We’ve got another bar we’re reopening that hasn’t been open for a long time called 1838 (the year the hotel was built). That will be our more VIP upmarket bar with more premium drinks. 

“Obviously, we’ve got a beautiful 2.5-acre garden that's always been there our ‘secret’ wedding garden – we’ve got quite a lot of weddings this year. Tracey's worked really hard on that."

'Secret' garden wedding venue (Image: Daily Echo) 

The refurb will be complete in around two years' time with a final make-over of the iconic King’s Hall – a massive reception area. 

Glinys said the “iconic” hotel needs to be supported by residents as it’s a venue “nearly every family at some point has had a celebration at”, be it weddings, birthdays or events. 

Tracey Wyke, weddings and sales manager, said she hopes residents will “give us another chance” with the major £1m refurbishment. 

She added: “It’s a wonderful hotel with a lot of history to it. We would like to get the hotel back to its iconic status.”