14285 Midway Road, Suite 300
Dallas, Texas 75244
U.S.A.
Company Perspectives:
By concentrating clusters of hotels in geographic locations, the company has created significant efficiencies for marketing, supervising, and shipping operations. Office spaces configured without walls or doors emphasize the company's commitment to communication and teamwork. All employees, from the bellman to the CEO, are on a first name basis. The Bristol marketing approach, which relies heavily on aggressive local sales by on-site property sales teams, has consistently produced superior and stable occupancy rates. This successful direct marketing approach is complemented by a full-service, in-house advertising department. Food and beverage has historically been a highly profitable source of revenue for Bristol hotels, as management has concentrated on this area as a way to distinguish itself from other national chains. With a variety of innovative restaurant concepts and an aggressive approach to the catering business, margins run well over 30 percent.
History of Bristol Hotel Company
One of the largest owners and operators of full-service hotels in North America, Bristol Hotel Company operates in 19 of the top 25 lodging markets in the United States, with more than 120 hotels clustered in 25 states and in Canada. Bristol, the largest Holiday Inn franchisee in the world, recorded animated growth during the mid- and late 1990s, as it developed from primarily a southern U.S. chain into a national chain with extensive coverage in the mid-priced to upscale segments of the hotel industry. Through acquisition deals that brought more than 80 Holiday Inn hotels under its control during the late 1990s, Bristol ranked as one of the fastest growing operators in its industry as the 21st century neared.
Origins and 1980s Expansion
Founded in 1981, Bristol began business as Harvey Hotel Company, the owner and operator of The Harvey Hotel, located in Dallas, Texas. The Harvey Hotel was the first of many hotel properties the company would control during its first two decades of existence. During this first chapter in the company's history, Bristol grew from one hotel in Dallas to more than 120 hotels clustered in 25 states, achieving its growth through aggressive acquisitions completed in the 1980s and, at a more accelerated pace, in the 1990s. Although the ambitious acquisition campaign waged by Bristol engendered constant change at the company's headquarters in Dallas, there was one key element during Bristol's swift rise within the hotel industry that never changed: the senior management at Bristol remained the same. Two senior executives orchestrated Bristol's resolute growth; the first was the company's first employee, J. Peter Kline, who joined Bristol in January 1981.
Prior to joining Harvey Hotel Company (the company changed its name to Bristol Hotel Company in 1995), Kline worked for Laventhol & Horwath, a prestigious consulting firm. Like the growth of the company he would later lead, Kline's rise within Laventhol & Horwath was swift. He was named partner of the firm in record time, assuming control over Laventhol & Horwath's entire consulting practice in Texas and surrounding states. Between 1976 and 1980, Kline and his staff conducted market studies for virtually every hotel project proposed for development in Texas, experience that greatly assisted his development of Harvey Hotel Company in Texas, where the greatest concentration of the company's hotels would be located. A graduate of Cornell University, where he earned bachelor of science and master of science degrees, Kline was joined by another Cornell graduate, John A. Beckert, during Harvey Hotel Company's inaugural year. Prior to joining Harvey Hotel Company, Beckert operated his own restaurant and catering business in Dallas and spent three years working at the hotel and theme park divisions of Marriott Corporation. Together, these two Cornell alumni helped direct the growth of the one-hotel Harvey Hotel Company into the Bristol hotel chain.
With Kline in charge and Beckert serving as the general manager of The Harvey Hotel in Dallas, Bristol operated its lone hotel for two years before another property was added. In 1983, the company opened the first of five new hotels it developed during the 1980s, The Harvey Hotel in Plano, Texas. When the hotel in Plano opened, Beckert vacated his general manager post at the Dallas hotel, making room for his brother and future senior vice-president of administration for the company to take over as general manager of the Dallas hotel. Beckert then served as the general manager of the new Plano hotel for the property's first two years before being promoted to vice-president of operations. When Beckert moved into Harvey Hotel Company's executive offices in 1985, the company opened its third hotel, The Harvey Hotel in Addison, Texas, followed by the development of another Harvey Hotel in 1987 at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Subsequent hotel developments during the remainder of the 1980s were opened under two new proprietary brands, Bristol Suites and Harvey Suites. The first was a Bristol Suites in Dallas that opened in 1988, followed by a Harvey Suites at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, which opened in 1989. Late in 1989, the company acquired The Sheraton Hotel in Houston and renovated it, converting it to Harvey Suites.
By the end of the 1980s, steady expansion had created an eight-unit chain operating under three proprietary brands. Although the pace of expansion during the decade represented the rise of a growing contender in the Texas hotel market, the methodical physical growth of the company was not enough to turn heads, at least in comparison to the aggressive expansion of the company during the 1990s, as it spread its presence throughout the southern half of the United States, up the Atlantic Coast to Boston, and into the Canadian province of Ontario. At its briskest, expansion during the 1980s occurred at yearly intervals. Expansion during the 1990s, however, was a monthly event, occurring at a dizzying pace that greatly increased the physical and geographic scope of the company.
Behind the frenzied acquisitive activity at the company's corporate offices in Dallas there was a carefully thought-out strategy. Kline and Beckert were not simply trying to make their company the largest hotel operator in the industry, they were clustering their new hotels in concentrated groups, thereby realizing significant efficiencies for the marketing, management, and logistical coordination of their burgeoning enterprise. Further, they were shaping Harvey Hotel Company to compete in a specific market category, tailoring their hotels through renovations to compete in upper mid-priced and upscale segments of the hotel industry. As the number of hotels operating under Harvey Hotel Company's corporate umbrella increased, general characteristics of the chain emerged. All the hotels were primarily larger, full-service facilities offering state-of-the-art banquet and meeting facilities, with a variety of dining options. Sales were promoted locally, by on-site marketing teams that addressed the specific needs and desires of the area.
Mid-1990s Acquisitions
Although the company's physical growth during the 1990s would dwarf the accomplishments of the 1980s, expansion did not get underway until mid-way through the decade. In August 1994, the company made its first move since the establishment of the Harvey Suites at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in 1989, acquiring a Holiday Inn in Houston and converting it into a Harvey Suites. Next, the company made its boldest move to date when it acquired 26 hotels owned by Memphis-based United Inns, Inc. Overnight, the deal lifted Harvey Hotel Company's hotel count to 36 and extended the company's geographic presence into seven states. The purchase of the United Inns hotels also ushered in an exhaustive, $130-million renovation program aimed at redeveloping the hotels, most of which were in disrepair, to bring them up to Harvey Hotel Company standards, which represented part of the company's general strategy to purchase distressed hotels and transform them into vibrant money-earners once again. Phase one of the United Inns redevelopment program began in March 1995, when renovations on seven of the properties started. As this program was underway, the company picked up another Sheraton Hotel, located at the Atlanta Airport, in June and converted it to a Harvey Hotel. In September, the company changed its name to Bristol Hotel Company.
Phase one of the United Inns renovation program was completed in October 1995. Phase two began the following month, when work started on renovating five more of the former United Inns properties. The company also purchased another hotel in the Dallas area in November 1995, acquiring the downtown Dallas Holiday Inn/Howard Johnson, to which Bristol added its restorative touch and converted it to a Hampton Inn. In December, after a year of frenetic activity that increased the company's hotel count from ten to 38 and included extensive renovation work, Bristol converted to public ownership. In the company's December initial public offering, 4.89 million shares were sold to investors at $20.50 per share, and Bristol made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange.
Phase two of Bristol's redevelopment program, which began in November 1995, was finished in June 1996, but before the second phase ended phase three began. In March 1996, the last of the $130 million earmarked for the renovation of United Inns was invested in the redevelopment of eight more United Inns properties. This final stage of the redevelopment project lasted a year, during which time the company continued to acquire hotels, selecting mismanaged or deteriorating properties near a cluster of Bristol-operated hotels. In May 1996, the company acquired a Holiday Inn in Plano, Texas, and in January 1997 the company purchased the historic Allerton Hotel in Chicago. Located on Chicago's North Michigan Avenue, where the most heavily concentrated area of upscale retail stores in the country flanked a famous section of the city known as the "Magnificent Mile," the Allerton Hotel stood as a landmark, comprising 383 rooms divided among 25 floors. Bristol paid $35 million for the hotel, but intended to spend more on the property to finance its conversion to a more than 400-unit Crowne Plaza hotel.
1997: A National Contender Emerges
Although Bristol's pace of acquisitions slowed significantly from the ambitious rate of expansion in 1995, the company's accomplishments in 1997 more than made up for the temporary lull. Phase three of the redevelopment program concluded in April 1997, the same month Bristol completed a mammoth deal that more than doubled its size and made it the largest franchisee of Holiday Inn properties in the world. At a price of $665 million, the company acquired 60 full-service Holiday Inn hotels located in the United States and Canada from U.K.-based Bass Plc, a deal that raised Bristol's number of hotels to 98. As it had throughout its history, Bristol intended to renovate the acquired properties and set aside $200 million to fund capital improvements on the 60 hotels. When Kline announced the completion of the deal, his words underscored the significance of the acquisition to Bristol's stature within the U.S. hotel industry. "This transaction," he told reporters, "marks a new era for Bristol, taking our regional presence to a national level. The deal," he added, "also signals a new strategic alliance between Bristol and Holiday Inn Worldwide, and firmly establishes Holiday Inn as a leader in the competitive corporate business category."
After a decade and a half of converting money-losing hotels in disrepair into well-appointed, profitable properties, Bristol had proven its capabilities as one of the most successful hotel owners and operators in the country. The April 1997 deal with Bass Plc was testament to this esteemed record of accomplishment, and its successful completion promised further acquisitions of Holiday Inn hotels. Bristol, having completed the evolutionary step from regional hotel operator to national hotel operator, had no intention of slowing its acquisitive pace.
Three more Holiday Inns were acquired in separate transactions before the end of 1997, a 318-room hotel in St. Louis in October, a 364-room hotel in Philadelphia in December, and a 305-room hotel in San Jose, California, also in December. In February 1998, the company increased the number of hotel rooms under its control 14 percent in a $100 million transaction that included 20 midwestern Holiday Inns.
As Bristol prepared for the future, with co-founder Kline at the helm, the company was one of the fastest-growing hotel companies in North America. Its remarkable physical expansion during the late 1990s had pushed its financial total upward, making Bristol a company to watch as the 21st century approached. From $70 million in revenues generated in 1994, the company's sales volume swelled to more than $500 million three years later, while the company's earnings rose strongly, jumping 163 percent in Bristol's fourth quarter in 1997 alone. Additional acquisitions in the years ahead appeared assured, as the company narrowed its sights on the $15 to $20 billion of acquisition targets it had identified by the end of 1997. With this vast selection of hotels that met the company's buying criteria, Bristol's expansion throughout North America was highly likely, provided its enviable record of profitability and astute management continued into the future.
Principal Subsidiaries: Airport Utilities, Inc.; Austin Innkeepers, Inc.; Bristol Dallas Downtown, Inc.; Bristol-Harvey Partners, Ltd.; Bristol HHCL Company; Bristol Hotel Asset Company; Bristol Hotel Beverage Company; Bristol Hotel Management Corporation; Bristol HTS Company; Bristol IP Company; Bristol Plano Company; Endlease, Inc.; Glenjon, Inc.; Harvey BHP, Inc.; Harvey Hotel Company, Ltd.; Harvey Hotel Corporation; Harvey Hotel DFW, Inc.; Harvey Hotel Management Corporation; Harvey Hotel Purchasing Company; Harvey Hotels Financing I, Inc.; Harvey Hotels Financing II, Inc.; Harvey Hotels Gen Par, Inc.; Harvey Hotels Investments I, Ltd.; Harvey Hotels Investments II, Ltd.; Harvey Hotels Limpar, Ltd.; HHH Hotel Corporation; HHHC GenPar, L. P.; Houston Inns Service Company; Lammons Hotel Courts, Inc.; Limited Service Inns, Inc. of Mississippi; Mid-Atlanta Investment Company; Penrod Club; Rier Properties, Inc.; Rodgers Hotel Courts, Inc.; United Inns, Inc. of Tennessee; Wichita Harvey Partners, Ltd.
Related information about Bristol
51°27N 2°5W,pop (2001e) 380 600. Unitary authority in
SW England; former (to 1996) administrative centre of Avon county;
county status 1373; major port in 17th–18th-c, much involved in the
slave trade; 187 km/116 mi W of London; an important
shipping centre, ports at Avonmouth, Royal Portbury, Portishead; 2
airports; railway; university (1909); University of the West of
England (1992, formerly Bristol Polytechnic); shipbuilding,
aircraft construction, engineering, tobacco processing; trade in
food, petroleum products, metals; 12th-c cathedral, Roman Catholic
cathedral (1973), 14th-c St Mary Redcliffe, Theatre Royal (1766),
Clifton suspension bridge (1864); Brunel's SS Great Britain
rests restored where she was launched in 1843; football league
teams, Bristol City (Robins), Bristol Rovers (Pirates).
font-weight: bolder;">Geography
Status
|
Ceremonial county,
City and Unitary district
|
Region
|
South
West England
|
Area
- Total
- District
|
Ranked 47th
110 km²
Ranked 237th
|
Admin HQ
|
Bristol
|
ISO
3166-2
|
GB-BST
|
ONS
code
|
00HB
|
Traditional county
|
County
corporate
(Gloucestershire
and Somerset)
|
OS grid reference
|
ST5946972550}}
|
Coordinates
|
51°27'N 2°35'W
|
NUTS 3
|
UKK11
|
Demographics
|
Population
- Total (EnglishStatisticsYear)
- Density
- District
|
Ranked / km²
Ranked
|
Ethnicity
|
91.8% White
2.9% S. font-weight: bolder;">Politics
|
Bristol City Council
www.bristol-city.gov.uk/
|
Control
|
No overall control
Lib Dem Minority
|
Leadership
|
Leader & Cabinet
|
Executive
|
Liberal Democrats
|
Members of Parliament
|
- Roger
Berry
- Kerry
McCarthy
- Doug
Naysmith
- Dawn
Primarolo
- Stephen Williams
|
Bristol is a city,
unitary
authority and ceremonial county in South West England, 115 miles (185 km) west of London and located at
With a population of 400,000, and metropolitan area of
550,000, it is England's sixth, and the United Kingdom's ninth,
most populous city, and one of England's core cities.
For half a millennium it was the second or third largest English
city, until the rapid rise of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham in the Industrial
Revolution of the 1780s. It borders on the unitary districts of
Bath
and North East Somerset, North Somerset and South
Gloucestershire, and has a short coastline on the Bristol
Channel.
Bristol is one of the main centres of culture, employment and
education in the region. From its earliest days, its prosperity has
been linked to that of the Port of Bristol, the commercial port, which was in the city centre but has now
moved to the Bristol Channel coast at Avonmouth and Portbury. The city is famous for its unique music and
film industries, and was a finalist for the 2008 European Capital
of Culture.
History
There is evidence of settlement in the Bristol area from the
palaeolithic era,
with 60,000-year-old archaeological finds at Shirehampton and St Annes.Bristol
City Council, The Palaeolithic in
Bristol There are iron
age hill forts
near the city, at Leigh
Woods and Clifton
Down on the side of the Avon Gorge, and on Kingsweston Hill, near Henbury.Bristol City Council, Bristol in the Iron
Age. During the Roman era there was a settlement, Abona, at what
is now Sea
Mills, connected to Bath by Roman
road, and another settlement at what is now Inns Court. There were also
isolated villas and small settlements throughout the area.Bristol
City Council, Bristol in the Roman
Period.
The town of Brycgstow (Old English, "the
place at the bridge") was in existence by the beginning of the 11th
century, and under Norman rule acquired one of the strongest
castles in
southern England.See Bristol Castle for list of references. The River Avon in
the city centre has slowly evolved into Bristol Harbour, and
since the 12th century the harbour has been an important port,
handling much of England's trade with Ireland. Bristol was the starting point for many
important voyages, notably John Cabot's 1497 voyage of exploration to North
America.
By the 14th century Bristol was England's third-largest town (after
London and York), with
perhaps 15-20,000 inhabitants on the eve of the Black Death of 1348-49.Love
my town, Largest towns in
England in 1334 The plague inflicted a prolonged pause in the
growth of Bristol's population, with numbers remaining at 10-12,000
through most of the 15th and 16th centuries. The Diocese of Bristol
was founded in 1542 "Pictorial Record of Bristol's
History", with the former Abbey of St Augustine becoming Bristol Cathedral.
During the height of the slave trade, from 1700 to 1807, more than
2000 slaving ships were fitted out at Bristol, carrying a
(conservatively) estimated half a million people from Africa to the Americas and slavery.British Empire &
Commonwealth Museum, n.d. Nevertheless, Bristol's population
(66,000 in 1801) quintupled during the 19th century, supported by
new industries and growing commerce.fact It was particularly associated with the Victorian
engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who designed the Great Western
Railway between Bristol and London, two pioneering
Bristol-built steamships, and the Clifton Suspension
Bridge. John
Wesley founded the very first Methodist Chapel, in Bristol in 1739.
Bristol's city centre suffered severe damage from bombing during
World War II. A
third bombed church nearby, St Nicholas, has been restored and
currently houses private city council offices despite containing a
triptych by William Hogarth, painted
for the high altar of St Mary Redcliffe in 1756.
Like much British post-war planning, the rebuilding of Bristol city centre
was characterised by large, cheap tower blocks, brutalist
architecture and expansion of roads. 13 January 2006. The
removal of the docks to Avonmouth, seven miles (11 km) downstream from the city
centre has also allowed substantial corporate redevelopment of the
old central dock area (the "Floating Harbour") in recent decades, although at
one time the continued existence of the docks was in jeopardy as it
was viewed as a derelict industrial site rather than a potential
asset.fact
Economy and industry
As well as Bristol's nautical connections, the city's economy is
reliant on the aerospace industry, the media, information technology
and financial services sectors and tourism.Bristol City Council,
"Bristol Economy Key
Sectors." In 1998 Bristol's GDP was £6.224 billion GBP, and the combined GDP of South
Gloucestershire, North Somerset and B&NES was £6.98 billion.
(PDF) This makes it the
second-highest per-capita GDP of an English city, after London, and
34th in the European
Union, as well as the only English core city with a GDP above
the national average.Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 2004.
Bristol is the UK's seventh most popular destination for foreign
tourists, and the city receives nine million visitors each
year.Bristol City Council, Bristol Today - an
overview of the city
In the 20th century, Bristol's manufacturing activities expanded to
include aircraft production at Filton, by the Bristol Aeroplane
Company, and aero-engine manufacture by Bristol Aero
Engines (later Rolls-Royce) at Patchway. The aeroplane company became famous for the
WWI Bristol Fighter, and
Second World War
Blenheim and Beaufighter aircraft. In the
1950s it became one of the country's major manufacturers of civil
aircraft, with the Bristol Freighter and Britannia and the huge
Brabazon
airliner. The Bristol Aeroplane Company diversified into car
manufacturing in the 1940s, building luxury hand-built cars at
their factory in Filton,
under the name Bristol
Cars, which became independent from the Bristol Aeroplane
Company in 1960. The French manufactured the centre fuselage and
centre wing and the British the nose, rear fuselage, fin and
wingtips, while the Rolls-Royce/Snecma 593 engine's manufacture was
split between Rolls-Royce (Filton) and SNECMA (Paris).
The British Concorde prototype made its maiden flight from Filton
to RAF Fairford on
9 April 1969, five weeks after the French
test flight. This museum will include the existing Bristol Aero
Collection, which includes a Bristol Britannia aircraft.
The major aerospace
companies in Bristol now are BAE Systems, Airbus and Rolls-Royce, all based at Filton. Another important
aviation company in the
city is Cameron
Balloons, the world's largest manufacturer of hot air balloons.
Annually, in August, the city is host to the Bristol
International Balloon Fiesta, one of Europe's largest hot air
balloon events.
Culture
The city has two League football clubs: Bristol Rugby rugby union club, which has
won promotion to the Guinness Premiership, a first-class cricket side, half marathon, and in 2001 played host to the World Half Marathon Championships.
In summer the grounds of Ashton Court to the west of the city play host to the
Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, a major event for
hot-air
ballooning in the UK. Ashton Court also plays host to the
Ashton Court
festival each summer, an outdoors music festival which used to
be known as the Bristol Community Festival.
The city's principal theatre company, the Bristol Old Vic, was
founded in 1946 as an offshoot of the Old Vic company in London. The Bristol Hippodrome is
a larger theatre (1981 seats) which hosts national touring
productions, while the 2000-seat Colston Hall, named after Edward Colston, is the
city's main concert venue. Ten years later, Bristol was the
birthplace of a type of English hip-hop music called trip hop or the "Bristol Sound", epitomised in the
work of artists such as Tricky, Portishead, Smith & Mighty and Massive Attack. It is also a stronghold of
drum n bass with
notable artists such as the Mercury Prize winning Roni Size/Reprazent and Kosheen as well as the
pioneering DJ Krust and
More Rockers. This
music is part of the wider Bristol urban culture scene which
received international media attention in the 1990s fact and still thrives today.
The Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery houses a collection
of natural history, archaeology, local glassware, Chinese ceramics
and art. The Watershed Media Centre and Arnolfini gallery,
both in disused dockside warehouses, exhibit contemporary art,
photography and cinema.
Stop frame animation films and commercials painstakingly produced
by Aardman
Animations and high quality television series focusing on the
natural world have also brought fame and artistic credit to the
city. The city is home to the BBC's regional headquarters, and the BBC Natural History
Unit. Robert
Southey was born in Wine Street, Bristol in 1774, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and Southey married the Bristol Fricker sisters; and
William
Wordsworth spent time in the city where Joseph Cottle first
published Lyrical
Ballads in 1798.
The 18th and 19th century portrait painter Sir Thomas Lawrence and 19th
century architect Francis Greenway, designer of many of Sydney's first buildings, came
from the city, and more recently the infamous graffiti artist Banksy. Bristol University has
given us the satirist Chris Morris, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead and Matt Lucas and David Walliams of
Little
Britain fame. Hollywood actor Cary Grant was born in the city, Patrick Stewart,
Jane Lapotaire,
Pete
Postlethwaite, Jeremy Irons, Greta Scacchi, Miranda Richardson, Helen Baxendale,
Daniel
Day-Lewis, Gene
Wilder and Tony
Robinson (Blackadder) are amongst the many actors who learnt
their craft at the world famous Bristol Old
Vic Theatre School, opened by Sir Lawrence
Olivier in 1946 and Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith, The Matrix) studied at Queen
Elizabeth's Hospital School.
Bristol has a daily morning newspaper, the Western Daily Press; "Northcliffe Newspapers
Group Structure." The city has several local radio stations,
including BBC
Radio Bristol, GWR
FM, Classic
Gold 1260 and a university station, The
Hub.
A distinctive dialect of English is spoken in Bristol (known colloquially as
Brizzle or Bristle). Accessed 10 April 2006. The Council has long been dominated by the
Labour
Party, but recently the Liberal Democratic Party has grown strong in the
city and took minority control of the Council in 2005. The Council
Leader is Liberal Democrat Councillor Barbara Janke and the Lord
Mayor is Conservative Councillor Peter Abraham.Bristol City Council, "List of
councillors." Accessed 10 April 2006.
Bristol's constituencies in the House of
Commons cross the borders with neighbouring authorities, and
the city is divided into Bristol West, East, South and North-west and Kingswood. There are currently four Labour and one
Liberal
Democrat Members of Parliaments.Bristol City Council, 2005.
Accessed 10 April
2006.
Bristol has a tradition of local political activism, and has been
home to many important political figures. Local support of fair trade issues was
recognised in 2005 when Bristol was granted Fairtrade City
status.Bristol City Council, 2005. The county was expanded to
include suburbs such as Clifton in 1835, and it was named a county borough in 1889,
when the term was first introduced. However, on 1 April 1974, it became a local
government district of the short-lived county of Avon. On 1 April 1996, it once again
regained its independence and county status, when the county of
Avon was abolished and Bristol became a Unitary Authority.
Demographics
In 2004 the Office for National Statistics estimated the
county's population at 393,900, making it the 47th-largest
ceremonial county in England.See List of ceremonial counties of England by
population Using Census 2001 data the ONS estimated the contiguous
built-up area to be 420,556,Office for National Statistics, Census
2001. "Usual resident
population." and metropolitan area to be 550,000.Office for national
Statistics, 2001. (PDF) This makes the city England's sixth most
populous city, and seventh most populous metropolitan area.See
List of English cities by population. At 3,599 people
per square
kilometre it has the seventh-highest population density of any
English district.See List
of English districts by population.
In the 2001 census 91.83% of the population described themselves as
white, 2.85% as South Asian, 2.32% as black, 2.08% as mixed race,
0.56% as Chinese and 0.34% other. "Key Statistics 06:
Ethnic group." Sixty percent of Bristol's population registered
their religion as Christianity, and 25% as not religious in the 2001
census, compared to 72% and 15% nationally. Ethnicity and Religion:
'Jedi'
Physical geography
Bristol is in a limestone area, which forms to the Mendip Hills to the south
and the Cotswolds to
the north east.See Geology of the United Kingdom. The rivers Avon and Frome cut through
this limestone to the underlying clays, creating Bristol's
characteristic hilly lansdscape. The gorge and estuary of the Avon form the
county's boundary with North Somerset, and the river flows into the
Bristol Channel
at Avonmouth.
"Average annual
sunshine." The city is partially sheltered by Exmoor and the Mendip Hills, but exposed
from the Bristol
Channel, and annual rainfall is similar to the national
average, at 741-1060 mm.Met
Office, 2000. "Average annual
rainfall."
Education
Bristol is home to two major institutions of higher education:
the University
of Bristol, a "redbrick" chartered in 1909, and the University
of the West of England, formerly Bristol Polytechnic, which
gained university status in 1992. The city also has two dedicated
further
education institutions, City of Bristol
College and Filton College, and two theological colleges, Trinity College,
Bristol & Wesley College, Bristol. There are also many
independent schools of a high quality in the city, including
Colston's Collegiate School, Clifton College,
Badminton
School, Bristol Cathedral School, Bristol Grammar
School, Queen Elizabeth's Hospital - an all-boys school, the
only one of its kind in the area and Red Maids' School,
the oldest girls' school in England, founded in 1634 by John
Whitson.
In 2005 the Chancellor of the Exchequer recognised Bristol's strong
ties to science and technology by naming it one of three "science
cities", and promising funding for further development of science
in the city,Eric Thomas, 2005. "City science park partner
named." As well as research at the two universities and
Southmead
Hospital, science education is important in the city, with
.
Transport
There are two principal railway stations in Bristol, Bristol
Parkway and Bristol
Temple Meads, and there are scheduled coach links to most major
UK cities. The city is connected by road on an east-west axis from
London to Wales by the M4 motorway, and on a
north-southwest axis from Birmingham to Exeter by the M5 motorway. The city is also served by its own airport,
Bristol International (BRS), at Lulsgate, which has
recently seen substantial investments in its runway, terminal and
other facilities.
Public transport in the city consists largely of its bus network,
provided by First
Group. (PDF) Since 2000 the city council has included a
light rail system in
its Local
Transport Plan, but has so far been unable to fund the project.
The city was offered European Union funding for the system, but the Department for
Transport did not provide the required additional funding.James
Skinner, 2006. Chapter 6. The central part of the city has
water-based transport, operated as the Bristol Ferry Boat,
which provide both leisure and commuter services on the
harbour.
Bristol was never well served by suburban railways, though the
Severn Beach
Line to Avonmouth and Severn Beach survived the Beeching Axe and is still in operation. The
Portishead
Railway was closed to passengers under the Beeching Axe, but
was relaid in 2000-2002 as far as the Royal Portbury Dock
with a Strategic Rail Authority rail-freight grant. Accessed
2006-04-12.
Twin cities
Bristol was amongst the first cities to adopt the idea of
town twinning. In
1947 it was twinned with Bordeaux and Hanover, the first post-war twinning of British and
German cities. Accessed 2006-04-10.
- Bordeaux,
France, since
1947
- Beira,
Mozambique, since
1990
- Guangzhou,
China, since
2001
- Hanover, Germany, since 1947
- Puerto
Morazan, Nicaragua, since 1989
- Porto, Portugal, since
1984
- Tbilisi, Georgia, since
1988
See also
- List
of places in Bristol
- List of
people from Bristol
- W.D.
Wills
- The
Bristol Reservoirs
- Bristol's
parks
- Maltese cross (unofficial county
flower)
- List of photographs of Bristol
References
This web site and associated pages are not associated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Bristol Hotel Company and has no official or unofficial affiliation with Bristol Hotel Company.