Britain’s Ocean City | Mayflower 400
Here at Strathmore House Apartments we pride ourselves on offering a quality experience for both our leisure and business travellers, in a city we love to call home.
As the end of the first month of 2019 draws to an end and we step closer to 2020, we are having more and more conversations with our guests about the Mayflower 400 celebrations, and what it’s all about!
Strathmore House Apartments offers a great home away from home for guests visiting Britain’s Ocean City. We welcome thousands of guests and enjoy helping them explore our city and our rich history.
We ask Elinor Eaton, our Development Manager, to give us her take on both the planned Mayflower 400 celebrations. To see what she thinks the future holds for Plymouth looking through the lens of ‘Mayflower400’.
She says:
“I think firstly we must acknowledge Plymouth as a city. We saw a tremendous influx of repeat leisure and business travellers in 2018. And we continue to see that in our bookings this year and next. We can’t put this purely on them finding our accommodation – as wonderful as it is – it’s as much to do with Plymouth really shining at the moment.
The work that brilliant organisations such as Visit Plymouth, University of Plymouth, Theatre Royal Plymouth and the Real Ideas Organisation do (to name just a few of course!) is truly remarkable. It’s a privilege to have worked in a city, across all sectors, for the last 20 years and to have experienced first-hand the united sense of pride and passion; as well as the courage and confidence to continually make positive change happen for our city.
By working together as a city, across all sectors, collaborating in the truest of senses, we have passionately and skilfully placed Plymouth on the national and international map for all to see and enjoy. What we are being told by our guests more and more is that Plymouth is a ‘vibrant, inspiring and beautiful destination’.
Strathmore House Apartments offers the space, comfort and overall brilliant experience for our guests, but we are extremely grateful for the dedication of organisations that share our pride for Plymouth. Those who all work so hard to make it shine.
That is ultimately why people want to come to Plymouth to work and play in the first place.”
Here at Strathmore House we are asked on a weekly basis by guests:
‘What is Mayflower 400?’
We are also asked if it’s something they should come back for and if so ‘when’ should they plan to be in Plymouth during 2020.
Elinor explains:
“Sometimes it’s too easy to forget that people don’t all know about Mayflower 400.
It’s so close to our hearts here in Plymouth. Many of us are living in and around it daily. Sometimes we forget to stop, share our successes and celebrate with those outside of our everyday circles.
2020 marks the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower from Plymouth UK to Plymouth Massachusetts. It set sail just moments away from Strathmore House Apartments!
We have written a dedicated blog to help guests who are planning on joining us, to plan their diaries. But in brief, 2020 will be a year of amazing events and a programme that will share the values of migration, tolerance, freedom and democracy and tell the story of a ship and its passengers.
These were an incredibly brave group of people that now have more than 30 million US citizens who are their descendants!
There are still dates and events that are being planned that we don’t know about; but what we do know is it will be a spectacular year of celebration.”
A city blessed with hidden gems and wonderfully rich history, it’s easy to see why people want to explore Plymouth, but we ask Elinor:
“What impact do you think the last 400 years will have on the next?”
“Success breeds success. The harder we all work to make tomorrow better than today, the greater the springboard that will connect us to an even stronger social and economic climate.
I think that more and more people are seeing the city transform; both tangibly (with the landscape changing and developing) but also with how we as ‘locals’ see our city.
2020 has given us a moment in time in which as businesses, organisations, individuals and communities we have the ability to unite and make positive change happen.
Change is sometimes a blessing, but it’s often a conquest. 2020 is our magic moment as a city; a moment that will offer visitors an amazing lens to see Plymouth through, and create real advocates for the future. But it’s also a moment that encourages us all to realise our dreams for the future of Plymouth. What will the next 400 years look like and will we be looked back on as the Pilgrims of our time? I hope so.
All we can be certain of is that like Plymouth in the past; Plymouth in the future will be proud to welcome new friends to our city. And when we watch them leave see them carrying with them fabulous memories of Britain’s Ocean City.”
