How Has Bath Combined the Digital and the Traditional?

Bath is one of the oldest places in the UK. Since Romans used the Somerset settlement for their baths in the valley of the River Avon, the city has been steeped in history. But as important as its ancient past is, so is its digital future. As Bath represents one of the oldest places in the country, how can it continue to adapt and improve its digital output to be a place of history and modernity?

Source: Pixabay

Bath is one of the oldest places in the UK. Since Romans used the Somerset settlement for their baths in the valley of the River Avon, the city has been steeped in history. But as important as its ancient past is, so is its digital future. As Bath represents one of the oldest places in the country, how can it continue to adapt and improve its digital output to be a place of history and modernity?

The Bath Digital Festival ran in October 2020 and presented the best of the region’s latest forays into digital. The festival’s aim has been to integrate the historic aspects of Bath with its innovation in a digital capacity. From coding to AI, social media marketing and uses and deployments of digital tech, the festival helped show that Bath is committed to benefitting from the past and the future equally.

Many businesses in Bath have also embraced their digital side. For example, Deliveroo announced that Bath residents had overwhelmingly ordered a huge amount of chicken from Taka Taka on Broad Street. The food delivery company helps connect traditional restaurants and eateries with customers through digital intermediaries. Taka Taka isn’t the only Bath restaurant to join Deliveroo (and its rivals) since the company’s inception in 2013.

Moving traditional concepts online has been successful for other industries. The taxi industry, for instance, was completely changed when Uber launched their app which completely changed how we hailed a cab. Moreover, digital banks such as Monzo helped inspire other banks to boost their digital footprint and provide online services to not just make payments but to have an overview of our accounts.

Source: Pixabay

Furthermore, digital options allow customers to engage with industries they might not physically be able to. For instance, distance could render some traditional industries out of reach for some residents. In Bath, for example, after the closure of Gala Bingo, the nearest physical bingo location is now in Bristol, which is almost an hour's drive away. Technology allows fans to overcome this, and Bath's bingo fans can instead play online. As the list of best new bingo sites shows, players have a variety of options of different kinds of bingo games,

with a multitude of welcome offers, and even other options such as slots. So, while there might not be a traditional physical bingo experience close by, technology helps to open up previously closed pathways. The University of Bath announced in November 2020 that £3.5 million will be used to further research in the overlapping area of digital security and social science. The research aims to reduce the gulf between the digital security implementations of the future and the people who might have to implement them. The research represents how the traditional city and its people will fare with the digital advancements of the future.

Bath may be one of the oldest places in the UK, but that doesn’t mean it should be counted out as being unmodern. Instead, the city is showing that it has a huge commitment to showcasing innovation and modernity. Not only does Bath want to make a name for itself in digital spheres, but it is helping citizens and businesses in the region to do the same. As we have seen from success stories elsewhere, the traditional and the digital can coexist harmoniously.