Falmouth BID Updates

Christmas Lights Switch on and Parade
Don’t forget, wrap up warm (shouldn’t need your snorkel!) and show your support for the Christmas lights switch on this Thursday 29^th Nov. Parade leaves Events Square around 5.45pm, arriving at the Moor for the schoolchildren to then sing carols before the 7pm switch on.

Late Night Shopping

I have now made live the Late Night Shopping Page as part of the Falmouth Christmas section on the Falmouth.co.uk website. Accessed via the homepage so very good profile. There are a number of businesses who have responded to requests from Richard gates and myself for late opening details, but if you are open late then please get in touch so that we can help promote the fact! We have no information from businesses around the Moor/Kimberley Park Rd/Berkeley Vale area for example, so please get in touch so that we can help promote anything you may be doing around Christmas!

Special Offers Page
Another reminder that I have set up a Special Offers Page accessed via a dedicated button on the homepage of Falmouth.co.uk, so great profile. Please do get in touch with Nicola Kneebone at the Visitor Information Centre who is co-ordinating offers on my behalf if this page could help your business in  any way - nicola@falriver.co.uk.

Shop Local, Think Falmouth

By way of an update, BID will be pushing forward with this key message and campaign and will launch next week. Some good ideas from traders, in particular Nick from Wavelength One has seen this come to fruition with BID  funding promotional material to distribute to all businesses in the town plus via bus shelter sites. I will be arranging a photocall (likely to be on The Moor) for as many businesses to attend as possible, details to follow in next week’s update but please do spare 5 mins to attend that. I want a big crowd to come along to shout about the Shop Local, Think Falmouth message so that the campaign has greater emphasis, leading to greater media coverage and subsequent benefit to you.

SPLASH BIG ART Banner
Due to the extreme weather I have arranged takedown of the vibrant 100ft long art banner along Grove Place, that was installed for the BID funded SPLASH Festival week in September and helped improve that area of fencing. The intention will be to install again in Spring 2013.

BID Updates

Richard Wilcox, Falmouth BID Manager

BID AGM & Presentations
Many thanks to those businesses in the town who made the time and effort to attend the BID AGM and presentations. Some excellent feedback regards the ranges of projects delivered in 2012 and exciting plans for 2013. Thanks also to Camborne BID who made the time and travelled up to hear the exciting work being undertaken here in Falmouth. BIDs can only be effective in the towns/cities they operate in (145 currently operating and growing) when businesses engage and support the efforts to improve their town. Browse the substantive BID presentations given by Richard Wilcox and Directors Jilly Easterby, Richard Thomas and Chairman Nigel Carpenter

Love Falmouth, Shop Local

The BID will be instigating a ‘Love Falmouth, Shop Local’ initiative in Dec as another further support for local businesses and will be looking for widespread support from businesses to spread that message. Thanks to one or two businesses including Wavelength One for their proactive ideas here. More details will follow in the local media but this involve window posters, off and online promotion in an effort to further highlight Falmouth’s vibrant main shopping areas. Furthermore, we will have the Shop Local, Falmouth for Business image exhibition in The Poly 21 Jan-4 Feb as another creative way of celebrating local business. All this will be put onto Falmouth.co.uk, supported by our PR efforts and backed up further with more exciting ideas in 2013.

Falmouth Food & Drink Week

More info to follow of course but I will look to run the second Falmouth Food & Drink Week 9-17 Feb 2013. The campaign has a simple but effective message – cafes, bars, pubs, restaurants, delis can be creative as they wish with their offering under the banner £10 or under. There’s no cost attached for businesses of course, BID will further support with promotional material, off and online promotion but please as per last year get in touch with me if you are interested in getting involved. The more we have, the more effective the campaign which in turn means greater impact, footfall and so on.

Falmouth.co.uk website further stats

Just following on from the 750,000^th unique visitor milestone for the Falmouth.co.uk website which you would have read about,  some other useful stats on how it has helped support businesses (this is in the presentation above)in 2012-

·         Over 165,000 page views for the accommodation section in 2012

·         Equates to around 2,000 per establishment

·         The website, BID working with the Visitor Information Centre, plus their excellent work has subsequently led to 150 accommodation bookings that has been worth £20,000 to the local economy in 2012

Falmouth Top Town Interview
Interview on Source FM - click on link given, interview with BID and Richard Gates regards Falmouth Top Town Shortlisting, BID’s business support and promoting Falmouth efforts

Falmouth Safe
You may have read in the local media last week about this very good new scheme which Falmouth BID is helping to support and will be involved in. Read more here - SAFE PLACES.

UK & Ireland Great Town Shortlisting for Falmouth

Centre three - Richard Wilcox Falmouth BID Manager, Geoffrey
Evans Mayor of Falmouth, Richard Gates Town Manager

Falmouth: ‘Punching well above its weight’ at International Urbanism Awards

Entrepreneurialism and an innovative approach to Town Management put Falmouth in the spotlight at the prestigious 2013 Urbanism Awards in London on Friday 9th November. Shortlisted for The Great Town award for the very first time, Falmouth was singled-out for its highly effective Town Team (the Falmouth BID and Falmouth Town Council) who work alongside many town partners, whose drive and professionalism was credited as an excellent example of good urban practice.

Held annually, the Academy’s Urbanism Awards recognise the best, most improved or most enduring urban environments. In May 2012, The Academy of Urbanism shortlisted twelve UK and Irish and three continental European finalists for its Urbanism Awards, held at The Grand Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden, London. The finalists were selected on - Effective/Innovative Town Management, Evidence of Effective Partnerships and Evidence of Innovative Marketing and Approach to Town Centre Challenges.

Judges were particularly impressed with Falmouth’s ability to foster entrepreneurial partnerships to deliver projects, and the success of its year-round events programme, which has become one of the strongest in the South West, providing a significant impact on the town’s economy. Acknowledged for ‘punching well above its weight’, Falmouth was up against strong competition from Shrewsbury and the eventual winner, Galway.

Kevin Murray, Chairman of The Academy of Urbanism, said:

“Falmouth presented a difficult challenge for Academicians when voting and narrowly missed out on the main prize. The Academy was particularly impressed with the way in which partnerships have formed within Falmouth to deliver results, and of the value that has been placed on investing in higher education.”

The Falmouth Town Team (private/public partnership between Falmouth BID and the Falmouth Town Council funded Falmouth Town Management) commented:

“We’re delighted that the superb year-round events programme, proactive partnerships and the Falmouth Town Team approach have been commended at a national level. Over 50 towns across the UK and Ireland were long-listed, with Falmouth making it into the final three for the first time ever. We know it’s an incredibly challenging trading environment but this is further strong evidence that towns that invest in town teams provide a great visitor experience, while working together, can provide innovative solutions to current issues, and are the ones that buck trends. This is evident in Falmouth where we work hard to ensure we have one of the lowest vacant unit rates in England at 5.8% (national average is 14% +), the most comprehensive Festival programme in the county and a very active destination marketing campaign, to continually support our businesses and community.”

About the selection process: 

- Towns are nominated by individuals, companies or organisations
- Over 50 towns made the long list Any town with a population between 20-150,000 population are eligible from across the UK & Ireland 
- Academy of Urbanism – comprising 500 academics who are leading lights in urban design, thinking, planning and architecture from private and public sectors. They all are part of the decision making process. - - Thorough decision making process whittled each category down to 20 and then a final 3 
- Judges visited Falmouth in the summer, a day co-ordinated by Richard Wilcox, Falmouth BID Manager and were hosted by the Richard Gates, Town Manager and Ruth Thomas Falmouth Town Council. 
- A thorough report was written and circulated to all Academy Of Urbanism members for voting.

The winners in full were: The European City of the Year – Antwerp; The Great Town Award – Galway, Ireland; The Great Neighbourhood Award – Brixton, London; The Great Street Award – Hope Street, Liverpool; The Great Place Award – City Park, Bradford. For more information about The Academy of Urbanism, visit: www.academyofurbanism.org.uk

Falmouth BID Updates

Richard Wilcox, Falmouth BID Manager

Website visitor milestone
You may read in the local media this week or have read already online that the Falmouth.co.uk website has just passed the 750,000 unique visitor mark since we launched it 2 years ago. It is the official destination site for the town and we have recently been working with the Visitor Information Centre to help promote it for the benefit of businesses in the town. All BID businesses as I’ve highlighted a number of times, can have a free page to help promote themselves and with a monthly unique average of 30,000 hits it is well worth doing! The press release is attached or you can read it here – WEBSITE MILESTONE...

British Tourism Awards
Congratulations to Tim Light and his team at Fal River Links for winning UK Boating Operator Silver award in the recent British Tourism Awards, the most important awards in the UK for the tourism industry. Fal River also scooped best Coastal Town/Area bronze award.  Cornwall’s achievements in full:

·         Best UK Holiday County or Region: Cornwall – gold

·         Best UK Visitor Guide Website: VisitCornwall.com – gold

·         Best UK Coastal Town: St Ives – gold, Fal River - bronze

·         Best UK Leisure Attraction: Eden Project- gold

·         Best UK Heritage Attraction: Minack - bronze

·         Best UK Waterways/ Lakes Boat Operators: Fal River - silver

Falmouth for Business

Many of you will have noticed the new Celebrating Falmouth Businesses wallpaper on the ex Bon Marche site. We’ve complimented this with a developing Falmouth for Business online section on www.falmouth.co.uk  see here – FALMOUTH FOR BUSINESS. This section which is still being developed, will be a one stop shop for individuals/businesses thinking of investing in Falmouth. We have also put the Celebrating Falmouth’s Business images up here as well, as you can see.

Traders Meeting
Agenda at meeting but the next traders meeting will be 09.30am this Weds 7^th Nov in the Town Chambers on The Moor. Lasting no longer than 45mins, please do come along for town updates and discussion.

Maritime Line Growth
Past 4 week period -  The Maritime Line carried the most number of passengers 53K+, for any given 4 week period. This is great news and in fact the year to date figure is already the highest ever in terms of the number of passengers carried. Whilst there is never an ideal time to carry out engineering work on the line (as per last week), given the volumes it become clear why regular maintenance is crucial for future capacity.

Visitor Milestone for Falmouth.co.uk

BID funded official destination website for Falmouth passes 750,000 unique visitor mark

Richard Wilcox, Falmouth BID Manager and Jonathan Griffin Falmouth BID Director

Falmouth.co.uk the official destination website for Falmouth continues to grow from strength to strength, playing a key role in the promotion of Falmouth further exemplified by the site just passing 750,000 unique visitors since its launch two years ago. The website, designed by Falmouth based agency Gendall was funded by the Falmouth BID and is overseen by the Falmouth BID Manager Richard Wilcox.

It is one of the largest projects so far delivered through the five year BID programme and along with the BID funded and co-ordinated national PR campaign, forms a key component in the destination marketing strategy for the town. More recently the BID has been working in partnership with the recently opened Fal River Visitor Information Centre to ensure a co-ordinated approach to supporting local businesses and raising Falmouth’s profile.

Richard Wilcox, the Falmouth BID Manager said: “I’m delighted at how well the website has performed so far but also how well it has been received by local businesses. All BID businesses are eligible for a free page on Falmouth.co.uk as a further supportive measure and this serves to enhance the amount of great up-to-the-minute content that exists on the site, over 600 pages and counting! We’ve worked hard to ensure that the website is top of the Google ‘Falmouth’ search term which therefore provides a great platform to promote all the BID businesses. We’re averaging over 30,000 unique visits per month, a statistic we’re determined to keep building upon and also referring a lot of interest from it to BID businesses’ websites leading to many bookings and enquiries which is terrific.”

Jonathan Griffin, Falmouth BID Director added: “This is really great news. Falmouth.co.uk has really helped to bring together information about the many activities in the town into one place: not only listing shops, restaurants, hotels and businesses but also the events for which Falmouth is justly famous. And it is providing a real service both to local people, people across Cornwall and to visitors. The newspapers are full of news of run down and depressed towns wanting to improve things. Most talk about creating a lively and dynamic website. We are so fortunate to have one already which is a model for others to follow. It, like so much of the work of the BID, is helping to galvanise energy in the town and is why Falmouth is bucking the retail trend and looking forward with a degree of confidence.”

Nicola Kneebone, Fal River Visitor Information Centre Manager also added: “The website has performed so much better than we ever could have imagined. There is a lot of hard work behind the scenes by Richard Wilcox, but also our small team here at the visitor centre have been updating and improving areas such as the Accommodation section. We have had over 170,000 page views for accommodation providers in 2012 and the visitor centre itself has also processed in excess of 150 accommodation bookings worth over £20,000 to the local economy. We know that a great website with excellent content will help inspire people to visit Falmouth time and again. We’re keen to push on from this and improve on what is already a fantastic achievement and will be working hard with Falmouth BID in 2013 to make sure this figure continues to grow.”