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.”