Visit South Devon has taken over ownership and management of www.discoverdartmouth.com from Dartmouth TIC, while We Make Magazines will assume responsibility for the publication of the town’s annual tourism guide.
Under the arrangements, Dartmouth TIC will receive a profit share from both the guide and the official tourism website for the town and surrounding area, yet it will be relieved of all overheads linked to their production and management.
The deal is likely to provide a welcome lifeline for the troubled but treasured award-winning TIC that has been working to hard to cut costs and maintain its position as the shop window of the town.
From the beginning of May, Visit South Devon has assumed responsibility for the website, recruitment of advertisers and management of Dartmouth’s official tourism social media accounts, utilising its in-house team’s ‘extensive knowledge, resources and expertise to drive traffic to the website, adding value to its subscribers’.
Under the deal an agreed percentage of all future profit made from www.discoverdartmouth.com will be paid to the TIC to assist with its annual running costs.
All other profit from the site will go towards promotional and marketing activity to raise the profile of Dartmouth and the wider South Devon area nationally and internationally.
Visit South Devon intends to invest and upgrade to a responsive website for the town that will be compatible with all desktops, tablets and mobile devices, providing optimal viewing platforms for visitors.
This upgraded site will be created in consultation with the advertisers on the site to develop functionality that is appropriate and valuable to local businesses, and aims to launch early 2017.
A spokesman said: ‘Current advertisers on the Dartmouth website will see no changes to their online presence and marketing features until renewal time in August 2016.
‘At this time, Visit South Devon will provide a range of advertising packages that will ensure local advertisers see a greater return on investment and increased promotional opportunities.’
The decision to transfer ownership of www.discoverdartmouth.com to Visit South Devon has been taken by the TIC in order to ensure that Dartmouth continues to have a dedicated, up-to-date and award-winning tourism website to attract visitors to the town and surrounding area.
Angie Cairns-Sharp, chairman of Dartmouth TIC, said: ‘Over the past few months we have been faced with the challenge of finding new income streams to cover the costs of the TIC.
‘To remain open, we’ve had to look at our assets to see how we can best use these to help secure the future of the centre, while reducing overheads and maximising income.
‘We were not in a position to meet our obligations to pay for the necessary annual licenses, updates or promotional costs of the website, and so we approached Visit South Devon to see how they could help us in ensuring the future of the website.
‘Following extensive meetings, we have created a solution that we believe will be of benefit to our advertisers, the town, its tourism businesses and to the future of the TIC.’
Mrs Cairns-Sharp said that given the TIC’s existing relationship with both Visit South Devon and We Make Magazines, it was a logical choice to work with both to ensure continuity for current advertisers.
‘We Make Magazines has worked with the TIC for the past five years to produce the guide, giving us every confidence that they are perfectly placed to take over its management,’ she said.
‘Visit South Devon which, like the TIC is also a not-for-profit entity, has unrivalled expertise in promoting the local area and is in our view best positioned to manage, run and reinvest in the town’s official, award winning tourism website.
‘Combined with other income generating initiatives, the profit share arrangements that we have agreed with both Visit South Devon and We Make Magazines moves us closer to achieving our goal of covering the annual overheads of the TIC centre, helping to secure our future at the heart of Dartmouth.
‘We would urge all town businesses to continue supporting both the website and the guide as they will continue to perform a vital role in promoting Dartmouth to tourists nationally and internationally.’
Stuart Longrigg, chairman of Visit South Devon, said: ‘We are delighted to play our part in helping Dartmouth’s TIC to continue operating. Its services are invaluable and we are proud to have a hand in ensuring that future visitors to Dartmouth will benefit from their on the ground knowledge and expertise.
‘Having worked closely with the TIC over many years to promote events, accommodation and things to do in and around Dartmouth, we see today’s announcement as a natural progression of that relationship, ensuring that the town’s official website receives the level of investment and expertise that it needs and deserves.
‘Visit South Devon has over eight years experience working on the same website platform as Dartmouth, giving our team an excellent understanding of the site’s functionality, capability and features that we can utilise for the benefit of Dartmouth.
‘Combined with being able to run both sites on the one platform under one licence, we are instantly able to make savings that can be reinvested into the site.
‘Through targeted PR and marketing, Visit South Devon has seen a growth of 137 per cent in its website traffic over the past three years. We aim to emulate this success for Dartmouth and provide substantial return on investment for Dartmouth tourism businesses.’
He added: ‘Due to the future uncertainty of the BID we want to assure local businesses that there will continue to be a dedicated website for the online promotion of the town.
‘Having analysed traffic flow to the site, we have identified that in the last year alone over 350 per cent more traffic came to the town’s official tourism site from the Discover Dartmouth branding than from dartmoutheverytime.
‘As such, it is our intension to utilise the Discover Dartmouth branding moving forward.
‘However, we will consult with the BID and tourism businesses about the future of the dartmoutheverytime branding prior to any long-term changes to the site.’
The move has been welcomed by Peter Conisbee, chairman of the Dartmouth BID. He said: ‘Today’s news gives certainty to the future of the Dartmouth tourism guide and it puts the town’s leading tourism website in the hands of seasoned experts who will be able to keep the site current and fully up to date with information on what’s going on in and around Dartmouth.’
Jeff Cooper, managing director of We Make Magazines, added: ‘Having worked on Dartmouth’s official tourism guide for many years I wanted to find a way to help support the future of Dartmouth’s TIC.
‘Following discussions with the TIC’s board, We Make Magazines has agreed to take on responsibility for production costs and for finding advertisers to fund the publication.
‘As with Visit South Devon’s arrangement, a proportion of profit from the annual Discover Dartmouth tourism guide will go to the TIC. Through this relationship we hope to play an important role in helping to preserve the valuable services of Dartmouth’s TIC in the town.’
Visit South Devon is a Community Interest Company funded through money raised from adverts taken on the site by tourist attractions, activity based businesses, accommodation and hospitality providers.
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