DARTMOUTH will be playing to all its strengths in order to secure future growth and prosperity for years to come. Groups, organisations and businesses have vowed to work together in order to make the town more attractive to visitors and encourage long-term economic development. 'We have to get networking because we all need each other and none of us can survive alone,' hotelier Nigel Way told a gathering of about 100 people who attended a Discover Dartmouth Tourism Springboard event in the Old Market on Monday evening. The event was an opportunity to showcase events and activities and learn of plans to increase the number of cruise ships that visit Dartmouth. It also saw the public unveiling of a new branding package for the town by the Business Improvement District. BID director Francesca Johnson said a creative marketing strategy using the slogan Dartmouth Everytime.co.uk was about to be launched. It will appear in different formats on posters at up to 60 railway station platforms, on T-shirts and even on the sails of yachts, encouraging visitors to choose Dartmouth 'every time' as the town that could deliver on 'special times'. Earlier, chairman Paul Reach said some 50 per cent of the BID's £170,000 a year income would be spent on marketing throughout the five years, with probably significantly more in the early years. He said it was planned to front-load media expenditure into two years to maximise impact. The team wants to see more of a focus on newspaper promotion out of peak season, during spring and autumn, he said. It is looking to install two counting cameras in the town this summer to measure footfall numbers and trends, and hopes to enter into discussions with universities regarding a feasibility study to look at transport options to link the bottom end of the town with the park and ride at the top. It also hopes to improve signage around the network of narrow side streets in Dartmouth where many businesses are in 'dead zones'. Phil Scoble and Tricia Daniels, of Dart Harbour, spoke about the potential to welcome more cruise ships to the town, which could inject several hundreds of thousands of pounds into the local economy. Four ships are due to visit Dartmouth this year, the first, carrying British passengers, is the Serenissima due to dock at 7am on May 30. They would like to see shops, businesses and volunteers working together to welcome the 300 passengers ashore – where it is estimated they will spend and average of between £80 to £100 each. Mr Scoble said that if the town could welcome 20 ships a year that would be more than £600,000 'raw spend' every year. He added: 'We are not talking peanuts, we are talking millions. 'We have very little to lose and a lot to gain.' Carolyn Custerson, chairman of Visit Devon, stressed the need to protect and promote the 'powerful' Devon brand. She said 74 per cent of businesses in Devon had been affected by the closure of the rail line at Dawlish this winter – with an estimated £31m in lost bookings – and they were still getting inquiries from people asking if the county was open. But she said everyone in Devon had risen to the open-for-business challenge with one voice and she stressed the need for working together in marketing partnerships.