Nickelodeon Land At Pleasure Beach, Blackpool "Having A Very Positive Impact On Increasing Visitor Numbers" To Blackpool, UK

From the Herald Express via This Is South Devon:

Bay tourism company beats rivals to scoop top national award

TORBAY'S tourism company has landed a top national award — beating some of its arch rivals.

The English Riviera Tourism Company has won the 'best in class' website award at the 2012 British Destinations Association Conference in Blackpool.

The judges agreed that the English Riviera's new destination website homepage is the best in Britain, beating other leading resorts including Bournemouth, Scarborough, Blackpool and Great Yarmouth.

ERTC chief executive Carolyn Custerson said: "I am obviously delighted to receive this award as it builds on previous success achieved by the English Riviera Tourist Board, which also won British Destinations Association awards.

"To have achieved a national website award such as this when the ERTC is only 18 months old and when e-marketing is moving at such a rapid rate is a notable achievement.

"I would like to thank everyone involved including the ERTC executive team, E-Strategy, a local Torbay business who now manages the site on our behalf and New Mind, a highly reputable international web site solution company. This has a been a real team effort."

The ERTC board decided to invest £50,000 to relaunch the official website www.englishriviera.co.uk as part of its first business plan, recognising the need to 'up the pace' on digital destination marketing.

The investment forms part of the delivery of the adopted Turning the Tide for Tourism strategy with developments also including a new English Riviera iPhone and Android App, web site widgets, new Facebook page and plans to launch a new English Riviera mobile web platform.

The ERTC says the new website is performing well with more than 500 local businesses now promoted on the site.

Traffic to the site for May alone was up 95 per cent on May last year and the tourism company is now on target to attract 500,000 visitors by the end of the year, double the levels achieved in 2011.

Mrs Custerson attended the two-day conference which included time to view the results of Blackpool's £500million resort rejuvenation programme that has been taking place in the resort over the past five years.

She said: "It was very exciting to see all the work that has been happening in Blackpool with the arrival of international brands Merlin and Nickelodeon clearly having a very positive impact on increasing visitor numbers.

"Blackpool Council has also made the decision to set up a new, private sector-led, arms-length company like the ERTC. During the conference visit, their representatives were very interested to learn more about the successes the ERTC are having and are planning to visit the English Rivera to learn more."