DIGITAL DESTINATIONS

Dr Philip Alford Bournemouth University

www.digitalhub.co.uk

www.pinterest.com/digitaldest www.slideshare.net/DigitalHub

ddp@bournemouth.ac.uk

@schooloftourism | @philipalford

#DDBU

Digital Destinations project is an ESRC funded research project, delivered by Bournemouth University,

with an overarching aim to:

‘capture change in the adoption and use of digital technologies and to develop a strong, competitive local tourism economy.

Through increased understanding and use of emerging digital technologies, visitor economy businesses will be in a position to increase their marketing and management effectiveness, and

develop new products and services that will provide an enhanced experience for visitors to their destinations’

The businesses benefited from 4 workshops which covered: Background to on line marketing

Individual Business objectives

Developing the strategy

Measuring impact

Reporting outcomes via case studies

All course material can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/DigitalHub All business outcomes and blogs can be found at http://www.budigitalhub.co.uk/

The following presentation is the case study provided by Abbotsbury Abbotsbury ‘s website and e marketing needed to be strengthened in the most cost effective and efficient means available. Through committing to the Digital Destinations programme it was hoped this would be achieved and make our business more profitable as an outcome. So far we have set up, a Facebook page, a twitter account and a farm blog with the intention of linking all three through which we will run competitions and request captions for quirky pictures to achieve a better interaction with our customer-base.

Action Plan

Set up:

• a Facebook page

• A twitter account

• A farm blog

Link all three . Run competitions, request captions for quirky pictures.

Target 1000 twitter followers and 200 likes on Facebook

The Website

• Optimise the site with key words and links with family websites.

• Introduce and epos till system with the facility to record season ticket and party users email addresses. To build up an email data base

• Target. To reduce the bounce rate to below 30%.Returning visitors from 25% to 30%. Referral rate from 19%to 50%.

• Ultimately we would like to have 25 birthday parties in the first year growing to 40 in the second and 65 in the third year.

For more information on DIGITAL DESTINATIONS contact:

Dr Philip Alford, Bournemouth University

ddp@bournemouth.ac.uk

@schooloftourism | @philipalford

#DDBU