takeITon research revealed that almost a third of employees in the East of England would choose not use an organisation if it had a poor quality website. The Norfolk Tourist Attractions Association worked with a local web design and online marketing company to develop a more user friendly website and increase its visibility online.
Norfolk Tourist Attractions Association (NTAA) is a trade association for tourist attractions in Norfolk. Its aims are to promote tourism in Norfolk and help its 110-strong membership by developing products and projects that bring mutual advantage.
Company secretary, Robert Simmons, admits that the association hasn’t invested significantly in its website in the past; preferring instead to put the focus on its members’ websites. But in 2007, he explains: “We found an increasing need for attractions-only information, so we decided to invest in providing more flexibility of information for consumers on the”
Norfolk Tourist Attractions Association (NTAA) is a trade association for tourist attractions in Norfolk. Its aims are to promote tourism in Norfolk and help its 110-strong membership by developing products and projects that bring mutual advantage..jpg)
Company secretary, Robert Simmons, admits that the association hasn’t invested significantly in its website in the past; preferring instead to put the focus on its members’ websites. But in 2007, he explains: “We found an increasing need for attractions-only information, so we decided to invest in providing more flexibility of information for consumers on the”
IT solution:
Norwich-based WSCreative, a web design and online marketing company, updated NTAA’s website and back-end software to improve its visibility online and analyse visitor activity on its site for members.
The updated website from WSCreative offers visitors improved search and mapping features. On the homepage, for instance, is an interactive map with information on all the different attractions in the region. Before, if a user clicked on a particular attraction to find out more information, he or she was directed to a section featuring similar attractions rather than the actual destination.
Importantly, for a trade association whose sole function is to attract visitors to the area’s tourist destinations, the website is also more visible online. “We now sit higher in the results on Google and Microsoft’s Live Search (usually the first, second or third listing on the first page) when a user searches for ‘Norfolk attractions’ or similar keywords,” says Simmons. “Before, if you’d put in ‘Norfolk attractions’, we’d have featured within the first three pages.”
The improvements to NTAA’s site also resulted in an immediate increase in visitor numbers, which shot up to 20,000 in August – an increase of about 150 per cent on July, the month before the changes were made.
NTAA’s members have already started to see the benefits of the upgraded site. “It has significantly increased the volume of activity going through to individual attractions,” says Simmons.
The new attractions database WSCreative has installed enables members to update their information easily, while the customer database gives NTAA the opportunity to start targeting customers registering on the site for a brochure with other marketing offers and, in the future, a newsletter too.
For the time being though, the NTAA is pleased with the investment it has made in its site. “The old system was creaking and not keeping pace with the quantum change in consumer web activity,” recalls Simmons. “We needed to make an investment and we are pleased with the way it has gone.”
