Interreg EXPERIENCE - Website development

Visit Kent, the designated destination management organisation for Kent and Medway, is a partner in an exciting project titled EXPERIENCE. Budget is available which will enable us to complete a programme of website development between now and the end of the product development and testing phase early in 2022. This development will ensure the successful delivery of the project aims.

Visit Kent is looking to appoint an agency who will work with us and alongside our contracted web development agency to deliver a suite of enhancements and new functionality for our web platform. We have an established website built on the Umbraco platform.

In light of the current Covid-19 crisis, the tourism, leisure and hospitality industry is having to re-think how to move forward and rebuild business, demand and revenue. Many organisations, both nationally and locally will be forced to re-examine business operations and products, in order to adhere to social distancing measures and respond to changing consumer behaviour. To survive, businesses will need to adapt existing products, collaborate with others in and out of the sector, and reach out to new audiences to recover and drive business growth. The sector has also been shown to be particularly vulnerable due to the seasonality of the visitor economy demonstrating the need for development of off-season product to make businesses more resilient in the future and to deliver more year-round jobs. The pandemic has also significantly hit consumer confidence and the current uncertainty reducing the propensity for domestic visitors to book domestic trips this winter. The proposed development will have a dual purpose to: • Present experiential tourism products to consumers online in the most effective way • Support the immediate recovery by encouraging and driving off-season visits We are planning to conduct three phases of development. The first short iteration to take place before February 2021 followed by two further rounds later in the year and into the early part of 2022.

We will be appointing an agency to help us identify, specify and build new functionality for our web platform. This new functionality will present users with inspirational and practical information about experiential tourism products, it will provide the ability to search for relevant experiences, and also connect experiences with wider content across our website, this includes other products (attractions, accommodation and events), editorial features, campaigns and itineraries. We will be looking to improve cross sell opportunities and provide virtual experiences.