Web Use Dominates Marketing Efforts

With approximately 80% of travellers using the internet as a trip planning tool, web based marketing continues to be a focal point of our marketing efforts. With an enhanced web site and awareness campaigns that drive consumers to the www.visitthunderbay.com site as the new primary call to action, we are quickly seeing the results with respect to making new consumer impacts.

From January 1-May 13, 2008, the number of web visitors increased 41% from the same reporting period in 2007, from 89 740 to 150, 702. The site has averaged 1150 visitors per day, up from 685 last year.

76% of these visitors are arriving at the site by typing the url in directly, indicating that the web address is sticking in people's minds and they are responding from a variety of media sources, be it print, web or other.

With www.Visitthunderbay.com coming up second on www.google.com, when "Thunder Bay" is searched, we are also seeing an additional 22 400 visitors arriving at the site through search engines, primarily Google while 9764 visitors came to the site through the City's main website, www.thunderbay.ca.

The Thunder Bay tourism community plays an important role in raising the profile as well. A number of local businesses including hotels, retail and restaurants have posted links on their web pages that have shown to successfully guide traffic to the site. We encourage local tourism businesses and organizations to develop free recipricol links to encourage greater traffic movements between sites, something that benefits the tourism community as a whole.

This data is important in assiting us with future marketing and media campaigns by directing our investments where they are most likely to reach potential consumers. Over the next few years, we will pursue more media opportunities in new experience based online markets and be much more focused in both print and web campaigns. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at ppepe@thunderbay.ca.