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IHM moves its office from Northwood to 30 Quay Street, Newport.
Our weekend of fun redecorating 30 Quay Street, Newport
Island Holiday Media has moved to new offices at 30 Quay Street, Newport, Isle of Wight. After a long and hot weekend we managed to decorate and put down a bit of new carpet and were open for business as usual on Monday, 19th July. If you’re passing by please pop in for a coffee, we’d love to see you.
Fastest drop in Brits travelling abroad recorded since 1970s
Online travel experts TravelMole have reported that the number of trips made by Brits to foreign countries fell at the fastest rate since the 1970s in 2009, according to the Office for National Statistics.
It recorded 58.6 million trips, compared to 69 million in 2008, and says the fall was mirrored by foreign visitors coming to Britain too, although not by as much (a drop from 31.1 million to 29.9 million).
ONS says the plummeting figures follows years of steady growth both into and out of the UK. Visits abroad have grown by 4% on average per year in the past 25 years and visits to the UK have grown at 3.2% on average.
However, holiday-specific trips to the UK by overseas visitors rose in 2009, by 0.5 million from 10.9m in 2008 to 11.4m in 2009.
Little surprise, then, that Brits spent less abroad in 2009. We spent £5.1 billion less in 2009 despite the fact that a Brit’s average length of stay abroad has extended from 9.9 nights in 2007 to 10.5 nights in 2009.
Earnings from money spent by visitors from abroad coming to the UK rose, however, from £16.3 billion to £16.6 billion.
This should continue the good news for the Island’s tourism sector which should boost the wider economy too.
How does social media impact on the travel and tourism sector?
Here is some fascinating information published by Econsultancy - the digital marketing experts:
The most important benefits of social media for companies are: increased customer
engagement (71%), better brand reputation (66%) and increased communication with key
influencers (62%). [Source: Econsultancy/bigmouthmedia Social Media and Online PR
Report, November 2009]
Nearly two-thirds of companies (61%) say that social media provides tremendous
opportunities for their business. [Source: Econsultancy/bigmouthmedia Social Media and
Online PR Report, November 2009]
Facebook now accounts for 20% of all time spent online in the UK. [Source: Internet
Advertising Bureau Fact Sheet, IAB, March 2010]
– Facebook claims that 50% of active users log into the site each day. This would mean at
least 175 million users every 24 hours. [Source: Facebook, January, 2010]
– Purpose-built Facebook pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans.
– There are more than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.)
shared each week on Facebook.
Of the 25m Europeans that visit an Airline site each month, 64% also went to Facebook
Businesses with blogs generate 67% more online leads than businesses without blogs.
[Source: How Many Posts Does Your Business Blog Need to Grow Leads?, Hubspot, April
2010]
Flickr now hosts more than 4 billion images. A massive jump from the previous 3.6 billion.
[Source: Flickr, January 2010]
At the current rate, Twitter will process almost 10 billion tweets in a single year. [Source:
Pingdom, January 2010]
– Towards the end of 2009, the average number of tweets per day was over 27.3 million. The
average number of tweets per hour was around 1.3 million.
75% of respondents to a Tealeaf survey said their choice of retailer was influenced by what
they read on social media sites, while 56% avoided a particular company after reading a bad
review. The reverse can also apply though, with 52% declaring that they chose a particular
retailer after reading good reviews. [Source: Tealeaf via Econsultancy Blog, October 2009]
81% of people use consumer reviews in their purchase decisions [Source: Nielsen Online via
BizReport, February 2009]
If YouTube were a country, it would be the third most-populated place in the world. [Source:
YouTube, February 2009]
– 20 hours-worth of video is uploaded to the YouTube site every single minute.
– One third of people who watch a video share it with friends, family members and
colleagues.
Bumper Year for UK Tourism?
According to the website TravelMole, UK tourism is set for “another bumper year”. The headline for this survey, undertaken by market research agency BDRC Continental, says that 70% of people are likely to book a UK holiday in 2010. That should be good news for the Island despite only growing our market by 0.5% in 2009.
The appeal of domestic holidays also appears to be strengthening with 31% feeling the UK is becoming more appealing as a destination, compared to 25% in 2009 and just 19% in the pre-economic downturn days of 2008.
Families are once again at the heart of the ‘staycation’ boom and have been quick to commit to holidaying in the UK again in 2010. 21% of families surveyed had already booked a holiday in the UK for 2010 compared with 14% of those without children. With our family market in decline perhaps this in an area that needs more attention from the Island’s marketing team?
Encouraging news for the Island is that self-catering and seaside holidays once again likely to prove popular in 2010.
- 25% of those who intend to take a UK holiday this year are likely to opt for self-catering accommodation, with 16% of us likely to take a camping/caravanning holiday
- Despite the weather, the British public is keen on the beach. 38% of all UK holidays already booked for 2010 are seaside/beach holidays
- Next are rural & countryside holidays (33%), city & town breaks (28%) & activity and adventure holidays (13%)
To read the full article visit TravelMole by clicking here
Roll on the summer...
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