Discover Dartmouth - A Statement

After yesterdays announcement of the development of a new Visit Dartmouth website by the Dartmouth Visitor Centre, Visit South Devon have issued a statement regarding the future of Discover Dartmouth

DISCOVER DARTMOUTH STATEMENT

Dear Discover Dartmouth Member

We hope you are all having a successful Summer. It has been brought to our attention that a new website - Visit Dartmouth is being developed through the Dartmouth Visitor Centre and we wanted to assure you that this is not part of Discover Dartmouth.

Discover Dartmouth is managed by Visit South Devon and is the official website for Dartmouth and the surrounding area. 

We have grown and developed this business and established ourselves with the support from yourselves, our members and local stakeholders. Which is no mean feet in this industry and especially through the Covid-19 epidemic. This is why as a Destination Management Organisation we needed to be working as a group in a very fragmented market. We are long term partners with Teignbridge District Council and deliver tourism and marketing initiatives for them and others alike across South Devon. It is our strategy to work together as partners with local stakeholders including Dartmouth Town Council. This relationship has meant we are offering a 25% discount on renewals, as well as free and upgraded web listings on www.discoverdartmouth.com and our staff have been working closely with the town to help deliver a successful Recovery Marketing Plan for Dartmouth in light of Covid-19 to help reopen the town.

We have worked with the Dartmouth Visitor Centre for many years and we were unaware that the Dartmouth Visitor Centre have been planning a new website. In fact we were very surprised, therefore we want to make sure that you our customer are rightly notified that we are in no way involved with the new website Visit Dartmouth.

The launch of the new Discover Dartmouth website will continue to take place in the coming weeks, and we are very excited with the outcome so far. The new website will look fresher and be more image led and will help us to increase engagement with our existing visitors and hopefully drive new visitors to the town.

We thank you for your ongoing support and membership of Discover Dartmouth. 

Best wishes

Stuart Longrigg
Chairman Visit South Devon - Discover Dartmouth 

www.discoverdartmouth.com

You are receiving this email as a website member with Discover Dartmouth. If you no longer wish to receive our member updates, and only be contacted regarding your renewal, or if you wish to make amendments to the contact details we have please let me know.
Copyright © 2020 Visit South Devon, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you are a member on the Discover Dartmouth website.

3 Comments

  1. Is it true that the Dartmouth TIC asked for their domain “Discover Dartmouth” back and were refused ? If so why ? I was the person all those years ago who established the “Discover Dartmouth” brand and on behalf of the TIC I first registered the domains.

    I have other questions too……….

    Dave

  2. I am part of the fragmented market in terms of promoting Dartmouth, and own the original dartmouth.org.uk domain that was first registered for the towns promotion in 1997.

    Admittedly, I’ve been rather passive in development in recent years due to the efforts being put in by Karen and Co, and it’s a good thing in a small town to co-operate with one another for a greater good.

    I registered visit-dartmouth.co.uk back in 2017, and have put a website on it - with the intention of pushing it live in 2021. I offered this website (the entire business infact) to Dartmouth Vistor Centre during meetings with the committee in return for a nominal revenue. They didn’t want it, so I’m rather suprised about the sudden announcement.

    That said - they’ve beaten us to an announcement, and whilst we never intended to compete with any town business for marketing - one feels rather confused about what best to do. Should I respectfully rebrand our site, and allow them to press on without confusion to the public?

    There is a much more powerful point to be made, and that is one of solidarity between all business in Dartmouth, and the need to fend off the big portal sites, that are swingeing the accommodation providers out of huge commission in return for occupancy. They are competing with each other for the top positions, and simply shovelling money out of the town to huge corporations.

    I’ll work with anyone who competes with us, in town or out of town… however I’ll happily deprive portals like bookings.com of their ransoms from Dartmouth. If every accommodation provider took a stand, they’d win.

    Back to the name though - I don’t wish this episode to reflect badly on me, having tried to fit in around others, so I’m writing this here to refer back to for posterity! I haven’t yet decided on next steps.

    Stay well all.

    • Well said Mike. This town has a long history of working to defeat itself and you are absolutely right, we need a much more joined up approach. Cllr Cathy Campos’s Tourism Forum was a first step in that direction that has immediately experienced it’s first roadblock to progress in the form of this imbecilic move from the Dartmouth Visitors Centre. Please hang fire with your plans and engage with the Forum to see how we can sensibly proceed from here. Discover Dartmouth has been a successful brand that the town should have been able to unite around. This latest bombshell will just make that kind of unified message a whole lot harder.

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