Winning tourism travel business woos customers with a "Bienvenue"

22 January 2009

The winner of a unique business challenge to attract more overseas visitors to Cornwall and Devon has been announced on 13 January by South West Tourism, in conjunction with Kwintessential, a regional language specialist.

From left to right: Neil Payne, Director of Kwintessential and Malcolm Bell, Director of South West Tourism, showing the Skybus website

The Isles of Scilly Travel Centre based in Penzance gets off to a flying start in 2009 with the news that it has won a multi-lingual website design package worth £500 to help promote its Skybus service in Brittany and inspire more French visitors to visit Cornwall.

Launched in early December the competition aimed to encourage businesses to improve their marketing advantage and global reach by allowing potential overseas customers to research holiday and business information on the South West in their own language.

Tourism operators were asked to say what they are doing already to attract foreign visitors and/or why they feel they would benefit most from a website translation.

Jackie Gwennap, Isles of Scilly Travel marketing manager, explained her reasons for entry. “We extended our Skybus services in 2008 to St Brieuc in Brittany and launched a new website in both English & French. Winning the package is great news at the start of the year as the website will need updating with new flight times and information making it even easier for online customers planning their visits to Cornwall.”

Neil Payne, Kwintessential managing director said: “We are pleased to draw attention to growth opportunities in using language and cultural understanding to attract overseas visitors to the South West. Multi- lingual website translations reach customers in their own language and improve search engine optimisation in chosen markets. We are delighted to help Isles of Scilly Travel increase French holiday traffic to Cornwall and bring wider spin off benefits to many more tourism businesses.”

The strategic importance of looking to overseas markets is emphasised by Malcolm Bell, South West Tourism director. “Now is the time to be investing in marketing to attract overseas visitors. With the fall of the Euro against the pound, more Europeans are likely to be thinking about visiting our shores. Reaching new customers in their own language both at the planning stage and on the move makes commercial sense and promises competitive edge.”