Visitors to museums and theatres in West Sussex
This measure is taken from the Visit Britain website (see link below) who invite all English visitor attractions to take part in an annual survey recording visitor numbers and entrance fees.
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2019 performance
Visitor numbers continue to increase and in 2019 the website www.experiencewestsussex.com traffic grew by 29% from 2018, reaching 96,802 sessions. Delivery of a targeted approach to increase engaged visitors to the website, from our key target segments has resulted in a high referral rate of 20% (20,157) of traffic going through to West Sussex partner websites, tourism businesses, experiences and activities featured across the EWS digital platform.
2020 results are not available due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Local food and drink
The Taste West Sussex House of
Commons event was extremely successful. The 16 food and drink
producers featured at the event all reported the positive impact of
being involved through additional sales, profile and partnership
opportunities. The Experience West Sussex website saw a threefold increase in
hits following the event. We are introducing Gatwick Airport to West Sussex
producers who were particularly interested in stocking local drinks (wine,
sparkling wine, beers and ciders).
Experience West Sussex Partnership
The Experience West
Sussex Destination Partnership was launched, with WSCC working with the
district and borough councils to support and grow the visitor economy. A
Partnership Manager is in post and an action plan for the next year has been
agreed. One of the first opportunities has been to take part in
the new ‘Gateway Gatwick’ project, with a chance to market the West Sussex
offer alongside that for Kent, East Sussex and Surrey, including through
new itineraries to be promoted via Gatwick’s marketing channels.
Experience West Sussex digital marketing
The 2018 marketing
campaign saw an estimated £2.4 million economic impact for the local economy,
near 39,000 followers on social media, near 2,000 email subscribers and more
than 300 businesses included and promoted in Experience West Sussex activity.
The first 2019 campaign launched in March, called ‘Experience Your West Sussex’. This targets
young couples and high-spending 50 to 65-year-old’s – focusing on the sense
of exploration and wish to ‘discover the undiscovered’. The campaign links
with Visit Britain’s ‘micro-gap’ messaging.
England’s Creative Coast
A successful
business breakfast was held to launch the ‘England’s Creative
Coast’ project, and was attended by 45 businesses. The Discover England
funded project aims to promote the cultural south east coast to international
visitors in France and Denmark.
The project has finished but efforts
are being made to ensure a legacy to the project through other Discover
England funding. A programme of networking events for businesses is currently
being considered through the Experience West Sussex Partnership.
Advertising Experience West Sussex on fleet
vehicles
Design
work is complete covering five WSCC fleet vehicles with Experience West Sussex
branding. This follows the success of WSCC electric vehicles being branded with
Your Energy Sussex messages. The branding will encourage people to visit the
Experience West Sussex website and enjoy days out and new experiences within
the county.
West Sussex reception, English Tourism Week
WSCC hosted a tourism event last April during English Tourism Week at Leonardslee Gardens, for
businesses and key organisations in the West Sussex tourism sector. The event
also provided the opportunity to introduce the new Experience West Sussex
Partnership to those present.
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and
Maths)
WSCC
has been working in partnership with Coastal West Sussex to support the ‘Full
STEaM Ahead’ project to increase STEaM skills careers development in schools
and with employers. Funding and opportunities for this area of work are being
explored.
LEADER grants
The Central Sussex
and South Downs & Coastal Plain Local Action Groups have committed
£2,532,077 to fund 72 projects supporting the rural economy and communities.
The projects will create at least 89.5 FTE jobs. Find out more.
The two Local Action Groups still have around £380,000
to commit to projects. All LEADER funded projects must be completed and grants claimed
by December 2020.
SPARK social enterprises
The
WP2 Accelerator Programme has now completed. The successful programme is currently being
evaluated with the help of 25 social enterprises that have benefited from the
project. The modules of support for start-ups are complete and about to be
launched. The Innovation Network now has more than 300 members. Events
are being planned for start-ups and support organisations. A network will be
set up for the action plan stakeholders and progress on the action plan will be
monitored.
Museum wins Sussex Visitor attraction of year award (2015)
