Report to the Board of Directors from the Managing Director, Will Myles

14 th March 2019

Executive Summary

1. Matters arising from the previous board meeting – all of the matters arising from the previous board meeting relating to the Managing Director, have been covered in this report or will be subject to an agenda item at the meeting on 21st March 2019.

2. HR and team issues impacting on the organisation – The team continues to develop well as they are being empowered to make decisions without any micro-management. Bryn Jones has been appointed on a fixed term contract basis as Travel Trade & Exhibitions Manager.

3. Website and Voluntary contribution sales YTD – Going into 2019 the Website sales process has been revised and a more focused pro-active Key Account Management approach being undertaken. This has proved really fruitful with the final revenue target well in reach.

4. GDPR and IT – Whist initially impacting on the organisation quite dramatically with time, process and deletion of data, GDPR is important but is having a lesser resource impact. An ongoing review of IT hardware and software is being undertaken to ensure future proofing of the organisation.

5. Travel Press and PR impact / report – This part of the organisation continues to go from strength to strength with YOY AVE being really positive. Although Jan & Feb comparative stats show a slight decline, this relates to a major syndicated article in Jan 2018, which is not there this time. A full list of coverage is available.

6. IOW / Industry Press and PR impact / report – A major part of the VIOW local engagement / press function is covered in this area. More meaningful engagement with BID levy payers within their own environment is the ultimate goal. In addition to this, pro-active interactions with local media outlets have proven fruitful, the delivery of specific audio to inherently busy journalists gains more coverage and offers opportunities.

7. Access fund projects – These projects are funded through IW Council Access fund on behalf of the Department for Transport and are subject to separate KPI’s set by DfT. At the most recent KPI meeting for these projects, all elements were on target for positive completion, which has brought a “trusted partner” tag from the IW council.

8. Website statistics and development - The Visit Isle of Wight website is and will continued to be the main “Call to Action” (CTA) for all our 2019 campaigns, be they Brand or Tactical, that is why a massive amount of effort is being focused at the current website and the information that it provides for both the industry and the customer. There is no doubt that the website should be customer centric on everything undertaken.

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9. Brand Marketing activities - The off-island brand and tactical marketing of the island is realistically the reason for the existence of Visit Isle of Wight. 2019 will be about changing perceptions of what the island has to offer, under the banner / approach of “Discovery”. So “Discover the Isle of Wight for . . . ” which will be supported with an amazing engaging image and a themed sub-headline to inform, challenge and change perception. The first major campaign under this approach has taken place with very positive results

10. Campaign Marketing activities - Over 100 walks are now registered for the 2019 Isle of Wight Walking Festival, including many new walks and new walk leaders. A huge thanks to the increased sponsorship from Warner Leisure Hotels

11. Social Media - The focus is continuing to concentrate on engaging with the community, even more so at this time of the year when lower visitor numbers means reduced use of social media.

Instagram - Follower numbers have grown by 84% since January 2018. Twitter - Twitter followers have increased by 14% Facebook - Facebook followers have increased by 8.6%

12. Finance and Governance - the introduction of our new Financial Controller has brought stability to the process and has clarity to the finance process and reporting. A separate finance report is now being created along with the relevant Management Accounts, Profit & Loss accounts, short term cash-flow and bank reconciliations. Along with this the processes and systems log are being updated and put into place.

Prior to this board meeting and the issue of the board papers, a meeting of the Finance & Remuneration group was held, chaired by Rob Holgate and with John Allen, Tom Honeyman-Brown, Will Myles and Lesley Yates in attendance. The findings and recommendations from this meeting will be discussed at the Board meeting

From a Governance perspective, a full recruitment, shortlisting and interview process has taken place for a new Chairperson of Visit Isle of Wight Ltd. Ian Griffiths has been selected as the new Chairperson and will attend the Board meeting for formal ratification purposes.

This report will offer a 2018 Quarter 4 and 2019 Q1 perspective up to and including 28th February.

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Introduction

The purpose of this document is to collate and reports the relevant operational and strategic elements of the Visit Isle of Wight Limited activities.

It will be formed of the following different sections:

1. Matter arising from the previous board meeting2. HR and team issues impacting on the organisation3. Website and Voluntary contribution sales YTD4. GDPR and IT5. Travel Press and PR impact / report6. IOW / Industry Press and PR impact / report7. Access fund projects8. Website statistics and development9. Brand Marketing activities10. Campaign Marketing activities11. Social Media12. BID activities, funding and 2018 / 1913. Finance & Governance

1.0 Matter arising from the previous board meeting

1.1 Court Case Update: Following on from the last board meeting and the subsequent re-appearance of VIOW’s former employee at Crown Court for sentencing, Jo Thornton appeared at Isle of Wight Crown Court on 11 th March 2019 where she was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment suspended for 2 years on both charges to run concurrently. She was also electronically placed under curfew for 3 months between the hours of 9pm and 6am. Prior to the hearing she had lodged funds with her off-island legal representative and was ordered to transfer the monies - £34,979.51 which included inflation within 7 days or face an immediate custodial sentence of 6 months. The process of transfer of monies will be through the court confiscation team and could take up to 4 weeks.

1.2 Court Case – Press: The press approach remains in place and there has been limited coverage since the court date.

1.3 Package Travel Regs: The package travel directive information has been supplied by Wightlink and is being worked though for loading onto the VIOW web pages.

1.4 Filing of Accounts: The final accounts for the period 1/9/16 to 31/8/17 were finalised and filed at Companies House by the revised deadline set by the organisation.

1.5 New Accountants: Visit Isle of Wight have engaged a new set of accountants for statutory and BID Audit purposes, they are Smith & Williamson and have already commenced work on the next set of audited accounts which require filing at Companies House by 31st May 2019; they replace Bright Brown with immediate effect.

1.6 Upload of Accounts: The Visit Isle of Wight audited accounts have been uploaded as requested onto the Visit WightPro website.

1.7 Marketing Panel: Regarding the marketing advisory panel, it is felt that a smaller more focused marketing group chaired by the appropriate Red Funnel representative, to look at focused island marketing issues and areas, not just a “show and tell”, this is an on-going process

1.8 New Board Members: The board member changes were announced on the Visit WightPro website and all mandatory documentation has been completed.

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1.9 Future Funding post 2021: A small group of directors have been identified to lead a “Future Funding” working group, this is being set up to set out terms of reference, the group will discuss and report back progress to the main board, the “Visitor levy” document will form part of that group and as such has not been circulated as asked.

1.10 Brexit: A meeting regarding Brexit planning took place with the CEO of IW Chamber of Commerce, it was felt that with so much confusion in the process as it stands, by commenting jointly may have a negative effect, so it was decided to leave until more information was known before looking further.

1.11 Green Agenda Item: Green Credentials has been added to the agenda and will be discussed at board meetings going forward. Visit Isle of Wight with their Access fund projects have been leading the way with the Green Star re-launch and the outputs through its bus card replacement scheme.

2.0 HR and team issues impacting on the organisation

2.1 The One-to-One individual sessions continue to be rolled out and developed across the organisation, they seem to be well received and the team development and engagement is on the increase.

2.2 Visit Isle of Wight have appointed a new fixed term-contract position for Travel Trade and Exhibitions from 6th March 2019, this is Bryn Jones, ex of English Heritage whose role is to manage the logistics and administration of the Exhibitions partnership, thus saving money being paid to Tourism South East, also by developing the island in the Travel trade and groups market which has been actively promoted for several years.

3.0 Website and Voluntary contribution sales YTD

3.1 It reported earlier that the previous quarter had been challenging in relation to web sales and voluntary contributions; this activity has turned the corner quite dramatically, due to hard work and tenaciousness, the position for both Q2 and YTD are now very positive.

Web Sales YTD & Q2:Year Income Generated1st September 2018 – 28th February 2019 £56,659.601st September 2017 - 28th February 2018 £15,643.23

Web Sales Q2 onlyYear Income Generated28th November 2018 – 28th February 2019 £34,338.6028th November 2017 – 28th February 2018 £12,793.11

Voluntary Contributions YTD & Q2:Year Income Generated1st September 2018 – 28th February 2019 £4,730.091st September 2017 - 28th February 2018 £4,728.76

Voluntary Contributions Q2 only:Year Income Generated

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28th November 2018 – 28th February 2019 £3,689.4628th November 2017 – 28th February 2018 £3,586.60

4.0 GDPR and IT

4.1 Whilst the GDPR impact on the organisation has been substantial since the beginning 0f 2018 and its introduction in May 2018, the processes put into place ensure that we are carrying out our operation in line with the current legislation and they are protecting the organisation. It is a continuous activity but has less of a resource impact that it has done in previous quarters.

4.2 The IT hardware / assets are currently being logged onto an asset register to enable this to be part of the finance and trackability process

5.0 Travel Press and PR Impact / report

5.1 As in previous reports this element covers 'known' coverage throughout the three-month period, and it should be noted that the values given are based on information currently available. Advertising equivalent value (AEV) and publicity value information for international, some regional publications and on-line coverage is not always available for the Q4 2018 / Q1 2019 period up to and including 28 th February 2019 since the last report.

National, regional and local media coverage (print and digital):

December 2018 £50,037.00(Reach 3,364,769)

Jan 2019 £60,297.00 (Reach 12,222,462)

Feb 2019 £151,308.00 (Reach 10,905,463)

Total (Dec/Jan/Feb) £261,642.00

Total value of coverage - Jan and Feb 2019 £211,605.00

Total value of coverage - Jan and Feb 2018 £879,078.00*

*January 2018 coverage was enhanced by the “We’re going on an IW Bear Hunt” publicity in a range of business magazines and one feature in the Sunday Express, valued at £229,417.50.

*February 2018 coverage was enhanced by syndicated features about the IW Literary Heroes Trail in 10 newspapers.

5.2 During the Q4 2018 / Q1 2019 period the following media visits took place and their value and coverage will be felt later in the year, which will be reported at later board meetings.

Winter edition Art Quarterly: Spotlight/Osborne, Carisbrooke, Dimbola, Museum of Island History, Newport Roman Villa.

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December VisitEngland PR: December What's New Bulletin/Godshill Park Farm's new yoga retreat.

01/12/2018 Muddy Stilletos (blog): Victorian Christmas.12/12/2018 West Jet magazine US (web): Where to mark the 200th anniversary

of Queen Victoria in 2019.04/12/2019 My Weekly: Brighstone Christmas Tree Festival.29/12/2019 The i: Where to go in 2019: Victoria 200.29/12/2019 The i: Day Out: Train Discovery Centre.30/12/2019 The Sunday Telegraph: A to Z of everything worth travelling for in

2019/ Q is for Queen Victoria.January05/01/2019 The Sun (Scotland): Always Wight Time for a family holiday.05/01/2019 The Sun: Always Wight Time for a family holiday.06/01/2019 The Sun (on Sunday): 10 Wellbeing Experiences: Godshill Park Farm.06/01/2019 Daily Telegraph (web): Britain's best winter beaches: Walking with

dinosaurs/Compton Bay.14/01/2019 The i: 50 of the best free days out: Sandman Snowman event.15/01/2019 The i: Isle of Wight re-development/The George Hotel.22/01/2019 WestJet magazine, USA:200th anniversary of the birth of Queen

Victoria.10/01/2019 Time Out (web): The best places to visit in the UK in 2019/Isle of

Wight.

February Coast magazine - 10 things to do this month: Tune into Birdsong - NT walk.

February Caravan magazine: Kickstart your caravanning year/IW Walking Festival.

01/02/2019 Group Travel World: Make Waves/Whiter than Wight.03/02/2019 Sunday People: Valentine’s Day Breaks/round-up - The Enchanted

Manor.05/02/2019 Travel Begins at 40 (web): IW prepares for bicentenary of Queen

Victoria.09/02/2019 Daily Telegraph: Round-up of the UK’s most Romantic

Retreats/Valentine breaks.09/02/2019 Daily Telegraph (web): round-up of the UK’s most Romantic

Retreats/Valentine breaks.10/02/2019 The Sun (web)/Fabulous magazine: The Beautiful South: Staycations.11/02/2019 Girl in the lilac dress (blog): Romantic breaks on the Isle of Wight.10/02/2019 The Sun/Fabulous magazine: The Beautiful South: Staycations. 10/02/2019 The Amed Post (web): Staycations.06/02/2019 Hampshire Life (web): 10 places to propose or pledge your love in

Hampshire this Valentine''s Day.14/02/2019 Travel Begins at 40 (web): IW Garlic Festival 2019. 23/02/2019 Daily Telegraph: 50 Amazing UK Adventures/bicentenary of Queen

Victoria/Osborne. 22/02/2019 Daily Telegraph (web): 50 Amazing UK Adventures/bicentenary of

Queen Victoria/Osborne.

5.3 In addition to the specific press work undertaken and facilitated, the press team have also taken part in other activities:

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Media visits: Francois Wasson, TF1 (French TV)Will Sandilands, Adventure Bike RiderMark Rowe, Countryfile Magazine (commissioned to write new Slow Guide to IoW)Jasmine Wigmore, Girl in the lilac dress (blogger)

6.0 IOW / Industry press and communications impact / report

6.1 Local / industry press communications especially linking with BID levy payers across the island is a priority for the organisation and has been given its own focus, as this is an important route to market locally and with our BID levy payers.

6.2 The YTD (1st Jan till 28th November 2019) local AVE is valued at £31,728

The specific (1st December 2018 till 28th February 2019) local AVE equates to £31,728

To enable Media outlets to consume our messages more easily internal creation of content has been adopted by VIOW, which seems to be reaping the benefits as more audio is being featured when delivered to the outlets, this also includes images. In addition to this, the approach also allows a certain degree of control of message.

The topics that were covered in these stories are as follows:

Isle of Wight Businesses up For Beautiful South Awards. Carbon emissions saved as more tourists travel the Isle of Wight by bus. French TV crew charmed by the IW. IW to get new boost from Twixmas campaign. Tourism campaign will see 340,000 people personally invited to the Isle of

Wight. New Year's Day Boost as Isle of Wight Broadcast to Millions. The Isle of Wight becomes a star on French television. What does the Medina Valley mean to you? Quote from Will Myles. Your vote counts for Isle of Wight locations shortlisted in Countryfile

Magazine Awards. Two Island locations shortlisted for top awards IW County Press (web). Isle of Wight tourism businesses encouraged to go green. Number of tourists visiting the IW in 20128 up 5%. And the results are in... find out how Isle of Wight tourism fared last year. 19% rise among other figures released by Visit Isle of Wight. Isle of Wight attraction scoops national VisitEngland award. Monkey Haven win top tourism award. Tourism businesses take advantage of new look Green Travel Scheme. Countryfile Awards: Last Chance to Vote for Isle of Wight Village and Bay. Visit Isle of Wight Apprentice Success in the Spotlight.

The YTD number of Industry e-mails sent out from 1st January 2019 till 28 th February 2019 - 9

Number of Industry e-mails sent out to the industry Q4 2018 / Q1 2019 (1st December till 18th February 2019) – 11

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Number of topics / stories covered for YTD – 56Number of topics / stories covered for Q4 2018 /Q1 2019 – 96

The overall sent rate for the industry newsletter –was 1194 pre- GDPR and now it is 967 – This drop off was to be expected as there is a majority of BID levy payers who use personal e-mail address for their business and must opt-in, it is being addressed.Delivered rate – 99%Open up rate – 35.1%Click through rate – 6.5%

Additional; work in this specific area covers: Meet the local press – Isle of Wight County Press, IW Radio, On The Wight,

IW Chamber of Commerce, Vectis Radio Industry Website updates Tourism Conference 2019 coordination and lead Accessibility Panel press and PR

7.0 Access fund projects

7.1 This project operates on a different reporting calendar year to the rest of VIOW, this is because of DfT & IW Council KPI’s and project management of the Sustainable Travel Access Fund and the full budget was allocated and met the KPI’s as required.

The focus of the Visitor Travel Project Manager in this area has seen more focus and clarity in these specific project areas, where once there was a degree of confusion / style over substance. The highlight results were as follows:

7.2 1A Tourism Business engagement

The Green Star scheme relaunched in February 2019 and more than 30 businesses signed up at the drop-in session held at Monkey Haven. The scheme now comprises a structure of bronze, silver and gold, and asks businesses to deliver criteria from a set list of eight activities. The more they deliver, the higher up the structure they go and receive more rewards. Members that reach at least silver status may have access to the Southern Vectis key card scheme for 2019/20.

Since the scheme began in summer 2017, there have been 1,967 bus journeys made using the 100 Southern Vectis key cards that are in circulation as part of this project.

A familiarisation trip was hosted by Southern Vectis in December to invite Green Star members to the Christmas lights tour. Although there was a good initial sign up, the weather was awful and only a handful of people turned up to experience the open-top bus tour.

Two more familiarisation trips are planned for March; a walk with the AONB and a bike ride with Route Fifty7.

From April 2019, attendance of at least one familiarisation trip in a 12-month period will be a criteria of becoming a Green Star member.

7.3 1B Destination Walking and Cycling

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The 2018/19 Bicycle Island research project has come to an end and planning is now taking place for the 2019/20 project by taking feedback from partner organisations on board. The 2019/20 season will offer visiting cyclists an A5 flyer that will contain just five short questions that will take no longer than two minutes to complete. The idea behind this is to attract a higher number of responses due to the ease of questions and prize draw incentives while continuing to receive useful information about intended cycling behaviour change.

Blogger Jody Woolcock from Cornish Ramblings was invited to attend a walking weekend on the Isle of Wight. Jody has blogged about her experience and will also publish it on The Outdoor Guide. In addition, Samantha Wragg from Coco Travels has enjoyed a day of cycling on the Isle of Wight and will publish a blog to her followers.

7.4 2E Travel Ambassador Volunteers and Traineeships

55 volunteer applicants are currently being processed with approximately ten regular volunteers. A training session was hosted in December where attendees were introduced to the projects and advised about the latest opportunities.

Now that spring is in the air, opportunities are becoming more widespread and will include teaming up with Wightlink, Red Funnel and other local businesses. To date, our excellent volunteers have interacted at the Ventnor Botanic Gardens volunteer recruitment fair, the Green Star relaunch and at Ryde Travel Shop. Opportunities are also lined up with Cowes Harbour Commission to welcome cruise ship passengers to the Island.

Successful travel blogger, Monica Stott from The Travel Hack has visited the Isle of Wight on Wednesday, 6 March to present to students from Island Innovation, Ryde Academy and the Isle of Wight College. The presentation will be around blogging as a business and the importance of using sustainable transport.

8.0 Website statistics and development

8.1 The Visit Isle of Wight website will be and is the main “Call to Action” (CTA) for all our2019 campaigns, be they Brand or Tactical.

Content is continuing to be refined on the website and implement strategies that move away from duplication of information on the site.

Examples in this quarter include working with SWR to include their booking widget, getting up to date images from travel partners, updating popular pages – things to do, events etc, improving layouts and readability, starting to spread campaign information throughout the website as opposed to keeping it on one landing page.

The homepage has been updated to bring more clarity to the page. The advanced search sits under the main carousel, making simpler for people to search on the site.

More regular blogs allow us to widen the general Isle of Wight content we share and allow us to share content from industry providers and Wight BID levy payers. We have commissioned a monthly ‘what’s on’ blog (created from our VIOW events listings) and also some ‘evergreen’ web content around key holiday ‘events’ like Easter, May half term, Christmas etc.

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The restrictions of the website platform results in making it tricky to encourage website visitors to move around the site. We are looking at ways to encourage greater movement by the use of ‘click here’ visual banners in editorial copy.

We are doing small amounts of development on the website to improve places on to share content including making the homepage ‘Be Inspired’ blocks editable.

Monthly SEO meeting to improve metadata, searchability with New Mind.8.2 The website statistics speak for themselves and are detailed within a separate more

comprehensive report which has also been uploaded for information and attention.

The demographics tell a similar story YOY and it continues to be a larger majority of female searches YOY.

Since April 2017 the trends have shown the increase of the use of mobile devices to initiate the search with desktop 2nd and tablet 3rd choice. This continues to be the case.

A full report on all web statistics is available in the dropbox for information, perusal and comment.

9.0 Brand Marketing activities and impact

9.1 The off-island brand and tactical marketing of the island is realistically the reason for the existence of Visit Isle of Wight. The 2019 Marketing Planning process has taken place and the overall Marketing and Creative approach is in the implementation phase, a separate plan was sent to the Board members.

As previously reported at the last board meeting the marketing strategy and approach was shared and will be about changing perceptions of what the island has to offer, under the banner / approach of “Discovery”. So “Discover the Isle of Wight for…” which will be supported with an amazing engaging image and a themed sub-headline to inform, challenge and change perception.

At the writing of this report the Twixmas brand campaign has proved very successful from a brand perspective, with the following on-line results:

Discover landing page 10,463 page views, 94 Facebook likes

Competition page 24,755 page views

Discover graphic on home carousel 956 sessions

Home page Discover MPU 18,455 impressions, 77 clicks

What’s On Discover banner this appears on every event record 78,787 impressions, 145 clicks

Email stats (view email) Sent: 26th December at 1pm

List size: 14,870 Successful deliveries: 14,826 Total opens: 5,623

Total clicks: 1,806 of which 1,368 were for the competition

This all equates to a 29% increase in website visitors from the campaign on the same period in 2017 / 18. A 16% increase in website page views. The run of network digital

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advertisements produced the highest VIOW response rates seen producing a cost per click of just 13p.

The Pre-Easter Campaign is currently live, but at the time of writing this report, it is still live and on-going and too early to report on.

10.0 Campaign Marketing activities

10.1 E-Newsletter

The mailing list now stands at 17,928 subscribers and increase of 62% since GDPR came in on 26/05/18.

Newsletters continue to be sent out to the e-database every two weeks. These are complimented by specific ‘Solus’ slots bought by industry.

2019 Campaigns

Twixmas

The Twixmas campaign launched on 26th December 2019 and included:Postcard door drop (343,000 copies including Wightlink and Red Funnel copies), e newsletters to VIOW, Coast magazine, TSE lists (total 77k email addresses), 58 6 sheet posters up at SWR locations across their network, organic and paid social media posts on FB and IG, Run of Network ads.

Print: ad in The Sun Twixmas holiday guide, House of Britain (Netherlands) 4 page brochure design to meet our look and feel.

Worked with the tourism industry to create a holiday prize package worth over £2.5k

SWR extended the campaign in February FOC to include 133 sites

½ page ad in Discover Britain mag alongside editorial about Osborne and Bicentenary of Queen Victoria’s birth (Victoria 200).

Romantic Short Breaks

A short digital campaign including a run of network web advertising, social media paid and organic posts all directed to the updated romantic short breaks page on viow.co.uk.

Pre-Easter Campaign

Planned, booked and created Pre-Easter campaign targeting families and active couples. Launches 11th March 2019.

Activity includes:

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6 sheet posters at Waterloo and targeted SWR and Southern train lines, tube cards, Run of Network ads, paid and organic social media advertising, newsletters to VIOW, Coast mag and TSE lists, ad in Primary Times.

Post-Easter Campaign

Launches 13th May 2019, in planning stages.

2019 Isle of Wight Walking Festival

Over 100 walks now registered for the 2019 Festival including over 50% brand new walks for 2019.

Runner up in the My Isle of Wight Awards 2018.

Worked with Wightlink on advertising with walk – the magazine for The Ramblers members. DPS, e-newsletter mention and tweet.

Marketing activity so far has included print advertising, social media posts, on board TV, posters on Island and at terminals.

Creation and distribution of 40k leaflets. 20k distributed off Island, 20k on Island and at terminals.

The IW Travel Ambassadors are working closely with IWWF and will be including content for the leaflet and are running three walks during the festival.

A different walking festival freelancer, Tash Elliot, has been engaged to manage Festival and walk leaders. Walk Leader meeting to be help 4 th April 2019 to cover off all H &S, reporting etc.

Slow Guide to Wight

VIOW has been awarded £6,812.00 from IWC Sustainable Transport Fund for the ‘Slow Guide to Wight’. The initial application was for 10k and the shortfall will be made up from existing Access Fund budget.

This project will create a user friendly, content rich selection of new eight walking itineraries on the Isle of Wight that can be accessed digitally, either as a precursor to visiting or when on the Island.

The itineraries will be written by respected and well published walking travel writer Mark Rowe and include route info, accommodation, food and drink, attractions and the work of local artists and crafts and food producers. They will feature sustainable transport methods

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– bus, bicycle, walking, train and ferry and will include more anecdotal and insightful ‘vignettes’ of local residents/craftspeople/food producers etc., thus creating detailed, authentic content that can be shared socially.

The information will be accessed via a website and Google maps. The creation of the routes, ties nicely into the slow travel movement – visitors choosing experiences over sights and quality over quantity and feeds directly into Visit Britain’s quest for authentic travel experiences.

Research and writing has been completed for this project. The website has been created and is currently being populated. All trails have been entered on Google maps. The number of trails has been increased to eight routes to add in a specific one on Sandown Bay.

The PR campaign for the guide has started and The Guardian Travel Editor is planning to visit in 2019.

The marketing plan has been created and includes web content on visitisleofwight.co.uk and social media posts on both Visit Isle of Wight and Travel Ambassadors platforms.

The guide will be live by 31st March 2019.

Trail leaflets

English Heritage are financially and editorially supporting the updating and republishing of the Victoria’s Island Trail leaflet to include copy about the Victoria 200 anniversary in 2019.

We are still considering reviewing the artwork and re-publishing the other leaflets – Literary Heroes Trail, Churchill Trail and Warrior Trail in line with the new branding.

England’s Coast

Visit Isle of Wight have agreed to become a partner for the England’s Coast project which is an extension of the Visit England DEF project Activity will include:

- Coordination of at least 3 Coastal Stakeholder meetings - Expand current England’s Coast website to include content for missing parts of coast- Updating and creating new regional videos to include your destination (including filming

costs)- Expanding the England’s Coast Ambassador online training to include your destination- Marketing, social media and PR activity in Germany and the Netherlands - Trade activity in Germany, Netherlands and France as well as working with global

Ground Handlers- Domestic PR and Social Media activity- Attendance at key exhibitions – e.g. Explore GB, Vakantiebeurs and ITB

11.0 Social Media

We are continuing to concentrate on engaging with the community, even more so in the winter when lower visitor numbers result in reduced use of social media.

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We continue to create organic posts but also use targeted paid posts to back up campaign messages.

We reached over 10k followers on Instagram in January. We did this by focussing on engagement with our audience and paying for some promoted posts. We can now use the swipe up feature (provides a direct link to the website) on Instagram Stories.

Aims for 2019

Start to create specific digital content for individual platforms including short video – what works on one platform may not work on others.

Continue to manage the algorithms to boost VIOW social media performance.

Use influencers to increase our reach and authority on social media

11.1 Instagram

Total followers are now 10.4K. Follower numbers have grown by 84.5% since January 2018.

Total impressions for the period Dec – Feb are 510,222. Comparable stats for the same period 2017-18 are unavailable.

Total reach for the period Dec – Feb is 291,413. Again, the comparable stats are unavailable.

Reach and engagement dropped due to a harder push on engagement during January to reach our 10k follower goal. February is a shorter month, so stats are naturally lower.

Instagram 2019

Followers Reach Impression

s Likes Comments Engagement Rate

January 10105 94600 185784 13470 372 14.6%February 10383 83856 150173 10753 329 13.2%

Instagram 2018

Followers Reach Impressions Likes Comments Engagement

RateJanuary 5200 53224 109704 8750 191 17%February 5400 49069 98410 8958 199 19%March 5616 56317 125694 10882 311 20%April 5879 48157 86887 8342 207 18%May 6108 60718 104795 9200 193 15%June 6394 63366 119018 9650 274 16%July 6697 71114 181772 10886 225 16%August 7656 81418 196871 12130 436 15%September 8286 82771 153490 11897 439 15%October 8811 79473 202685 11315 317 14.60%

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November 9239 107689 191676 13056 289 12.40%December 9594 112957 174265 10027 245 9.10%

There have been some unexpected changes on Instagram in February – VIOW (like many accounts) lost lots of followers when Instagram were getting rid of fake accounts and bots. Although the majority of them were recovered, it has been noticed engagement has been hard this month.

Current actions: Creating content around the Discover campaign using UGC in stories ‘Discover the Isle of

Wight with…’ Using the swipe up feature which allows to direct traffic to website content – this is not

possible on any Instagram posts unless you have over 10k followers IG highlights have been streamlined to fit with new VIOW branding Aiming for 10 Instagram Takeovers this year with a focus on influencers to boost

awareness to a larger audience

There is an increased focus on UGC; sharing other people’s posts of photos that use the #PureIslandHappiness hashtag and which will appeal to the VIOW audience.

Twitter 2019

Total followers are now 14.4k. Follower numbers have grown by 14.5% over the year.

Total impressions for the period Dec – Feb are 814,401. This is up 16.93% on the previous year.

Total engagements for the period Dec – Feb are 16,857. This is up 15.35% on the previous year.

The shorter month of February results in lower stats.

Twitter 2019

Followers Impressions Engagements Engagement

RateJanuary 14,309 308301 5711 1.9%February 14400 259366 5538 2.1%

Twitter 2018

Followers Impressions Engagements Engagement Rate

Paid Impressions

January 12873 382136 7542 2.00% 180384

February 13008 298965 6801 1.70%

March 13231 398812 8328 2.10%

April 13414 331453 5218 2%

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May 13559 356651 5278 1%

June 13670 305449 5340 1.70%

July 13868 345700 6110 1.80%

August 13924 356520 6187 1.70%

September 14005 312121 5608 1.80%

October 14104 311786 4710 1.50%

November 14159 309365 4492 1.50%

December 14218 246734 4448 1.80%

Proactive engagement with Twitter users is the approach in conversations about the Isle of Wight, share IW content, support Wight BID levy payers and push out our campaigns.

Twitter conversations allow the establishment of authority as the place for Isle of Wight visitor information.

Facebook 2019

Total likes are at 38.2k. Followers numbers have increased by 8.6% over the year.

Total reach (the number of people who have seen our posts) for Dec – Feb is 1711958. This is 37% down on the previous year. This is due to algorithm changes and we haven’t been investing in boosting posts.

Total engagements (the number of people who have interacted with our posts) for Dec – Feb is 65143. This is up 13% on the previous year. This is because we have invested time in engaging with people and building our community.

Year on year (2017 – 2018) engagement increased by 80.6% as a direct result of our strategy to work with the Facebook algorithm and focus on engagement with our VIOW community.

Facebook 2019

Total Likes

Total Engagements

Total Reach

Total Organic Reach

Total Paid Reach

January 37963 24248 1105922 178348 928080February 38150 23312 195997 170841 27084Facebook 2018

Total Likes

Total Engagements

Total Reach

Total Organic Reach

Total Paid Reach

January 34721 38872 565592 259977 309909February 34879 40298 273083 262570 1141

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March 35960 79507 682215 423614 270008April 36090 24416 254555 169543 17825May 36234 28083 449055 156313 309653June 36450 34378 219248 164494 7537July 36800 53116 299346 249783 39871August 34721 38872 565592 259977 309909September 37288 24221 135079 134618 0October 37489 25343 178462 153409 26923November 37594 21503 176634 138895 39344December 37713 17583 410039 137264 275870

The approach is now about creating content around the Discover themes using User Generated Content and asking a question.

The following types of posts continue to be top 10 performers: Weekly Top Fan Photo Album Voting posts Competition posts (to website!) Posts asking a question to followers about people’s own experiences

In general, the approach for social media moves to concentrating on Facebook Advertising for our campaign.

Research and stats have revealed that ads targeted at Facebook Messenger and Instagram perform better than Facebook Feed ads when using the ‘Awareness’ objective.

12.0 BID Activities, Funding and 2018 / 19

12.1 The BID activities are quite specific and form a core part of Visit Isle of Wight’s strategies going forward. Further to the information shared at the previous board meeting the Year 3 of the Wight BID commenced on 1st September 2018. The following information is key.

Year 3 of the BID started 1st September 2018.

1,270 businesses are included this year, as per the list supplied from IOW Council.

13.0 Finance and Governance

13.1 When appointed to the position of Managing Director, it was with a key focus on financial processes and stability. This has been the focus going forward and will continue to be so until at least Mid - Summer 2019.

The introduction of a new Financial controller has brought stability and clarity to the finance processes and reporting. A separate finance report is now created along with the relevant Management Accounts, Profit & Loss accounts, short term cash-flow and bank reconciliations. Along with this these processes a systems log is being updated and put into place.

Prior to this board meeting and the issue of the relevant board papers, a meeting of the Finance & Remuneration group was held, chaired by Rob Holgate and with John

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Allen, Tom Honeyman-Brown, Will Myles and Lesley Yates in attendance. The findings and recommendations from this meeting will be discussed at the Board meeting

From a Governance perspective, a full recruitment, shortlisting and interview process took place for a new Chairperson of Visit Isle of Wight Ltd. Ian Griffiths has been selected and will attend the Board meeting for formal ratification purposes.

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