I’m delighted to be writing this inaugural Blog for the new ETAG website. As a virtual organisation, the website is very much the “home” of ETAG and the cornerstone of our ambition to create and support a strong, thriving tourism community in Edinburgh.
As many of you reading this will have experienced, the creation of a new website is a challenging task. It often raises fundamental issues about your core business – what’s your brand? Who’s your target market? How do we find and then engage with them? And that’s before you get to the really tough stuff, like which font to use!!
It’s been the same for us and what started out as the seemly straightforward task of updating our existing website has sparked some interesting discussions about the role of ETAG. For me, that’s been really useful and reinforced the view that “if ETAG didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it”, to meet the need for an umbrella organisation which brings together all the various and complex elements that make up Edinburgh’s tourism sector.
There’s always room for improvement and innovation and the new website gives us a great platform to continue to do that and ensure that Edinburgh goes from strength to the strength as one of Europe’s most successful visitor destinations.
I can’t sign off without saying a massive thank you to the team behind the new website, particularly, Kim Robertson (the Project Manager), Pooka (the web designer) and Richard Kington (Project Champion), who have all put in a put in a huge effort. I know that they are all keen to hear your thoughts on the new site.
Just remember, with website development it’s a journey, not a destination!!