Dear All,
I just wanted to inform you that 6 years of work is about to pay off. Our priorities will always be around the business and consumer priorities
only and generating ROI
, market dominance and markets that are driven by data.
As we see our economies move away from bricks and mortar, towards platform based sustainable capitalism, Visit Somerset is leading the digital revolution on behalf of the county, ahead of Boris Johnson's announcement on Monday.
It has always been Visit Somerset's vision to become a market leader in digital practise, being obsessed with our consumers, they're thought processes, BIG DATA and AI. The aim being to deliver an unrivalled user experience, for all E Commerce practise. I am delighted to tell you Visit Somerset is now well and truly on that path, already becoming a 'UK market leader’, of any DMO.
Today we have launched a new
live 'Accommodation Booking system', (at only 1% commission + £3 transaction fee) for 340 businesses to date with more to follow shortly.
Find out how to join HERE
This will help to claw back some of the possible £100 million that online travel agents take away from our county annually in commissions. Whilst we can also now boast, with £0.5m of private equity funding, the first
'Experience Booking System', all of which we will be able to shortly share with our sister organisation Visit Exmoor.
We cannot underestimate the significance of this development as we can now begin to take on the very large Air BnB and
BOOKING.COM outfits who are literally draining our accommodation and hoteliers of vital funds.
We can further announce that the software development for the first
fully automated BOT will go live in a week, as we fully embrace AI, answering all questions asked in real time from our now 4500 pages of content. This whilst gleaning LIVE persona data on our million users. This will then see us move quickly to phase two with preparation being put in place to now fully automate within 4 months
‘Accommodation' and ‘Experiences' booking.
We are now starting work with The Grand Pier on the first possible
VOICE ACTIVATED visitor information centre - again supported by our,
Deep learning, AI technology, which will translate millions of data sets in real time - supporting the consumers' FAQ. This again is ground breaking and sets us apart from the competition whilst we develop the beginnings of,
‘connected' deep learning', throughout the county, though the
'Internet of Things’. ('Think of Amazon's Alexa')
I wanted to thank you all for your continued support of Visit Somerset, as without you, none of this would be possible - This technology will set us apart in
'User Experience' and the trust that consumers will start to have in our platform, that will shortly facilitate 1500 members increasing to 2000 by year end. Making Visit Somerset a very significant platform, if not the largest digital platform of business interface and user ability in Somerset.
The year will be finished off with a pilot role out for
E Commerce with our friends at the internationally acclaimed
Somerset Toiletry Company and our famous chocolate brand,
Somerdale Chocolate - whilst we pilot our Chair's ambition to give our members
FULL autonomy to update their own pages in real time, using similar innovation to that of Amazon.
All of our decisions moving forward will be based on
intelligence and
data alone, which we hope will influence and accelerate change in other areas of the economy, that should now be relying on data as their main foundation for business and economic planning and growth. When we finally see the 5G role out, everything will become connected in ways in which we can currently only dream of, transforming our economies further. Our preparation has now begun.
I am really proud of my team and board and the incredible efforts we have gone through, to get us to this point and again thank you to all those in the public/ private sector that have supported us.
We are now - not only influencing, but are the force for change, for a future that has already arrived.
Do come back if you have any questions.
Thank you
Visit Somerset team
info@visitsomerset.co.uk