Visit Newquay Website Design and Build

The Council invites response to this Invitation to Tender (ITT) from suitably qualified suppliers ("Suppliers") for the design and build of the Visit Newquay website. The Visit Newquay website is the official tourism platform operated by Newquay Town Council (NTC) and plays a pivotal role in promoting the town as a visitor destination. It supports a wide audience including tourists, residents, local businesses, and other stakeholders by offering searchable listings, events, editorial content, guides, and travel information.

The existing platform has been in place since 2015 and provides a Destination Management System (DMS) that enables back-end control of tourism products, business entries, and local seasonal events.

In late 2024 the Council commissioned a review of the site to assess the websites structure, usability, functionality and development potential given the issues that were being found around the Industry standards in mobile usability, search engine optimisation (SEO), accessibility (WCAG compliance), and user engagement tools as all of the ears have evolved significantly since the site's launch, and although upgrades have been carried out these are limited with the existing site.

And although the website remains functionally adequate, it does require modernisation to comply with relevant regulations and to ensure it remains at the forefront of providing a service the numerous users, to be compliant with industry standards.

The Key findings of the review included:

• Overall Performance: The current system was found to be satisfactory in its core performance and internal usability.
• Mobile Experience: Google Lighthouse audits identified significant performance issues on mobile devices, affecting page load times and responsiveness. These issues must be addressed to improve the user experience across platforms.

This evaluation reinforced the value of the existing system while highlighting specific areas that must be enhanced through a structured rebuild and the modernisation process. These improvements have been included within the full details of the specification.

Website Performance Statistics

Despite its age, the Visit Newquay website continues to receive strong and consistent traffic, demonstrating its value to the local tourism economy:

• Over 350,000 unique users annually
• 40,000+ visitors during peak months (July-August)
• Average of 3.8 pages per session
• Bounce rate of approximately 38%

These performance metrics underline the importance of sustaining and improving the platform through a strategic rebuild.