Key Findings & Conclusions

• This report presents the findings of a survey undertaken amongst Visit Devon members undertaken during March and April 2022. It was commissioned by the Visit Devon Board and undertaken by The South West Research Company Ltd. during March and April 2022. • The survey was conducted online and Visit Devon were responsible for sharing the link and promoting participation amongst members which was done initially via an E-newsletter sent out on Monday 7th March 2022 and followed up by several reminders over the period when the survey was live.

Key Findings:

• 63% of members were accommodation providers. • 38% of the members operating an accommodation businesses were serviced accommodation providers whilst 37% were self catering providers. • 65% of members have belonged to the organisation for more than 3 years. • 23% of members had heard about Visit Devon through its website, 17% through a recommendation and 15% had been contacted by them. • Three quarters of members were aware that Visit Devon is a not-for-profit community interest company. • 83% of members were also members of other local destination marketing organisations. • 73% of members currently follow Visit Devon on their social media platforms. • The vast majority of members (95%) said email was their preferred method of communicating with Visit Devon. • 92% of members’ business comes from the UK/Domestic market. • 43% of members’ business comes from over a 2.5 hours drive time. • Around a quarter of members (23%) have contacted Visit Devon for advice, guidance or support since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. • 64% of business (who contacted Visit Devon for advice, guidance or support since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic) said the level of service they received was ‘very good’ and a further 29% said it was ‘good’. • The factors which members considered of most importance to the overall success of their business were; the Visit Devon website, Visit Devon running domestic marketing campaigns and Visit Devon social media campaigns.

Key Findings & Conclusions

• 47% of members rated the current Visit Devon website as a ‘good’ promotional tool for their business and a further 20% as a ‘very good’ one. • 47% of members also rated the current Visit Devon website as a ‘good’ promotional tool for the county and a further 37% as a ‘very good’ one. • The top five factors which members feel are the most importance things that Visit Devon should be focussing on are: 1) Promoting Devon as a destination via social media campaigns; 2) Promoting Devon as a destination via the Visit Devon website; 3) To be a leading and lobbying voice for the visitor economy across Devon with government, Visit England and Devon County Council; 4) Promoting / featuring the members' businesses and 5) To promote the visitor economy on national and local media. • 78% of members would recommend Visit Devon to other businesses in their community.

Conclusions:

Whilst we know that the organisation worked hard in trying to promote the survey through newsletters, correspondence and direct contact with members this still only produced a low sample (less than 10%), however, it is worth noting;

• Overall, the results clearly demonstrate that those members who took part in the survey think very highly of the organisation and the services it provides with over three quarters saying that they would recommend it to other businesses in their community which is good news for Visit Devon!

• The differential between the proportion of members who feel the Visit Devon website is ‘good’ or ‘very good’ for their own business (67%) compared with the proportion who feel the same about it as a promotional tool for the county (84%) shows there is room for improvement here in terms of the website meeting the individual needs of businesses with 20% considering it neither ‘good nor poor’ and 3% considering it to be ‘poor’.

• Whilst the proportion of members contacting the organisation for advice, guidance or support since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic was relatively low (23%), almost all of those who did so (93%) considered the service they received to have been ‘good’ or ‘very good’.

• Members think that marketing to domestic markets is most important to them and should be the organisations key focus moving forward, along with being a representative and lobbying voice for the Devon visitor economy.

Results