The Port of Cork anticipates 94 cruises coming into Ireland this year totalling 188,844 passengers and 80,000 crew. According to a report by afloat On average, cruise ship passengers spend €81 during their time in Cork with 42% of this money being spent on shopping, 32% on excursion travel and 17% on food and drink. Typically crew spend approximately €29, with most of the money being spent on food and drink and/or shopping.
There is no better time to be a cork city business owner and no better time to maximise on the opportunity from the tourist trade. The key is to attract tourists to your business and the best way to do that is to be found easily online. 72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store within five miles so you would be silly not to have a great online presence.
There are two main benefits to having a good online presence and being easily found by tourists;-
You Are Searchable
To be found online, you need good search engine optimisation (SEO). This means your business content is formatted to make it easy for search engines to find your website, read the content and index you accordingly in relation to relevant searches. A study found that 93% of internet traffic comes via a search engine. Search engines want to produce the best lists of results it can for each person’s search. As we now know, online presence isn’t limited to your website. There are lots of things that go into showing up first or on the first page of results when a person searches something that relates to what your business does. Without an online presence, of course, you won’t appear in any search. You need to be there to be found.
Use Of Geo-Targeting
Geo-targeting is a method of determining the geolocation of a web user and delivering different content to that visitor based on their location. To drive awareness and foot traffic to your business, you can run geo-targeted destination marketing campaigns to reach locations and people within a certain radius of your business. By geo-targeting specific locations, you are able to not only increase awareness for your business but also reach those consumers that had an affinity towards travelling to the Cork City area.
If you want to learn more about how to increase your business from the tourist trade or to establish a better online presence then call 3B1 on 021-234-8038 or visit us online to find out more.