Flagler County will have a new tourism website by Jan. 1, one that officials hope will be more user-friendly.
BUNNELL — Flagler County commissioners have unanimously approved a $284,475 contract for a new tourism website.
The issue had been tabled from the May 21 meeting because the commissioners wanted more information before voting on Monday.
The cost of the site includes $46,475 for its initial design and four years, three months of service at a rate of $56,000 per year.
The county received 11 bids, none local.
The winning proposal had been submitted by Simpleview LLC of Tucson, Arizona, which was neither the high nor low bidder. However, it offered features attractive to county staff and the committee tasked with ranking proposals.
“We are confident that our website is really the gateway to our destination when it comes to the perception of our visitors, so we want to put our best foot forward,” said Matt Dunn, executive director for tourism development, at a May 29 workshop session.
That meeting was dedicated in part to presentation of the commissioners’ requested information.
At that time, Dunn apologized for the earlier shortage of information, saying that he had been trying to move the issue forward before the current contract expires.
During the workshop, Amy Lukasik, director of marketing for the county Tourist Development Council, told the commission that the new system offers a number of features unavailable with the current vendor, Just Program LLC of Orlando.
These include greater ease of updating content. Lukasik said that changing a page under the current system takes about two hours. With Simpleview, changes can be made instantly. Under the current contract, there are substantial fees every time a change is made to the site.
Also, she said staff had been looking for a company with a “mobile first mentality.” With more people gathering information on their mobile devices, she said the site has to work as well on a smartphone as it does on the computer.
“That is the number one area that we are missing out on,” she said.
In addition, Simpleview handles its own search engine optimization, which accounts for $2,000 of the monthly fee. This feature uses keyword tagging to give a site greater representation on search engines, such as Google.
This places local businesses and attractions more readily in front of potential visitors. Though members of the public can reach any site if they specifically seek it out, optimization can bring up Flagler County’s site when someone searches simply for a place to eat or vacation.
Simpleview also offers the ability to blog and post special alerts, which can prove useful if tourists are following the progress of a tropical storm, as well as Yelp Pro and TripAdvisor integration, which can also bring people to the website.
The county currently pays between $59,000 and $61,000 per year for its site, depending upon variations that arise during the year. Just Program’s proposal for the redesign came in lower than that of Simpleview, at $36,000.
Between $10,000 and $12,000 of the current annual figure is spent on search engine optimization, which is not handled by Just Program but by a separate company. According to County Administrator Craig Coffey, the current vendor optimizes articles only, whereas Simpleview optimizes the entire site.
The site is funded by the county bed tax, which is restricted and can only be used to market county tourism. The current contract with Just Program ends Sept. 30. Since the Simpleview site will not be ready to go online until the first of the year, the Just Program contract will be extended to cover the three months of transition.
The county tourism website is at visitflagler.com.