Block Island’s tourism industry will soon get a facelift on the Internet, when the island’s tourism council unveils its new Web portal.
The updated Web site, www.blockislandinfo.com, is expected to launch by the end of the month, enabling tourism officials to more easily highlight upcoming events and market new tourism destinations on the island, said Jessica K. Willi, executive director of the Block Island Tourism Council.
The tourism council’s current Web site, which has not been updated in at least six years, requires an outside Web master to populate and change content. Information on the site is mostly available via numerous links to the Block Island Chamber of Commerce Web site and other Web sites. As a result, the site is fairly static and often contains outdated information, Willi said.
At the same time, the new Web site is designed to run advertising, which will generate income that will defray its cost, she said.
“It’s a way for us to get our marketing message out,” Willi said. “The only space we own is this Web site, and I thought it was important to do it in our own way, rather than relying on other people.”
Tourism is Block Island’s major economic driver, with up to 85 percent of all jobs related to tourism in some way, Willi said. Block Island has just under 1,000 year-round residents, but that population swells to around 20,000 during the tourism season, which runs from Memorial Day through Labor Day. The season doesn’t end completely until after Thanksgiving, Willi said.
Many of the island’s hotels, restaurants and other businesses operate only during the tourism season. They will be opening in the next few weeks to accommodate the rush of overnight guests and ‘day trippers’ who travel to the island via ferry to spend the day on one of the island’s free beaches, walking its miles of nature trails and shopping and dining at the island’s numerous shops, galleries, antique stores and restaurants, she said.
Overnight guests can choose from a range of hotels set in historical Victorian buildings, Willi said.
“It’s definitely a resort-type island,” she said. “Tourism impacts everybody’s life out here in one way or another.”
Willi, the tourism council’s only full-time employee, said she decided soon after taking the job about a year and a half ago to update the council’s Web site. She said she needed a Web site that enabled her to easily manage and change content on a daily basis, without having to call and pay an outside vendor.
After considering several options, Block Island Tourism Council selected Pirata Media LLC, an advertising, design and marketing firm headquartered in downtown Bristol, which has also redesigned the Web sites of the Newport County Convention and Visitors Bureau and the South County Tourism Council, Willi said.
Pirata Media is currently in the midst of a total Web site redesign for the Block Island Tourism Council’s site that features attractions, events, accommodations, shopping, and dining information. The site will also contain an interactive feature that enables Block Island visitors to submit their vacation photographs for posting, wedding information and a regularly updated calendar of events.
Willi will be able to change information on the Web site from her desktop, using Pirata Media’s content-management system.
“It’s all instantly updatable, which is great because things change so often out here – businesses change hands, businesses close, new businesses open and it all happens really fast,” she said.
The Block Island Tourism Council, which shares an office building with the Block Island Chamber of Commerce, is funded by the state’s hotel tax. The tourism council works closely with the Chamber to promote the island and provides some funding to the Chamber, Willi said.
As part of that effort, the tourism council is continuing with a marketing campaign it has employed for the past couple of years, ‘Block Island Beckons.’
The campaign, which includes advertising on television, radio, in newspapers and magazines and on buses in Providence and Newport, features Block Island’s North Lighthouse and is designed to market the island as a bucolic, relaxing, seaside refuge, Willi said.
Referring to Block Island’s typical tourist, she said, “It’s usually people who just want to, sort of, get away.”
“That’s what we want people to come for, is just to relax and see the natural beauty of the island,” Willi said. “You won’t find a lot of TVs in the hotel rooms, some … don’t even have clocks. You feel like you totally have gone hundreds of miles and really you’ve only taken an hour boat ride.” •
