Shetland’s official tourism website, www.visitshetland.com has enjoyed the highest visitor numbers ever recorded this year, showing an increase on the figures for 2006 in every month.
The month with the highest number of unique visitors – those who are visiting the site for the first time - was October, with some 31,879 unique visits to the site, an increase of 82% on the same figures for last year. But the biggest increase in unique site visitors came in September, when 29,852 visits were logged compared to only 16,080 a year earlier – an increase of 86%.
Thursday the 8th of November this year proved the best day ever for the site, with a total of 2,622 visitors– thought to be a direct result of the recent press coverage surrounding the National Geographic Traveler magazine report which placed Shetland in the top five sustainable island tourism destinations in the world.
VisitShetland’s Marketing Executive, Misa Hay, said: “These figures reflect the importance of e-based marketing in today’s tourism industry, and are a testament to the quality and user-friendly nature of the site.
“We’ve added several new features to the site in the last few months, including an e-shop, image gallery, webcams, tourist radio and regular themed articles. In addition the Shetland Guide 2008 is now available for downloading in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian and Danish.”
“Developing the website is an ongoing project,” continues Misa. “User stats like these are very encouraging and reinforce our commitment to maintaining the site and also improving it in any way we can. If the past few years are anything to go by, these stats look set to grow well into 2008 and beyond.”
