A new ‘mobile-first’ website has been launched for the Visit Bristol brand to better showcase the city’s independent spirit for smaller devices while also making it more sustainable.
Commissioned by Visit West, the destination marketing organisation for the region, the new design has images chosen to reflect Bristol’s colourful, cultural, and unique vibe and capture the user’s attention. 
But it also takes into account the fact that more than two-thirds of the traffic to the website – which receives around 3.5m visits a year – is via mobile.
As a result, there are now scrolling features, bold colours for highlights and easy-to-use filters.
VisitBristol.co.uk also puts sustainability at the forefront of its build by reducing its carbon footprint – with more consistent font weights and sizes, compressed images and sparingly placed video content.
In addition, accessibility features are an extremely important part of the design, with accessible fonts, high colour contrasts and spacing. 
Visit West said there were now also clear starting points lead to information that is presented in a simpler, more inspiring way to improve the user experience and help the user navigate easily around the site.
Visit Bristol’s social media channels have increased presence on the new website using ‘CrowdRiff’ galleries with user-generated content displaying eye-catching and authentic images of the city.
Content and inspiration from locals and experts in the city feature across many pages, with blogs woven into the website more organically, offering users the most up-to-date and relevant information.
The new website also offers fresh sponsorship opportunities for members, businesses and events, with sponsored content clearly marked as such.
The website was designed by US-based Simpleview, the travel and tourism industry’s leading global provider of digital marketing systems and technologies for destinations, in collaboration with the team at Visit West.
Development of the site will continue over the next few months with more user- generated content, interactive maps, a first-time visitor page, dynamic content and micro-sites.
Visit West managing director Kathryn Davis said a huge amount of behind-the-scenes work had gone into developing the new site.
“We have been working with partners locally and with the team at Simpleview to actively reduce the carbon impact of the site, by employing new techniques and develop a new way of delivering visitor inspiration and information,” she added.
“This is the sixth site launch by Visit West since its inception in 2021, and so the team should be proud of their huge achievement in raising the bar again in digital destination marketing.”
Visit West was formed 2021 to bring together the Destination Bristol, Visit Bath and Meet Bristol & Bath Convention Bureau brands.
The tourism sector across the West of England is worth £2.13bn and supports 41,000 jobs.
