Waimate website pitch approved

Waimate is getting a marketing website.

The district’s council has decided spend up-to $40,000 on a council-owned but externally operated website to market the district on the web.

That funding would help pay for the site’s first two years - and open the opportunities afforded in the district to the world.

Councillors on Tuesday also decided the council should seek expressions of interest from ‘‘appropriate parties’’ before the next full council meeting in six weeks time.

They had originally been asked by council chief executive Stuart Duncan to seek expressions from ‘‘local’’ providers.

Waimate mayor Craig Rowley urged councillors to ‘‘strike the iron while it is hot and not be seen sitting on our hands’’.

There was a ‘‘positive momentum’’ for such a website following public feedback out of the district’s regional economic development strategy meetings, he said.

Duncan, who asked the council to support the website idea, said there feedback indicated the ‘‘number one priority’’ for the council must be to better market the region.

His proposal, outlined to councillors at the full council meeting, was to develop and provide a website that drew-in visitors while promoting community happenings.

The council already had its own website, but it focused on council business and was not adequately maintained and under-utilised, he said.

The marketing site have an appropriate marketing emblem - an icon, such as a wallaby, a Clydesdale horse or a strawberry, he suggested in his report.

Councillor Tom O’Connor said he had reservations on advertising for expressions of interest as the district’ economic development strategy had yet to be completed.

In addition, the website might be too tourism focused, he said.

Councillor David Anderson echoed those sentiments, worrying the ‘‘horse was put before the cart’’. Even so, he and O’Connor voted to progress the idea.

Anderson said he was strongly against a wallaby being the icon of the website. The wallaby was a pest, he said. Duncan told councillors tourism was an intrinsic part of regional economic development.

Recent Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment figures suggested visitors spent an estimated $12 million in the district in the year to January, Duncan noted.

A separate marketing website would providing a search engine optimised chance to promote the district’s ‘‘opportunities’’.

Councillors are also advised modern marketing occurs in Facebook groups, online message boards, online newspapers Twitter accounts and user applications.

The plan would be funded with $20,000 from surplus Alpine Energy Dividend income and a further $20,000 from the same dividend in 2018/2019.