After more than eight months of planning and execution, the Regional Municipality of York, in partnership with the York Region Arts Council, Metroland Media Group and Central Counties Tourism, has officially launched the overhauled
York Scene website, "the official source for all things to see and do in York Region."
"The new website puts a lot of emphasis on being user friendly," says Charles A. Banfield, marketing coordinator with York Region. "There are bigger icons, there's an emphasis on collapsing together various categories of events and different venues, and other activities and so on. The goal was really just to make it easier to search and easier to use."
Indeed, the site, which allows users to search by tag (i.e. "Festivals and Fairs," "Jazz," and "Outdoors") by municipality, and by calendar date, has an almost intuitively easy navigation system.
Among other events, York Scene's new front page features the Richmond Hill Rib Fest (July 26-28), the Newmarket Jazz Fest (August 2-4) and a slew of summer camp opportunities.
"There has also been a great deal of effort make this website and the Central Counties Tourism website interconnected," adds Banfield.
The Central Counties website, a tourism website which features York, Durham and the Hills of Headwaters regions, is, as Banfield puts it "an outward looking website" in that its main purpose is to draw people from outside the Regional Tourism Organization (RTO) area into the region. RTOs, set up by the Ontario government in 2009, are the industry-led organizations that headup Ontario's 13 tourism regions.
The updated York Scene website, which is primarily geared at York residents, is now integrated with the more general and outward-looking tourism website.
"What happens, whenever a new event takes place in York Region and is listed on the York Scene website it is automatically updated to the central county tourism website and vis versa," says Banfield.
The York Scene website is the first Ontario website to automatically integrate with its larger RTO.
“York Region is proud to celebrate the artistic and cultural diversity that make York Region a great place to live, work and visit,” stated York Region Chairman and CEO Bill Fisch in a press release. “Yorkscene.com is also an unmatched way of showcasing York Region’s variety of industries, including many small and medium-sized businesses that contribute to the vitality of our strong and healthy economy.”
Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Charles A. Banfield, Marketing Coordinator, York Region