A cutting edge one-stop-shop for information on living, working, visiting and doing business in Limerick
Limerick.ie is best in class local authority platform, with 1m unique visitors targeted per annum
The latest statement of Limerick’s resurgence as one of Ireland’s fastest growing centres was made today with the launch of a ground-breaking digital platform that will act as a one-stop-shop for information on living, working, visiting and doing business.
With its economic renaissance already anchoring the Mid-West as Ireland’s fastest growing region, the newly developed integrated digital platform – Limerick.ie –will be a dynamic window to all key information about life in the resurgent the city and county.
Launched by Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Patrick O’Donovan TD at City Hall today, (Tuesday) Limerick.ie is the most advanced digital platform of its kind developed by any Irish local authority, integrating over 15 sites in one comprehensive location.
Mayor of Limerick City and County, Cllr Kieran O’Hanlon, said the platform will go way beyond the standard local authority site. “This new Limerick.ie site will build a new ‘Digital Limerick’. It will provide citizens with all information about services the local authority requires but will also act as an official guide for those visiting the city and county and for people and organisations, including inward investorswho want to do business in or with Limerick. They all can instantly discover more of what Limerick has to offer,” he said.
“With the existing Limerick.ie attracting 800,000 unique visitors every year, the new digital experience platform is expected to break the 1m unique visitor barrier per annum within three years. The site is based across three easily navigable pillars – Discover, Business and Council – yet has thousands of pages to explore in what is the biggest single online portal for any local authority in Ireland.”
Led by Limerick City and County Council, Limerick.ie has been designed by specialist Growth Marketing Agency ‘Dara Creative’ and built in co-operation with Annertech, with full content and technology support from the Council’s Marketing and Digital Strategy teams. The site has been designed around its users so that each have their own private log-in in a ‘My Limerick’ section. This enables them to create an individualised profile of interests, build itineraries on what to see and do in Limerick and see all their business dealings with the Council.
The new platform is fully mobile ready and features more than 2,000 attractions, services, community groups and businesses with more than 1,000 Limerick events currently listed on the site, from social events to council meetings, while an estimated 2,000 new Limerick events will be published on the site every year. There is also a feedback option on each page so that the local authority can continuously improve the service.
Furthermore, Limerick.ie will also receive and publish relevant content from members of the public and in doing so will act as a promotional tool for organisations across the city and county.
Said Head of Marketing and Communications at Limerick City and County Council Laura Ryan: “Limerick has had a dramatic turnaround and is today a competitive, modern, vibrant and exciting location for living, doing business and visiting. We wanted to deliver an integrated platform to showcase all that this new Limerick represents and we have achieved that with Limerick.ie.Visitors to Limerick or people that live here can instantly find out what is going on, new businesses can find out what Limerick has to offer and existing businesses can find out about supports and information that may help them scale or grow.Citizens can also find out what services the Council offers and engage with us.
“Because users can help generate content for the site, it allows them to have a role themselves in promoting Limerick and their own interests here. All the data we can gather from the ‘My Limerick’ section also allows us to plan for the future marketing of Limerick in a smart way and it will very much inform us also about how we promote Limerick in the future.”
The launch event was attended by over 200 guests from across a range of sectors and interests across Limerick. The site will be promoted digitally but also off-line through a Limerick.ie branded bus roadshow that will take it to a range of locations and events across the county through to the end of May.
Head of Digital Strategy at Limerick City and County Council, Dr Mihai Bilauca: “This has been a mammoth undertaking for the local authority, which engaged 800 people across online surveys and focus groups to canvas their preferences and requirements from such a site. This new site sees Limerick reach a new level of digital maturity.
“As broadband will become available for each household under the National Broadband plan, it is essential that Limerick.ie is ready to provide citizens, visitors and businesses access to an increasing number of online services.Limerick.ie is a groundbreaking concept for Local Government in Ireland in that it changes the way it presents content to its users in order to meet their specific needs.”
A key deliverable under the developing Limerick Digital Strategy, this integrated platform will deliver not just an international audience to the city but also the county, including its towns. "This is only the beginning of the Smart Limerick journey,” Dr Bilauca added. "Our aim is to integrate, by 2018, a collaboration platform and a public participation option that will support our citizens to engage through digital channels in the development of their communities. We aim to integrate our Customer Services with Limerick.ie so we can better serve people from remote areas over video channels while providing access to data, analytics and reports through a new Insight Limerick data service to be launched before the end of 2017."
Full details of the Limerick.ie roadshow can be found at www.limerick.ie/discover/limerickie-roadshow.
