{"id":6805,"date":"2017-01-21T11:27:29","date_gmt":"2017-01-21T11:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ballymenachamber.co.uk\/?p=6805"},"modified":"2017-02-15T11:31:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T11:31:22","slug":"ballymena-streets-ahead-in-festive-footfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/?p=6805","title":{"rendered":"Ballymena \u2018streets ahead\u2019 in festive footfall"},"content":{"rendered":"

BALLYMENA celebrated New Year with news that the town centre\u2019s overall customer footfall was up 8.1% for December 2016 compared to the same period for 2015.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mid and East Antrim Borough Council figures – supplied by the retail intelligence company, Springboard – represent a considerable increase in footfall and is all the more astounding given that figures for Northern Ireland, and the UK as a whole, show only a small increase of 1.1% and 0.9% respectively.<\/p>\n

Mayor of Mid and East Antrim Borough, Councillor Audrey Wales MBE said; \u201cWe are absolutely delighted with the significant increase in footfall figures for December for Ballymena town centre. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBallymena BID, supported by Council, has worked very hard to promote the town centre with a number of events organised during and before the Christmas period.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Alison Moore, Ballymena BID manager said that the added success of the Ballymena Bear advert – which has had over 135,000 views online \u2013 was also a major factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe public appearances of its stars, Bertie and Bella in and around the town, really did create a unique experience for shoppers and visitors,\u201d<\/em> she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not denying that traders are working in a challenging environment but, as we continue into the New Year, I am confident that people will support our local retailers and businesses particularly given the great mix of high street and independent retailers, coffee shops and eateries.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe town really does have something to offer everyone,\u201d<\/em> the BID manager added.<\/p>\n

The comprehensive Christmas marketing campaign by Ballymena BID was to encourage shoppers, the local community and visitors to make Ballymena their destination of choice.<\/p>\n

Through a combination of engagement with local retailers and businesses to a digital marketing presence and the hugely successful, and famous, Ballymena Bear 2 \u2018Miracle on Broughshane Street\u2019 advert, the campaign proved successful in increasing the footfall for the month of December.<\/p>\n

In addition, and in association with Mid and East Antrim Borough Council, the BID organised a range of performers and entertainers to perform in the town centre\u2019s streets every Saturday in December to ensure shoppers and visitors enjoyed their time in the town.<\/p>\n

Alison Moore continued; \u201cIt\u2019s important that we continue to market Ballymena and all that it has to offer. After all, Ballymena is one of Northern Ireland\u2019s best shopping towns in Northern Ireland.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Keep up to date with what is happening in Ballymena by visiting the Ballymena BID website\u00a0www.ballymenameans.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BALLYMENA celebrated New Year with news that the town centre\u2019s overall customer footfall was up 8.1% for December 2016 compared to the same period for 2015. Mid and East Antrim Borough Council figures – supplied by the retail intelligence company, Springboard – represent a considerable increase in footfall and is all the more astounding given […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,21],"class_list":["post-6805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","tag-latest-news","tag-local-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6807,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6805\/revisions\/6807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}