WHEN he moved to Bournemouth two decades ago, Gordon Fong recalls that many friends from the North East didn’t want to visit him in the resort.

In the years since then, he has seen the town’s national reputation transformed by changing demographics and the boom in its creative and digital sector.

Today he is CEO of the Westbourne-based IT group Kimcell Ltd, but in 1996 he was hired by the dial-up internet provider 4-Sight. He says there must have been around 20 businesses started by ex-employees of the business, which was later bought by WAM!NET.

“Back in 1996, when I told everybody in the North East I was moving to Bournemouth, they had this perception it was all pensioners, the ‘blue rinse brigade’ in Bournemouth,” he said.

“Within three months I thought: ‘This is heaven. I love the pace of life, I love the beach, I love the weather’.

“For about three years people wouldn’t come and visit. Once they started to visit, two of them bought holiday flats down here. They thought, ‘Hey, we love this’.”

The universities and language schools were already introducing a younger culture to the town and its business start-up scene built on that, he believes.

Born in Scotland to parents who had moved from Hong Kong, Mr Fong grew up in the North East. He read maths at Birmingham University and did a masters at Sunderland in computer and mathematical modelling.

Three years after moving to Bournemouth, he was approached by director Tim Harris about joining Kimcell.

The business consists of three brands. Datacenta Hosting provides web and server hosting from Bournemouth for government and local businesses. Clients include the Poole-based transport ticketing specialist Parkeon – which was named Company of the Year at last year’s Dorset Business Awards – as well as holiday park company Hoburne and Collaborative Software.

The other brands are X-Net, which provides senior consultants to central government on IT projects, and e-Mango, which provides online tools for trade associations and councils. The companies employ 14 staff and up to 30 consultants.

Mr Fong has seen the town’s digital sector survive the end of the 1990s dotcom bubble and the 2008 crash, then expand to become the fastest-growing in the country.

Mr Fong, 48, is an accomplished karate enthusiast and a food and drink enthusiast responsible for the community website Southbournegroove.com.

He sees his company getting more involved in the local digital economy as well as its national government work.

He says businesses in the town are winning a reputation for quality work at less than London rates. But he says it is important that Bournemouth and Poole, with their growing number of creative and digital agencies, market to a wider area.

“If 450 agencies are competing for just Dorset, I’ve got a slight concern,” he said.

“I would be concerned that we’re creating all these start-ups but if they’re focusing just within Dorset and Bournemouth, there may be a crunch time,” he said.

“If they’re using this as a base and targeting Dorset, London and the M4 corridor, that’s huge potential.”