1. Introduction
Let’s keep in touch and work together. Opportunities for getting involved with our campaigns and trade events and exhibitions are usually announced in our regular newsletters and on twitter.
- Follow our industry twitter channel @visitwalesbiz
- Subscribe to receive our newsletter
- Share content - Feed in your news, stories, packages and events to Productnews@gov.wales
- Request tourism images to use in your own marketing material
- Get involved in our marketing campaigns by tagging your images and content on social media with #FindYourEpic
- If you’re an attraction or an accommodation provider have you considered joining our grading schemes?
If you’ve specific questions about running a tourism business or starting a business from scratch then contact our colleagues at Business Wales.
2. Visit Wales Regional Team
Here are your contacts in the regions:
North Wales
Andrew Forfar – AndrewWallace.Forfar@gov.wales
Mid Wales
Rebecca Rees - Rebecca.Rees2@gov.wales
South West
Ceri Jones – Ceri.Jones057@gov.wales
Jane Donald – Jane.Donald@gov.wales
South East
Edmond Ryan - Edmond.Ryan@gov.wales
For general emails to the Regional team as a whole please contact them using regionaltourism@gov.wales
3. Regional Tourism Forum
A Regional Fora was established in 2014 to drive the delivery of the tourism strategy in each region. There is a forum in each region - north, mid, south east and south west. The forum meets three/four times a year to discuss and review tourism developments and to bring together key stakeholders within the region.
The forum aims to identify:
- which individual business or destinations can work more closely together within the region
- opportunities for tourism development within the region
- the method for feeding into each forum through destination management partnerships
As a member of the Regional Forum stakeholder group, your details will be managed in line with our Privacy Notice.
North Wales Forum
Minutes - 12 May 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
Minutes - 17 March 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
Minutes - 14 January 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
Mid Wales Forum
Minutes - 30 September 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
Minutes - 09 August 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
Minutes - 20 May 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
South West Wales Forum
Terms of Reference (June 2020)
Minutes - 06 October 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
Minutes - 19 May 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
Minutes - 18 March 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
South East Wales Forum
Minutes - 22 July 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
Minutes - 13 May 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
Minutes - 16 March 2021 (Virtual Meeting (online))
4. Tourism Ambassador Programme
A Tourism Ambassador:
- is a welcoming host
- is a source of useful information
- is an expert on all things around them
- is local and passionate about their area
- is dedicated to unravelling hidden gems
- provides a unique and authentic experience
- is aware of the importance of tourism to the local economy
- helps to develop and sustain a destination
The aim of any Ambassador programme is to recruit suitable individuals to act as a welcoming host and a source of information for a destination.
The benefits that Tourism Ambassadors bring to destinations include:
- enhancing the Visitor Experience
- increased footfall
- increasing economic impact
- increasing visitor spend
- extending length of stay
- encouraging repeat visits
- improving product/local knowledge and customer service skills
- active networking, locally and nationally
- improved communication between destinations
- business development
- support for the visitor economy
Tourism Ambassador Programmes – areas covered
The current programmes each have their own distinctive offerings and regional characteristics. Each of these programmes has observed the positive effect it can have.
The following gives a snapshot of the geographic areas covered by each programme:
- Brecon Beacons
- Bridgend Perfect Day
- Denbighshire Ambassadors
- Vale of Glamorgan Ambassadors
- Destination Wrexham Ambassadors
You can find out more information about each Ambassador Programme by clicking on the links.
5. Wales Destination Management Partnerships
No matter the definition of a destination, foremost it must make sense to the visitor. A visitor’s perspective of a destination is an essential part of destination management.
Tourism destinations across Wales have been successfully developing strong public/private sector partnerships over the past few years, the key aim being to improve the approach to and communication of destination management.
To achieve this aim each destination partnership has developed a plan which sets out the priorities for tourism development within their destination over the next few years.
Please see below to find out more information on each destination management partnership and their current plans and priorities:
North |
Mid |
East |
West |
6. Food Tourism
Welsh Government defines food tourism as:
‘any activity that promotes a high quality, distinctive, local and sustainable food experience linked to a particular place’
The Food Tourism Action Plan for Wales 2015-2020 is still available and we continue to work with partners and businesses, encouraging them
- to highlight local/Welsh food and drink to visitors
- to offer local/Welsh produce on menus and in retail.
Offering an authentic Welsh food and drink experience helps make your business unique.
Our simple to use toolkits can help you improve your food offer and visitor experience.
Hints, tips, sample menus and best practice that will be useful to your business.
If you would like to continue straight to the self-audit questionnaire section and action plan, these are available to download separately
More hints and tips on offering a great Welsh breakfast with sample menus.
Helps you to plan, develop and improve food tourism in your area or network.
A toolkit that provides help to plan, develop and improve your food festival, or any event.
7. Sustainable Tourism
Beautiful landscapes and coastlines are the very foundation of tourism in Wales. We rely on the integrity of the natural environment. Sustainability will always be a key priority when developing tourism in Wales.
To be sustainable, tourism needs to:
- consider the needs and quality of life of local communities
- enhance and respect culture and local traditions
- contribute to local economic prosperity
- minimise damage to the environment
The benefits of having a sustainable business include:
- conservation and protection of the environment
- investment in your local community
- money savings
- improvement of the quality of your product
- increased marketing opportunities
Visit Wales has developed this online and interactive Sustainable Tourism Toolkit. A report gets produced based on the answers you give. The report suggests ways of creating a more sustainable business.
8. Tourism Association sustainability toolkit
The independent tourism association review has been responsible for:
- the development of the tool kit “Making your tourism association more sustainable". This offers great advice and identifies many exemplar tourism associations
- improvements to communications including
- increased twitter activity – information is communicated regularly across our twitter accounts with an increase in our followers. Get involved by following us on @VisitWalesBiz and @CroesoCymruBus
- sharing of communication schedules to encourage the contribution of appropriate content. To increase local interest in newsletters and bulletins
- better engagement between tourism association members and regional engagement forums. Improving the flow of information between Visit Wales and the various areas of the tourism industry they represent. So take time to acquaint yourselves with the forum members in your area
9. Travel Trade and Business Events
Updating your information on traveltrade.visitwales.com and meetinwales.com
Top tips are now available to guide you through updating your business information for an epic listing
Keep Visit Wales updated
Let us know when you have any relevant timely news for the Travel Trade, by emailing productnews@gov.wales. We can then:
- update our website news page
- include in our product updates that we put together for Trade events
- update content for our Travel Trade and Business Events e-newsletters
- include in our presentations and webinars
- share with colleagues in other departments, our agencies and VisitBritain offices.
This is a really good opportunity to highlight your new product to the Travel Trade community.
Travel Trade
The travel trade has a full range of organisations that operate as intermediaries in the travel and tourism industry. These typically include:
- tour operators
- coach operators
- wholesalers
- destination management companies and inbound operators
- travel agents
Our role is to influence buyers in the travel trade. Our aim is to encourage these buyers to bring business to Wales. Our travel trade work involves establishing and maintaining relationships with individuals and companies who currently include Wales in their programmes, or who have the potential to include Wales in the future.
If you’d like to generate additional sales to increase your visitor numbers and fill spare capacity, you may wish to consider working with the leisure travel trade. For a flavour of our work in this area please go to the Travel Trade Website.
- Working with the Travel Trade
- Getting the most from Travel Trade events
- Interested in attending Travel Trade events?
- Marketing your product to the international Travel Trade
For further information:
Travel Trade Website
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Or contact the team at traveltradewales@gov.wales
Business Events - #MeetInWales
Are you interested in attracting meetings, conferences, incentives and business events?
The Business Events team role is to raise Wales’ profile and reputation as a viable business events destination to the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conference, Events/ Exhibition) market. The aim is to ‘sell’ Wales to associations, corporate clients, agencies and incentive buyers and influence decision makers to bring and conduct their events in Wales.
Wales is committed to attend a series of key B2B events and exhibitions to raise the profile of Wales within the UK and on an International scale with opportunities for partners and stakeholders to partner.
For more information on attending these events, visit our Business Events page, or email us: meetinwales@gov.wales.
For further information:
Business Events – a helpful glossary & guide
Email: meetinwales@gov.wales
10. Promoting your business
Our consumer website has a search feature to find:
- accommodation
- activities
- attractions
- events
To add or update your business or event details, contact your local representative.
11. Event Wales
Event Wales is Wales’ major events strategy delivered by Welsh Government.
We are building and sustaining a portfolio of world class events which support economic growth and raise Wales’ international profile and reputation.
Global brands such as Ryder Cup, WOMEX, Rugby World Cup, the Ashes, UEFA and Volvo Ocean Race have all chosen to bring their events to Wales.
We have also supported the development of a vibrant and dynamic portfolio of home grown events including
- Green Man
- the Machynlleth Comedy Festival
- Beyond the Border Storytelling Festival
- FOCUS Wales
- the Sandman, Snowman and Slateman Triathlon series.
See: Our Event Wales Strategy 2010-2020
About Event Wales
12. The Wales Way
The Wales Way is one of the most ambitious undertakings in our tourism action plan: a family of three routes, distinct but complementary, that grant access to the best of our nation. Together, they make up a powerful statement of what we value about Wales and how we wish to present ourselves to the world.
13. Helping Guests and Visitors to Stay Safer in the Outdoors
At an online session hosted by Visit Wales, the tourism businesses had the opportunity to hear from the RNLI and Adventure Smart UK on how to help guests and visitors stay safer in the outdoors this summer.