GUEST COLUMN:
Ben Cottam
Head of Wales
Federation of Small Businesses
Visit Wales recently unveiled ‘Croeso’ as the theme for attracting tourists to Wales in 2025.
To my mind, it’s a great theme around which we can all gather – not just businesses within the tourism sector. ‘Croeso’ not only puts the language – one of our greatest cultural assets – at the heart of showing Wales to the world, but any business can adapt the notion of a ‘Welsh welcome to all’ to suit their own needs and their own customers.
Tourism is one of Wales’s most important industries, accounting for almost 12% of employment and a similar percentage of Welsh enterprises. Those enterprises are core to our communities and their offering represents our shop window for the world.
However, tourism is still only slowly recovering from the Covid pandemic and the cost-of-doing-business crisis and it’s an industry which on top of that, also has to adapt to the unpredictability of the Welsh climate!
Despite an impressive offering, Wales unfortunately underperforms against other nations of the UK in attracting sufficient international visitors and the higher spending which comes with them. Welsh Government’s figures show that Wales has received the lowest visitor and spend figures across the UK, except for the North East of England since 2019.
In its report on ‘Wales as an International Destination’ during the last Parliament, the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Select Committee pointed to the need for better cooperative working between Visit Wales and Visit Britain to jointly promote Welsh tourism to the world and as part of the wider UK tourism brand. This echoes recommendations in FSB’s own study on Welsh Tourism two years ago. There are many other points of note in the Select Committee’s report and these need to be carried forward into the new Parliament.
With a new Government in Westminster, we know the industry will join with FSB in the strong expectation of a more effective and ambitious partnership between UK and Welsh Governments in promoting Wales and its amazing tourism economy. If we are to cement economic growth, and realise the Prime Minister’s first Mission, we have to ensure that the tourism sector is central to that effort and its businesses are supported to grow.
I write this during a ‘mini heatwave’ which has fortunately ended some weeks of unseasonably cool weather. While we can’t do anything about the weather, we can work together to implement measures to grow a more resilient and dynamic tourism economy. To be successful, the theme of ‘Croeso’ – establishing and promoting our welcome to the world needs to be shared by governments and the industry alike. It’s a welcome to all and owned by us all.
