Wales has an opportunity to promote itself as a staycation destination as the UK emerges from Covid-19, West Wales entrepreneur Dawn Lyle said in the latest Wales Business Review hosted by former First Minister Carwyn Jones.
Swansea-based Dawn, who is founder of 3D visualisation company iCreate and co-founder of regional business network 4theRegion, said Wales needed to move quickly towards helping tourism operators and hospitality businesses make themselves Covid-safe.
She said:
“Across Britain we’ll see less overseas travel for quite some time, so there’s this new appetite for holidays closer to home, and I think that’s a real angle that Wales should capitalise on. I’m sure other parts of the UK will do likewise.”
She added:
“What does tourism look like under social distancing? If we’re still trying to be careful about the virus, how can tourism businesses start to operate again safely? Maybe that’s something for Visit Wales to look at as a quick, immediate response; help businesses to certify themselves under some sort of Wales Covid-safe certification. That could be used in the marketing as soon as people are allowed to travel to Wales.”
Dawn said three things need to happen to allow the tourism sector to recover: travel restrictions need to be lifted; people need to want and feel safe to travel; and people in local communities, particularly in rural areas, need to want tourists to come.
She added:
“So there’s lots of hurdles to overcome, but in that time it’s a great opportunity for us to get ready to promote Wales as a staycation destination but also for all of us in Wales to take our holidays closer to home as well. That’s one way we can all help that sector to recover, by keeping our own holiday spending here in Wales with local businesses.”
Ben Cottam, Head of External Affairs at FSB Wales, said the tourism businesses may need support until next year, including a tourism business hibernation scheme which would give them funding support to tide them over into the next season.
He added:
“We need to regard tourism in an entirely different light; we need to regard it as a strategic economic asset for Wales, and we need that asset to be as healthy as possible, when that opportunity comes, possibly in the early stages of next year, where actually we are going to see a restriction in the number of people who either can or want to travel abroad. We need the industry to be firing on all cylinders to capitalise on that local market share.”
Ben said it was difficult to foresee what the long-term effects of the pandemic on the economy would be, but that our cities could be vulnerable if there was a large-scale adoption of home working.
He said:
“We have a model which is predicated in some areas to attracting multiple hundreds of jobs to offices within our city centres. It may well be that we need to look at that and reassess that through the prism of whatever that future state [of our economy] might be.”
Dawn said Wales should promote what was happening in the country and build on its international relationships, exemplified by its recently joining the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership alongside New Zealand, Scotland and Iceland.
She added:
“I think there’s an opportunity to start to build a real national brand based on a greener, cleaner, healthier, happier, more equal economy, and to be brave and bold about doing those things.
“My outlook on life is that, when you know who you are and you’re true to your principles, clients, customers, and investors come to you, because they sense that confidence and they see that you know what you’re about.”
Wales Business Review is a weekly podcast published every Friday on Business News Wales and hosted by former First Minister Carwyn Jones.
