Campaign gave tourism £180m cash boost

A report in Wales’ Western Mail says that innovative advertising campaigns to attract visitors into Wales brought £180m of business into the nation last year, figures have revealed. 

Welsh tourism bosses claim the amount was spent in Wales in 2006 by tourists who would not have visited if it had not been for the campaigns.

A series of posters and adverts, focusing on Wales’ natural assets and quiet pace of life, have earned an extra £80m from the UK tourist market alone, according to Visit Wales – the Assembly Government’s tourism department.

According to Visit Wales, their marketing campaigns were solely responsible for:

** £35m of revenue from those on activity holidays, including walking, mountain biking, and fishing;

£42m from business visitors attending conferences in Wales;

£1.2m from those coming to play Wales’ golf courses ahead of the 2010 Ryder Cup, to be played in Celtic Manor, Newport; and

£20m from international visitors.

A specially designed campaign was launched last year to bring in extra tourists from overseas, focussing on promoting Wales in specific overseas countries in ways that would appeal to those most likely to visit.

Those campaigns are estimated to have contributed £20m to the total £358m spent by foreign tourists in Wales in 2006.

Considerable resources have been devoted in recent years to promoting outdoors activities, including highlighting Wales as a destination for pursuits such as walking and mountain biking.

Visit Wales claims that 37,000 hiking trips were made here last year by people who requested information from the service, bringing in £34m, of which £13m was as a direct result of marketing campaigns.

Former Conservative AM Glyn Davies, who has recently been elected as President of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, said that the marketing campaigns were right to focus on the country’s natural resources.

“Wales sells itself to a large extent,” he said, “Over the years, the advertising has focused on the landscape, and I have seen that questioned, but I don’t agree with that.”

The basic attraction of Wales is that it’s a land that people can appreciate. The mountains of Scotland in many ways are too big to be within the reach of normal people, whereas people can easily explore the Welsh countryside.”

Mr Davies said it was crucial for businesses that rely on the landscape, like mountain bike firms, to ensure they interact sensitively with their environment.

Julian Burrell, chairman of the Wales Tourism Alliance, said spreading the word about the Welsh landscape was crucial to attracting people interested in activities like mountain biking.

He said, “The activity market is generally activity-led, rather than place-led.” “People will decide to go mountain biking, rather than deciding to go to Wales, so you need to make sure that when they decide to do that, they think of these images of Wales, and decide to come here.”

However, Mr Burrell warned that the overseas tourism market could be damaged by the recent terrorist car bomb attempts, although he added many operators were now braced for an upturn in domestic visitors as a result.

The figures come a few weeks after it was revealed that the tourism industry is now worth more than £3.3bn to the Welsh economy, with last year’s marketing campaign by Visit Wales centred on an unashamed refusal to promote Wales as a 21st-century destination.

Publicity material proudly boasted about how modern telecommunications are interrupted by mountain ranges, fast food is beaten by fresh food, and historical buildings beat modern development.

One poster claimed that Wales had more than 100 times more castles than branches of Starbucks, while another portrayed a picture of an old rustic pub with the words “Look, no theme”.

The campaign won a series of awards from tourism and marketing organisations.

A lesson for some Aussie States perhaps?

Report by The Mole