What action is the Welsh Government taking to promote Wales as a visitor destination for tourists from North America?
As highlighted in our tourism strategy, Welcome to Wales: priorities for the visitor economy 2020 to 2025, the US is a priority international market. As well as extensive work in collaboration with VisitBritain, such as the £10 million ‘Starring GREAT Britain’ campaign launched last month, Visit Wales also programmes its own activity. We actively take opportunities to grow the market for Wales including responding to heightened media attention due to the series Welcome to Wrexham which has prompted an uplift in enquiries over the last two years.
The wider work on consumer-facing marketing includes online travel agents; campaigns with partners such as Marketing Manchester using direct air routes as a gateway into North Wales; growing communications with our consumer database in the US; and a wide range of PR and media engagement. The latter has seen multiple high-profile publications such as Forbes visit Wales to write editorial pieces and already this year we have a programme of visits in place for similar tier one media titles.
An integral part of the approach to marketing Wales to US audiences is the work undertaken with the travel trade and in the last year that has included appointments, presentations and briefings and also a four-day educational visit to Wales by 18 key US operators including Avanti and Kuoni.
The experiences and destinations highlighted in the US-facing work fall under the three key pillars of landscape, adventure and culture. The whole of Wales is covered. An important subsector of this work is faith tourism. There are suggested faith tourism itineraries and multiple in-depth content pieces across the Visit Wales website and it is included in briefings given to operators and journalists. This content ranges from pilgrimage routes to detailed regional pieces on places of faith that can be visited.