Part of 2. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure – in the Senedd at 1:34 pm on 19 July 2017.
Yes, I appreciate the points made by the Member. The challenge of getting international visitors out of London is one that faces all regions outside of London. Wales is not unique in that regard. But we have redoubled our efforts to attract visitors to Wales, and the results, I think, are quite impressive, in terms of all types of visits. We saw an increase of 15 per cent last year on the previous year. In terms of day visits, we’ve seen numbers increase to above 103 million last year, and, in terms of international visitors, trips were up last year by 10.8 per cent compared with the year before. In terms of spend, which is really what matters to businesses in the visitor economy, the sums that were spent increased by more than 8 per cent. It is now a fact that, when visitors come to Wales on day trips, they now spend more per head than is the UK average. But we don’t want to rest there—we want to continue to attract more international visitors to Wales and that’s why we’re increasing our marketing activities, making sure that we attend more travel expos abroad, bringing in more tourism experts and travel writers on familiarity trips, to get more people interested in the incredible offer that we have in our country.