Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:31 pm on 4 November 2020.
Well, I'm pleased to say that I have been able to walk in the area that Huw describes, and it is indeed extremely attractive. I find the Garw valley irresistible, because it's so different, and yet has a landscape that I'm familiar with in mid Wales and in north Wales.
I think the key thing here is the co-operation between communities, between local authorities and their tourism officers with the local community. At the very beginning of this pandemic, we discussed with many communities the importance of ensuring that, when it was possible to return to a more balanced potential for the visitor economy, there had to be community consent, and that people wanted to have people visit their communities. Because in the traditional way of describing tourism, there is a host community, there is a visitor community, and without one you can't have the other. So I'm very keen, hopefully, that we will be able to return to that way of thinking about the industry, because it is so economically essential for our communities, but it is also so important for emphasising the partnership of nations within the United Kingdom and on mainland Europe.