The Tourism Sector

Part of 3. Questions to the Minister for Economy – in the Senedd at 3:18 pm on 31 January 2023.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:18, 31 January 2023

Well, it's a conversation we had with the sector about what best to do to support them to make choices, how they promote themselves. Some of this is done on a regional basis successfully. For example, it may make more sense for a visitor to know about activity-based holidays if they're, say, going to Bike Park Wales, in the Deputy Minister's constituency, and if, at random, they wanted to come to the Cardiff International White Water centre, which happens to be in mine—but there are others available as well—and to think about how you can have themed activities that make sense for the businesses and for visitors. And I wouldn't want to say that this would only work if there is a national scheme that everyone has to fit into. We'll carry on working with the sector to understand how we can best support them, as we look forward to a 2023 where we'll expect we'll see significant growth in visitor numbers to Wales to the tourism sector, but we also know there'll be challenges ahead. As we see the likely recession for most of the next year, people will make different choices about their discretionary spend, so we're ready to carry on supporting the tourism sector. That's why I and the finance Minister have made choices about rate support for a range of different sectors in the economy.