Adventure Tours UK And Visit Wales - What Is Going On?
There are many anomalies on the Welsh Government Website, Visit Wales, the tourism portal for Wales. Adventure Tours UK is just one of these anomalies, reported by Wales Outdoors to Visit Wales management but without any response being received. Let us be clear, we have ‘no beef’ with Adventure Tours UK and we wish them well. However, we do not accept their and others’ promotion by Visit Wales when Wales Outdoors was so unfairly treated, being a similar business and being denied a platform.
The Background
Wales Outdoors was denied a listing on the Visit Wales website for four and half years. Andrew Lamb then sold the business to his wife, who managed to get Wales Outdoors listed within a week. Adventure Tours UK were flagged by Wales Outdoors in early 2024 after it was noted that Adventure Tours UK were a preferred partner of Visit Wales for that year. Adventure Tours UK is a similar business to Wales Outdoors with clearly having the owners delivering tours and adventures, just like Wales Outdoors. This is why Wales Outdoors will not let this matter drop. For five years now Wales Outdoors has been discriminated against in the tourism marketplace by management at Visit Wales, with competitors of Wales Outdoors being platformed, lauded and promoted.
The Evidence
Here we will focus on Adventure Tours UK but there are many businesses on the Visit Wales platform, flagged by Wales Outdoors, that quite clearly should not be and certainly should not be preferred partners. Visit Wales, when receiving the reports of such businesses from Wales Outdoors, do not respond and they take no action.
Adventure Tours UK say ‘We create world-class UK adventure holidays’.
Visit Wales say ‘activity providers Visit Wales works with share these values, raising the bar in terms of the standards of safety and good practices they deliver’
Adventure Tours UK are a Visit Wales preferred partner.
The director of Adventure Tours UK, Claire Louise Copeman, is not registered with Mountain Training.
Claire, her husband and her friends are clearly delivering some of the courses and holidays Adventure Tours UK sell. This makes Adventure Tours UK a provider, not a reseller. Here is Claire saying just this:
The feedback on the review sites that feature Adventure Tours UK clearly indicates that Claire is present and is a guide on many of the residentials that Adventure Tours UK deliver.
Adventure Tours UK website displays zero qualifications to lead activities in the outdoors.
Claire leading a group on a hike in North Wales.
In Conclusion
We believe that Visit Wales are not raising the bar of ‘standards of safety and good practices’. Moreover, we believe that Visit Wales is discriminating against some whilst enabling and benefitting others. Their friends, perhaps?
Given the dramatic U-Turn by the Welsh Government, in the face of Andrew Lamb’s persistence and insistence, are Visit Wales now going to remove Adventure Tours UK from the Visit Wales platform and have Adventure Tours UK go through the onboarding process as applied to Andrew Lamb and Wales Outdoors?
Andrew Lamb says ‘I will not let this matter drop. At every opportunity I will raise this issue, both privately and publicly, and I will force the management of Visit Wales to treat all providers and operators fairly. As I’ve always said, all I have ever wanted from the government is a level playing field. I advise the Welsh Government to deliver, forthwith, just that.’
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