Clare Dwight - Senior Tourism Marketing Manager

Another Visit Wales staff member that cannot or will not explain her teams discriminatory onboarding and business promotion practices

I’ll preface this post with my assurance that I do not want to write this. However, I am making public the interactions that I have had with government officials who have refused to answer one simple question that I believe needs an urgent answer, and, Clare is one of those staff. I have given Clare fair warning of this post and although a management-level email was received requesting that I do not post any further details of my correspondence with staff at Visit Wales I feel it is in the wider interest that the obfuscation, time-wasting, wasting of public money and conspiracy of silence that surrounds my question is aired.

What follows is the email thread, which I think tells the story well enough without the need for any further comment from me. However, I will ask here an additional question. Why will no one at Visit Wales or within the Welsh Government answer my rather simple question? And that ‘why’ poses another couple of questions. To whose benefit is the onboarding of some but not of others and why are Welsh Gov staff going to such lengths to not supply an explanation for its delivery of a discriminatory platform?

Clare and I had a few email exchanges, regarding the promotion of my business Wales Guided Tours by the Travel Trade Team at Visit Wales. As Clare was helpful I sent her details of my submissions for the removal of the walking festivals from the Visit Wales website.

If you wish to fully understand the ‘conspiracy of silence’ as exhibited by Visit Wales and Welsh Gov staff then this thread is relatively concise and explains my complaint in full whilst showing clearly Visit Wales’s refusal to answer my simple question of relevance to fair play for all tourism businesses in Wales.

Sent to Clare

Thank you Clare, 

On another matter I have today sent in five requests for the removal of walking festivals from the Visit Wales platform.

I expect these requests to be dealt with in good time and I would like to know what is the issue with the onboarding team with regard to allowing unaccredited businesses or events onto the Visit Wales site? 

This has been my question since March 2020 and both Lesley Beaumont and Glyn Roberts have assured me, on multiple occasions, that this will not occur. 

Further, I supplied about fifty business names, over the period August to November 2023, to Glyn and Heledd Owen, all of which offer guided hikes but do not have accreditation. I am happy to send in reports for each to the team but I'll wait to see how the team responds to the five I sent in today. 

The thing is I do not want any business removed from the platform, however, whilst they are unaccredited, the reason my other business is not allowed a platform, I cannot sit back and allow them to be promoted, because that's not fair, is it? 

Sent to Clare

Hi Clare,

I have had no response from Visit Wales or the Visit Wales travel trade teams regarding my reporting of the walking festivals for noncompliance with Visit Wales's onboarding policy. 

However, it would appear that the festivals I highlighted have been removed from the Visit Wales website. 

This then evidences that my assertions of the inability of Visit Wales staff to deliver a fair platform have been correct. 

I now therefore demand the removal of Adventure Tours UK (non compliance with rules as not accredited for walking or adventure activities) and Clyne Farm Centre (their website lists a range of adventure activities that they are not accredited to deliver). 

Please let me know when this is done. 

Further, please explain how Out and Wild and the Big Retreat got into the recent newsletter and please remove any magazine copy that links out to walking festivals, including this - https://www.visitwales.com/things-do/what-expect-big-retreat-festival-pembrokeshire

Received from Clare

Hi Andy

As you’ll be aware we are currently conducting a review of the Visit Wales Adventure Activity Assurance Scheme.

Kind regards

Clare

Sent to Clare

I am aware Clare but that is no answer to specific questions. 

Either the team work to the Visit Wales onboarding rules or the team does not. 

Clearly, the team does not. 

Example. Is Adventure Tours UK accredited? No, it is not. Then why is it listed and why does it receive 'magazine' copy and 2024 Visit Wales partner status?

If you can explain why then all good, if not then remove them from the platform. It really isn't rocket science. 

You see every day my competitors are platformed is a day where I am disadvantaged and this has been ongoing since March 2020. 

I expect this to be dealt with as the walking festivals were dealt with. I also expect all errant businesses to be removed from the Visit Wales platform and all copy, magazine pages, that link out to these businesses to also be removed. 

I look forward to your response. 

Sent to Clare

Can you get back to me on this matter please Clare. 

Sent to Clare

Hi Clare, I'm sorry to have to write in this manner but I seek a resolution and not after further months or years of campaigning, but now. 

If you do not respond to me by 3 pm Thursday 30th May then I'm afraid I'll be writing a blog post naming you as complicit in corruption and of misusing public funds for an unknown benefit. This will be shared across the internet and in particular over LinkedIn.  

I do not want to do this. I want fair play for all and an explanation as to why you agree that walking festivals should not be platformed but that similar unaccredited businesses to my business, Wales Outdoors, are platformed and promoted. With the explanation I want you and your team to immediately clean up the Visit Wales website, removing businesses that offer adventure activities and guided walks or that link to their provision of such from their websites, without holding the accreditation that your rules demand. All magazine articles about and links that are included in more general article pages pointing to such businesses also need to be removed. 

I've been asking for this since March 2020 and have received lies, broken promises and silence in return from staff at Visit Wales. 

This matter is with the South Wales Police and I will be taking any new evidence to them. This matter is also with Mark Drakeford MS and I will be sending him any new evidence. 

I am happy to meet with any member of your team and sit down in front of a computer screen and go through the website, listing by listing, and explaining why most guiding in Wales businesses must be removed from the Visit Wales platform.

Once again I apologise for writing to you in this manner but you must accept that after over four years of urging fair play, and putting in an inordinate number of hours working to insist on that fair play, it has become obvious to me that that is not what Visit Wales work to. It is therefore an option, to go after all staff involved in the process of onboarding that know that there is a problem but do nothing about it. 

I trust that you will do the right thing.

Received from Welsh Gov Management

Dear Mr Lamb

We refer to your correspondence below and to previous correspondence from you relating to the Visit Wales website.

The Adventure Activity Assurance Scheme is currently, as you know, the subject of a review. That review is ongoing at this stage, and we are not in a position to provide you with a meaningful or substantive response to queries and/or issues you have raised until such time as it has been concluded.

You have raised serious allegations of corruption and of misuse of public funds. Should you wish to make a formal complaint of this nature, the official procedure for doing so can be used.

It has come to our attention that you have shared the personal details of several of our staff members online. We also note that in your email, you indicate to a junior member of staff that “If you do not respond to me by 3pm Thursday 30th May then I'm afraid I'll be writing a blog post naming you as complicit in corruption and of misusing public funds for an unknown benefit. This will be shared across the internet and in particular over Linkedin.”  

We respectfully request that you do not publish the personal data of junior members of staff via blog/articles and remove all previous blog/articles where our staff’s personal data has been included.

We trust that you will await further correspondence from us regarding the outcome of the abovementioned review.

Sent to Welsh Gov Management

As stated before, the review has no bearing on this matter. You have and continue to deliver a discriminatory platform that is damaging to my business and others’ businesses. What do you expect me to do? Sit back and allow you to do that without shouting about it. This could have been settled if Heledd and Steffan had done what they promised. But they did not. 

You, outside of your own onboarding rules, are platforming many businesses and linking out to many and partnering with some that as far as I can see ought not be platformed, according to the rules that you apply to Wales Outdoors. I think that I fairly seek an explanation for that. Wouldn't you?

I have been chasing this complaint since March 2020 and have had zero meaningful engagement and absolutely no explanation apart from platitudes such as 'we could do better but it is a big website', Heledd Owen, that 'the points Andy makes are almost always valid ones', Jon Munro, or 'if a business is delivering walks that include scrambles and they are not accredited then they should not be listed on the website', Steffan Roberts or 'if a walk is in the countryside and more than thirty minutes from the guides vehicle the business must be accredited', Glyn Roberts. 

Given that, after four years of asking Visit Wales to do the right thing and stop platforming businesses that they should not be platforming, all I have is obfuscation and silence, oh, and it seems a conspiracy to not answer a simple question or two, then I will continue my 'campaign' in any way that I see fit. I've given plenty of fair notice of the course my actions will take if my requests for answers remain falling on deaf ears.

This can stop here, now, so I will set out my request, once again:

'I want an explanation as to why you agree that walking festivals should not be platformed but that similar unaccredited business to my business, Wales Outdoors, are platformed and promoted. With the explanation I want you and your team to immediately clean up the Visit Wales website, removing businesses that offer adventure activities and guided walks or that link to their provision of such from their websites, without holding the accreditation that your rules demand. All magazine articles about and links that are included in more general article pages pointing to such businesses also need to be removed.'

This is an example of a question sent and unresponded to, this one unresponded to on numerous occassions since November 2023:

'Is Adventure Tours UK accredited? No it is not. Then why is it listed and why does it recieve 'magazine' copy and 2024 Visit Wales partner status?'

Thank you for sending me the link to make a complaint. I've already done that and it returned nothing of use, just that a review was taking place. As stated, the review is inconsequential as for the past four years Welsh Government staff and management have known of the issues I have raised and continue to ignore my requests for an explanation. Worse still, despite assurances to the contrary from Heledd, Steffan, Jason, Glyn, Jon, Lyndsey etc. you continue to onboard new businesses that fall outside of the rules that you apply to Wales Outdoors.

If this is settled with a meaningful response and commitment to positive action I will refrain from posting blog articles about specific Welsh Government staff, indeed, I would be happy to do so, so to focus more fully on my business. But until then I will continue as I have indicated. As a point of record, I have not published any personal details of any staff members, just publicly available names and Linkedin profiles, where available. 

I trust that you will see sense and actually engage with me, answer the questions I raised with Clare and start the job of cleaning up your platform so that it is fair to all businesses in Wales. 

Kind Regards,

Andy Lamb.

You can book our walks through the Wales Outdoors Website or, if you are a group, you can book us for a bespoke adventure, you choose the date and time, using the ‘Book Your Guide’ option.

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