Jon Munro - Strategy And Digital Leadership - Welsh Gov.

I like Jon and until the breakdown in our communication in September of 2023 he stated to his colleagues that he liked me. However, Jon and I have a long history, going back to 2008, that of me complaining about Visit Wales delivering a far from level playing field and Jon promising to do better. That ‘do better’ has never been achieved.

I think that Jon was tasked with keeping me in check. To keep me engaged with him, with him promising reform, whilst his colleagues had no interest in best practice, or even fair practice, perhaps having vested interests in maintaining a discriminatory platform.

I really do not know where to start with this post. There is simply so much in the way of communication, much of which is astounding and if this were not the Welsh Government but were a private company we were investigating the shareholders would have held the management to account a very long time ago. But this is the Welsh Government and it appears that as such they remain unaccountable to anyone.

I think, to be fair to Jon and to you, that I will post here highlights and not thirty pages of email trails. You’ll get the gist of where Jon is coming from and how I believe he has been used by the Welsh Government, as my handler, with no brief to remedy my complaint, just to tread water. And my complaint is one of malfeasance, the delivery through use of public funds of a discriminatory platform for unknown benefit to operators and management. You see, Wales Outdoors is denied a listing on the Visit Wales platform, but many similarly placed businesses remain promoted there. All specific requests for explanation remain unanswered. And after 16 years of complaining about the inequity of business promotion in Wales, we remain no further forward.

I’ve highlighted key phrases from over 50 pages of A4 documents recieved as an FOI that detail Jon railing against his colleagues. Italics are mine.

December 2022 - his point on Visit Britain and TXGB feels like a fair point too.

January 2023 - The points Andy raises are almost always valid ones

January 2023 - I know he has a particular manner but we are making progress and the changes we are putting in place (because of chatting to Andy) are having a wider positive outcome.

April 2023 I like Andy. He makes the world a colourful place and challenges our point of view. Sometimes that is not a bad thing.

June 2023 - but I don’t think anyone has gone back to him and I really think someone should

June 2023 - he appears positive at the moment. He gets great reviews and I know a bunch of people who’ve been on walks with him and love him. Interesting!

June 2023 - he is entitled to his point of view!

July 2023 - the decision should come from the grading team, they will need to communicate with Mr Lamb why it was removed - I was never communicated with or informed why my business ‘Mountain Training’ was removed from the Visit Wales platform!

July 2023 - But the fact no-one is going back to him about his accreditation status is honestly a shambles

August 2023 - does anyone in grading have the capacity to respond to Andy even if it is a holding message?

You can see that Jon was struggling with a department either unwilling or unable to respond to my campaigning for fair play for all providers of guided walks in Wales. However, I will not let Jon off lightly. Jon in 2008 made the error of trying to bring me into the fold and deal with my business as a preferred business. I declined as that is not what I had been asking for. I was demanding fair play for all, not just those who shouted loudest. From 2022, following my meeting Jon at Cardiff Courts, we had been working together to develop systems that improved Visit Wales onboarding and this culminated with a meeting between Jon, myself and Heledd Owen where outcomes were formalised and I was assured that there would be no further onboarding of businesses or events that fell outside of the Visit wales onboarding rules. Of course that was just talk and designed to have me satisfied, and the onboarding and promotion of unaccredited businesses continued and continues. As advised at that meeting, I revisited the Visit Wales website a year later and found numerous examples of businesses that like mine, delivering guided walks, and that were not accredited but that had been onboarded.

After four years of work with Visit Wales, with Jon Munro and Heledd Owen being the key personnel, they were unable to implement their agreement with me, to deliver a fair platform. I have to ask why is this the case and to what benefit? I have never had an answer.

Jon might well have been frustrated but the bottom line is he did mislead me, having me believe that he was actively working on systems and enforcement to ensure that my business would not be disadvantaged in the tourism marketplace by having my similar competitors platformed whilst denying that courtesy to my business. If actively working then Jon fails miserably at his tasks. If not then he lied to me. At best, as I have implied, Jon was used by Visit Wales senior management and placed in an impossible position. I think we see that in his comments gained from the FOI.

For a list of 50 businesses, flagged to Visit Wales staff since August 2023, that do not comply with the Visit Wales onboarding rules that Visit Wales use to preclude Wales Outdoors a listing please take a look at my LinkedIn profile and view the posts.

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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