Visit Wales - Teaser
THE MONDAY MOAN - A once a week spot for us to moan about the stuff that perhaps we should all be moaning about that little bit more...
I've run out of time on this one - too late to post much now but suffice to say this is in the pipeline and will be a damning investigative journalism style report into the failings and nepotism that has and is rampant within the Welsh Government delivered tourism portal for Wales, Visit Wales.
However, I've time to give you this teaser...
I've had all of the guided walk providers removed from Visit Wales in line with their policy which saw my listing being removed. Despite being a Mountain Leader with an in date Outdoor Leader first aid qualification and insurance to 10 Million Visit Wales say I have not demonstrated that I am safe and so they require me to pay about £400 - £500 on a registration and also an assessment by a technical advisor. There are hundreds if not thousands qualified to technical advise but Visit Wales offer up two people. Nice work if you can get it...
I protested at this unnecessary, intrusive and costly extra layer of bureaucracy... When I protested my removal from the site and stated that there were others offering similar that they were still listing, instead of reaching out to those providers, instead of chatting to the industry, they removed the lot.
And here is the idiocy...
When you visit the Visit Wales website you see a search bar with a suggestion Try 'walking in Snowdonia'. Please do... What you'll find is this:
1 Licensed adventure activity provider
4 listings not offering walking at all
3 self guided walk providers with multiple listings so making 13 listings
Haha - 1 farm walk where you guide a sheep on a leash for an hour
THATS IT!
No guided walk companies. No leaders offering guided walking.
Wales is an internationally renowned centre for walking. Snowdon is the most visited mountain in the UK! And Visit Wales have failed to offer ANY guided walks to visitors to Snowdonia. Similar can be found across the rest of Wales.
If there ever is a reason to disallow government and local authorities to deliver commercial activity promotions or for that matter services that ought to be in the commercial sector then this is it.
I will be calling for the closing down of Visit Wales and the budget for tourism offered up to the providers who deliver the services that make Wales a popular tourist destination. I've done this before, in fact on several occasions and I have no expectation that this will ever be considered. It's simply done as an act of defiance, a push against 'the man'.
There really does need to be a revolution!
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