Visit Wales Have Not Implemented The Outcomes Of Their Year Long Review
I still dip into Visit Wales and the unresolved argument regarding the onboarding of businesses, which has resulted in no guided walking availability across the Visit Wales platform, for anywhere in Wales.
We are no nearer to resolution. Despite there having been a sensible outcome delivered by the review that Wales Outdoors forced Visit Wales to undertake, and despite that review being requested for four years and then taking a year to return its findings, Visit Wales has supplied no timeline for implementation of these, their own review findings.
Furthermore, Visit Wales has now contracted to WATO to deliver a five year plan for activity tourism. This began just a couple of weeks ago and is for the period 2025 - 2030. We believe this to be obfuscation and a desire on the part of Visit Wales to not implement the outcomes of their review into guided walk provision and who they ought to list.
And so every now and again I take a look at the Visit Wales platform and where I find businesses that clearly do not comply with the current rules, which I always do find, Visit Wales not being fit to run a tight ship, I have them removed.
I do not want these businesses removed. They are legitimate and they operate within UK law. However, where for four and a half years, until I sold Wales Outdoors to my wife, Wales Outdoors was unable to gain a listing on the Visit Wales platform, I decided that the damaging to tourism in Wales protocols for onboarding to the Visit Wales platform needed to be shouted about. By pressuring Visit Wales to delete the businesses they should not platform, according to their own not fit for purpose rules, I hoped that the idiocy of their rules would be made known and that others, those deleted from the platform, would raise their voices, alongside mine, and force change.
That did not, as far as I am aware, happen. Those deleted seem to have remained silent. Certainly, I have not heard them publicly complain and certainly, they have not been in touch with me.
Anyway, Visit Wales is still at it. Listing businesses that their own rules preclude them from doing, and so I’ve reported a few more and a few more have been removed from the Visit Wales platform.
Crickhowel Walking Festival is just such an event business. On three separate occasions now, over the past three years, Visit Wales has listed this walking festival and then, upon receiving my complaint, deleted it. You’d think they’d learn, right?
Pressure still needs to be applied to Visit Wales. They are trying to escape the consequences of their own review process and not implement its outcomes. The damage to tourism in Wales that the current rules ensure needs to be clear for all to see.
There are no guided walk providers available for travellers to Wales listed on the Visit Wales platform. Do a search for ‘guided walk’ and see what is returned.
We once again urge all in tourism in Wales to ask Visit Wales to implement the outcomes of their year long review, which fully vindicated my and Wales Outdoors claims and assertions. Let’s start to populate the Visit Wales platform with great, qualified guided walk and guided tour providers, enabling visitors to Wales to easily take part in experiences that will have them shouting out about their time in Wales, and, returning for more…
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