Visit Wales Waste Cash?
I came across this gem in the Wales Outdoors archives...
A few long years ago I noticed a new campaign, a new website, a new promotional opportunity, or so I thought... The campaign was/is called 'Wales In Style' and so I thought I'd like to get involved. I contacted the operator and asked if I could be included in the web-based marketing... No was the answer as it was by recommendation to and then only by invite from the Director of Wales In Style. Hmmm... I complained to Wales In Style and to VisitWales to no effect.
I remembered this complaint and had a look at the website about a year later and, Wales In Style, to my dismay, was a dead site that had never fulfilled its potential, with whole areas of it empty of information and just a few rss feeds making it look as though it was still relevant...
The blog had not been updated for two years, the last post being uploaded not so long after Wales In Style received its final grant payment of £109,500...
So I got to thinking who had benefitted from the deal, the promotion of 'quality' weekend breaks that supposedly made use of the best activity providers, the best accommodation, the best restaraunts...
But first, who says who is the best? I know that the only South Wales activity provider promoted by Wales In Style is far from the best and that the others listed are the usual suspects of 'Preferred by VisitWales'. And I am sure accommodation and catering providers will have the same feeling, believing that they have yet again been cut out of the loop in favour of the same old, same old... There is something wrong here - I wonder if perhaps that old friend 'nepotism' crept in... That someone was getting freebies, having their palm greased, so to speak...
What an amazing list of activities for the well healed to peruse... And Preseli Venture get in there three times :)
But that is not the point I intend to make with this post as I think I have clearly demonstrated on many occasions the sickness that lies in the belly of the beast that is VisitWales...
And so back to who benefited... Not those listed I am sure as the website never did that well. Not the funders of the site, surely, as they are public servants... So, the Directors of Wales In Style perhaps? Well, yes, to the tune of about £240,000... For THIS!
So I asked a few questions that I thought it might be useful to have the answers to, and these were directed by Welsh Government officials to a freedom of information request... And the request was denied - something about the questions under the freedom of information request being too time-consuming and so too costly and so not something that the Welsh Assembly Government would agree to providing answers to...
And so the government refuse to answer a couple of questions regarding the absurd waste of Welsh Tourism Budget to a total of £240,000!
The idiots at VisitWales and the Welsh Assembly gave this money to private individuals to build a website catering for the well off and failed to monitor its progress, worth or longevity... I regard the staff involved in this abuse of the public purse as criminals and they ought to be treated as such. This is the reason our tourism economy isn't working and extrapolated why our society is dysfunctional.
