Why I Won't Pay For Visit Wales Accreditation
Before reading on, please note that Wales Outdoors owner, Andy Lamb, as revealed in an FOI-requested document obtained from the Welsh government and taken from their internal communications, is nearly always right… So, if ‘The points Andy raises are almost always valid ones’ why are we years into this argument without change at Visit Wales?
VISIT WALES ACCREDITATION
Visit Wales, the Welsh government tourism department and portal for tourism in Wales, alone of ALL government and local authority tourism portals in the United Kingdom, requires an accreditation scheme for businesses such as Wales Outdoors to be included in its marketing. This is an overreach on a grand scale, micro-managing by bureaucrats that is costly in its administration, costly to the tourism providers and costly to the Welsh economy.
In the year of Wales By Trails a Visit to the Visit Wales website returns ZERO guided walk providers…
Visit Wales accreditation includes:
An audit of your business
An observation of an activity(s)
An acknowledgement that the Visit Wales Standards of Practice have been met
Feedback following the visit
Wales Outdoors sees this, which costs around £600, as a waste of time and money for the following reasons:
Wales Outdoors does not need an audit. I manage my business very well thank you. Further, there is no legislation anywhere in the UK that demands such an audit. I hold the qualifications for my activity delivery as do any sessional staff that are occasionally employed. That’s where enquiry regarding suitability for website inclusion ought to stop.
Activities are observed in the first instance by the professional body, in this case Mountain Training, from whom we received our qualification then by our clients who give us consistent five-star feedback. Further, Andy is undergoing observation as part of his CPD as an aspirant Blue Badge Guide. Observation by a Visit Wales technical advisor is simply not necessary and certainly is not required by law.
Clients can leave negative or positive feedback. They are the bottom line with regard to ongoing standards of provision. A snapshot when one is being inspected is not a good method of recording day-to-day behaviour and levels of provision, being recorded on a day when a provider is on best behaviour, however, feedback across multiple platforms and being received daily at peak season, is just that. What are Visit Wales standards of practice regarding guiding walks? They do not have any written standards and so this is effectively just waffle…
Feedback? We get that from our clients. And that is who we want feedback from, not from the Welsh government. A little patronising that, don’t you think? And again, waffle.
OVERREACH
UK law is such that if delivering outdoor activities and working with over 18’s there is no requirement to obtain an Adventure Activity Licence. Further, if your guided walk takes place over 2000ft but is within 30 minutes from a shelter or road then there is no requirement for a licence even if working with under 18’s. There is no requirement for walks that take place under 2000ft.
Visit Wales requires all guides to go through their rather pointless accreditation process if they guide more than 30 minutes from their vehicle. This impacts all coastal, mountain and countryside walks, walking festivals and many tourist guides who might wish to show visitors a stone circle or wander to a more remote beach. The Chartists Cave in South Wales is one such example of an historical feature being 35 minutes from the road. This has it fall within Visit Wales accreditation rules and Blue Badge Guides, for example, cannot, under Visit Wales rules, guide to it.
The Welsh government’s overreach has resulted, in the years of ‘Wales by Trails’, in no bookable guided walks or guided walk providers being listed. Worse still, Visit Wales have been removing what they see as errant businesses from their platform, deleting the walking festivals such as the Hay Walking Festival and making it clear that they see guided walks as superfluous to tourism provision in Wales. This when most visitors to Wales cite walking as a main attractor to Wales. The Director of Culture, Sport and Tourism, Jason Thomas, when informed by me of the lack of guided walk providers on the Visit Wales site said ‘So what?’
MICROMANAGEMENT
Please can someone tell me what is the point in undergoing rigorous training, many personal mountain days and overnights and rigorous assessment, at a considerable cost, to become a Mountain Leader, or months of training and assessment at a considerable cost to become a Blue Badge Guide only to be informed that those qualifications are not good enough? That all the Welsh government requires, alone of all authorities in the UK, is that you pay them for an inspection by their designated inspector. Please can someone tell me what is the point in the UK government making health and safety laws that are then ignored solely by the Welsh government? I ask these questions as the Welsh government can’t tell me why. I asked Paul Donavan, who heads up WATO which advises the Welsh government on such matters, why the extra level of accreditation and he said ‘Because that is what we discussed’.
The bottom line should be if you are qualified for your activity and work within HSE guidelines and UK law then you should be good to go. It’s as simple as that but the bureaucrats in Wales just can’t leave it there. They must, it seems, in all things, intrude further into business management matters that really ought not concern them than any other authority in Wales and indeed across the UK.
ECONOMY
Not one guided walking provider that can work with tourists visiting Wales has been through the Visit Wales accreditation process. We estimate that in Wales there are hundreds of small businesses offering great days out that are effectively precluded, because of said overreach, from a listing on the Visit Wales website. This reduces visitor spend, reduces positive experiences whilst in Wales and so reduces repeat bookings and glowing referrals to friends. How much the Welsh economy loses due to this mismanagement and overreach would not be easy to calculate but I surmise it is not £’s but is rather £££’s.
WALES OUTDOORS TAKE ACTION
It has been a rather thankless task, arguing, campaigning and agitating for change, but that is what Andy of Wales Outdoors has been doing, consistently, since 2020 and indeed on and off since 2006. A level playing field is what he has been campaigning for and now, alongside that, acceptance by the Welsh government that they have got it wrong, that they should not, alone of all authority tourism departments within the UK, be demanding a superfluous accreditation that is both costly and meaningless.
Wales Outdoors have recently achieved admissions, by Visit Wales management, of poor performance in the past and promises to do better (where have we heard that before?) and finally, at the end of 2023, a commitment to begin talking with interested parties, including Wales Outdoors, with regards to the inclusion of guides onto the Visit Wales website.
We will of course keep you updated with any outcomes, either positive or not.
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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