Tourism: Wales fails to attract overseas visitors, say MPs
Tourism: Wales fails to attract overseas visitors, say MPs
Tourism cash is being lost due to poor marketing and transport links, warns the report.
I'm certain that I'm not the only one who reads headlines like this and thinks "good for them, let's not go ruining it for the locals shall we"
Clearly they should have gone with dolphins.
…I’ll show myself out.
You did that on porpoise didn't you?
and now I finally get the pun 🤦
I think Wales is one of those things like Skegness or Blackpool. It's more for natives than it is for somebody to fly a thousand miles to see.
It's nice and all, and fairly unique within the UK, but it's not that unique internationally. Most countries have a nice nature-y hilly bit. They don't all have a bunch of soldiers with silly hats that pass out in summer.
The Lake District is further from London than Wales, but plenty of tourists go there. The problem with Wales is that it’s just less tourist-friendly. The Lakes has been a popular tourist spot from more than a century and is really geared up for it, with loads of nice pubs and cafes and shops and all that. Same in Cornwall. It’s not like Wales is the only choice for nice countryside.
"Poor transport infrastructure" was cited as a reason preventing Wales from attracting more people visiting the UK.
Yes, let’s fix the unspoiled countryside with more roads.
It probably means having more buses and trains avaliable to use (by building more maintenance facilities and larger stations for interchange). As having one come every 4h is a bit rubbish and would put anyone off.
A core problem in Wales' transport infrastructure is that it's very difficult to go North-South via public transport. The campaign for a North-South railway is something that's been going on for a while.
Currently if you want to go from Swansea to Bangor, Google tells me it's a 4hr 24m (155 mile) drive, but it's around a 5hr 20m-ish train journey that takes you east to Cardiff, then north to Chester or Crewe (in England!) before back west to Bangor - and if you want to go onwards from Bangor (e.g. to Caernarfon) then you're reliant on buses.
What that means in practice is that for international tourists we're basically saying you can visit Cardiff/Swansea/Gower/Brecon in the South, or you can visit Snowdonia/Anglesey in the North, but not both - whereas if they visit England then they've got more options.
Here is the issue with UK planning, first through it new roads, not new public transport.