Natural Wales aims to lure Asian repeat visitors
Guest Writers are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the specific writer directly
Wales is aiming to draw on its natural assets to drive more repeat visitors to the country.
Speaking to Travel Daily on Tuesday (13 May 2014), Mike Price of VisitWales said that while Wales was not necessarily the first destination on a tourist’s UK itinerary, guests who did visit Wales often returned for a second visit.
“When visitors fly to Britain for the first time they fly into London, and they do London, and sometimes Bath, York and Edinburgh. So we know we’re never going to be on that first trip,” said Price.
“But we know that the second or third time they come to Britain, Wales normally features. And we also know that when people have been to Wales one, they want to come back. We get a lot of repeat visitors.
“We know that people comeback if they’ve been there once; it’s just a matter of getting them there in the first place,” he added.
To achieve this, VisitWales is aiming to promote its natural environment and organic produce as major selling points.
“A quarter of Wales is protected landscape, with three national parks and AONBs (areas of outstanding natural beauty), so that is one of our main selling points,” said Price. “Clean air, clean water… and local food and produce are important, especially our local lamb.”
One of the problems for Wales is a lack of direct flight connectivity. No Asian airline currently flies direct to Cardiff. But Price said he remains hopeful that Emirates could launch flights to the Welsh capital in future.
“The Welsh government bought Cardiff Airport a few months ago, and we’ve been in discussions with Emirates for a long time. We’re obviously trying to get more flights into Cardiff, but the problem is that we’re very close to London and Bristol.
“We would love to have Emirates coming in as it would act as a hub to the rest of the world. To have people flying direct from Dubai into Wales would be amazing for us,” Price said.
When asked if he expects a significant rise in arrivals from Asia’s key growth markets in the future, Price was confident.
“Definitely. We’re well placed for it because we’ve got some big universities in Wales that have a lot of Chinese students. We’re also doing a lot of work in India. We’re putting on group travel trade and press trips, and we’ve had a few Bollywood movies filmed in Wales,” he concluded.
Wales attracted 884,000 international visitors in 2013.
Comments are closed.