Tourism sector

Tourism has a key role to play in reinforcing a distinctive and compelling national identity for Wales in the UK and internationally as a place to visit, invest in and as a place to do business.

Why is tourism important to Wales?

Tourism is big business in Wales.  Tourists and visitors spend well over £12 million a day in Wales.  Recent work by the Welsh Economy Research Unit (WERU) at Cardiff University indicates that total annual tourism demand is around £4.7 billion.  The Gross Value Added (GVA) attributable to tourism is at £1.6 billion, equating to some 3.8% of direct GVA for the Welsh economy as a whole.  This research work also indicates that some 68,700 jobs (6.1% of the total Welsh workforce) are directly supported by tourism.  These include employees in:

• hotels
• restaurants
• bars
• libraries
• museums
• sport, and,
• other recreation activities.

In total 10.6 million overnight visits to Wales were made during 2011.

Over 90% of these staying visits to Wales were made by UK residents, generating some 84% of all overnight tourism expenditure in Wales.

Included in the 10.6 million overnight visits are some 878,000 visits by international visitors, generating expenditure of £326 million during 2011.  The three top countries of origin for international tourism to Wales in 2010 were the Republic of Ireland, France and Germany.