Oral evidence: International Representation and Promotion of Wales by UK bodies, HC 337

Oral evidence, 1 July 2014.

Witnesses

Patricia Yates, Strategy and Communications Director, VisitBritain, and David Bishop, Head of Strategy, VisitBritain, gave evidence.

Chair

Good morning. Thank you both very much for coming in today. I ask Geraint Davies to start, please.

Geraint Davies

I understand that the number of international tourists to the UK has increased since 2009, but the number visiting Wales has declined over the same period. Why do you think that is?

Patricia Yates

I think the figures you are looking at end in 2012. It is a different story in 2013. Post the recession, we saw a decline in international visitors for all of Britain. Last year was the first year when we saw a reversal; indeed, we saw an increase in visits to Wales as well. The real success story has been holiday visits, where Wales outperformed the rest of the UK. Last year we saw holiday visits increase by 13%, and by 27% in value. If you drill down into the numbers for Wales, you get some understanding of what the issues are. If you look at the inbound markets, Ireland was traditionally the most valuable market for Wales; it has halved in value since 2009, going from a market that was worth £50 million to a market that is now worth £25 million. That is a big driver for Wales. It is a market we are not active in. You have seen the German market increase, with really strong growth from there. The American market has grown very well for Wales, at a time when the American market is in decline for the whole of Britain. The underlying understanding is that those inbound figures are really driven by the collapse of the Irish market.

Geraint Davies

Can I ask you something quite different? I understand from looking at the Russian “Business Correspondent”—which, I accept, is not widely read in this Committee—that there are big problems in Russia, in particular. Visa applications, which used to take 10 days, and still do throughout Europe, now take six weeks in Britain, so we are looking at cuts of something like 20% in numbers from Russia. Russian people spend about £1,200 each; they are talking about the British economy losing about £50 million from that segment. What big problems are you facing due to problems with procedures for issuing visas, and delays?

David Bishop

Visas are issued by UK Visas and Immigration. By and large, worldwide they have a very good level of service. As I understand it, the issue in Russia is that very recently they changed the service provider for visa application centres out there and they are having teething difficulties. They assure us that those are being got a grip on. Anecdotally, as you say, there is some feedback that there are some quite significant impacts as a result of that, in terms of the number of Russian visitors coming to the UK, but it has not yet fed through into the statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics that we see month on month. It is something we are very alert to, and we are working with UKVI and the British travel trade to overcome it. It is probably worth flagging up that in February and March next year we have a new travel trade event. We will be bringing Russian buyers—the Russian travel trade—into the UK to showcase what we have to offer them. Specifically, we will be taking large numbers of people from the Russian travel trade to north Wales as part of that. We are alive to the difficulties and we already have things in hand that we hope will be able to counteract them, once the visa process is up and running.

Geraint Davies

You are confident that the visa issue is a teething thing, not a problem of overall cuts, and that it is not being replicated in China and so on.

David Bishop

No, it is absolutely not being replicated in China. As I understand it, it is a very specific issue relating to the changeover in the service provider.

Geraint Davies

What do you think the current strengths and weaknesses of the tourism industry in Wales are in terms of international tourists? How are they differentiated from England?

Patricia Yates

Wales has real strengths internationally. It has its castles, its countryside and its culture. If you look at markets like Germany and the Nordics, that is understood. The barriers to travelling are much more practical; they are about distance, time and driving on the wrong side of the road. It is about overcoming those more practical barriers. If you go longer haul, Wales is not so well understood. London is a brand that is known internationally, but if you go outside London, longer-haul international visitors do not know the rest of the UK as well as we would like. We are competing fiercely with other tourist boards. Looking at which people are most likely to travel to the UK and what product we have that would fit with them is a key part of our work. What we need from the Welsh industry is for it to work with us on that fit. We know international markets, and Visit Wales knows what the product is; it is about getting the two to fit. There are expectations for international visitors that we know people have to deal with. For example, the Spanish like to eat at 9 o’clock at night. Do we have places that are open? Visitors from the Gulf are concerned that they will not find halal food. We must make sure that that is understood by the trade. We can then replay internationally the message that that is working.

Geraint Davies

Is there a strategic opportunity for Cardiff airport in helping to sell Wales—getting people through that portal?

Patricia Yates

It is undoubtedly the case that direct links really help tourism. Wales is only two hours from Heathrow, so there is already good access to Wales—it is easy to get to; but, undoubtedly, building direct routes to Cardiff airport would help international tourism.

Geraint Davies

Finally, on the issue of VAT, do you feel that the 20% VAT rate is a big drag on tourism? Should the VAT rate be reduced for tourism?

Patricia Yates

Tourism is Britain’s fifth biggest export industry, worth £24 billion. We are competing hugely with other countries who also see the potential of international tourism to grow. Our forecast is that it will grow by 6% a year. It already gives £6 billion to the Exchequer. Obviously I come from a Government-funded body, so I would not comment on taxation issues.

Geraint Davies

But have you done the calculations? It sounds as if you might have. Have you presented the idea that if we cut the VAT rate on tourism to 10%, or whatever is allowed in the EU, that would be recovered by the extra tax provided by revenue growth?

Patricia Yates

Some really good modelling has been done by the industry. We have left it to the industry bodies, which are on top of this issue.

Geraint Davies

Does that show that if you cut the tax you get it back from more growth?

Patricia Yates

It shows the modelling.

Geraint Davies

Does it show what I said—that you would get the money back—or not?

Patricia Yates

There are different—

David Bishop

Their analysis looks at the net impact on the Exchequer. They believe it shows that there is a net benefit. HM Treasury is looking very closely at that analysis. That is as far as we can go.

Chair

Thank you for that. We will not catch you out on that one.

Guto Bebb

Going back to your previous answer—not in relation to VAT, but in relation to the fall-off in tourism from Ireland—is there any reason for that fall-off? Dare I say it, but does it have any relationship with the Irish decision to cut their VAT rate on tourism? I am just wondering, because it is a significant fall.

David Bishop

Very obviously, the reason that the Irish tourism market for Wales has fallen back so strongly is purely that the Irish economy took an absolutely huge nose-dive in 2008 as a result of the implosion of its banks and a massive housing bubble. If you look at the underlying performance of the Irish economy, yes, they are beginning to get the debt dynamics under control; however, economic growth has not returned, household income has not increased greatly and propensity to spend has not increased. That is a big structural change in the Irish economy. They would argue that they made their change in VAT to improve the competitiveness of their domestic tourism industry. They did that in combination with changes to their visa regime, such as having a waiver for those who have a UK visa, and a couple of weeks ago the Home Secretary announced that we are now going to reciprocate. They also reduced air passenger duty for Ireland. Certainly, they feel that those supply-side reforms are benefiting their tourism industry, but it is clearly not doing it quite enough to fix the Irish economy sufficiently that Wales is now beginning to benefit.

Guto Bebb

No, but basically you are saying that the supply-side changes made by the Irish Government have made a difference to the tourism sector, if not sufficient for the tourism sector to carry the whole Irish economy. In your view, have those supply-side changes had a positive impact from a tourism point of view?

David Bishop

Yes, absolutely. We produced some research back in May 2013, when we published a strategy for international tourism to the UK to 2020. That includes some modelling that looks very closely at a range of options, from policy changes through to the amount of money that the UK Government spend on promoting Britain for tourism overseas. It indicates very clearly that supply-side policy impacts have beneficial effects on the tourism industry. That is incontrovertible.

Guto Bebb

You have already touched on the extent to which Wales is known in the wider world. You could argue that the Irish have a very strong brand in comparison with the strength of the Welsh brand. Is there anything that the Welsh Government could do, for example, to try to increase the visibility and clarity of the messaging around what Wales is all about?

Patricia Yates

As I said before, our strength is that we understand international markets; we know which people are likely to travel and what they are interested in. The trick is making the Welsh message relevant to those customers. When people talk about brand, I do not think it is a one-off statement of a brand; it is thinking about who you are trying to attract and what would draw them in. Wales has considerable assets that work for it internationally; we know that Welsh castles do, for example. It is a more granular piece of work, about whom we want to get, what Wales has to offer and making sure that that is clearly articulated.

Guto Bebb

In the past your research has shown that Wales is probably the least recognised region of the UK. Has that led to any changes within your own organisation, for example, in the way you try to ensure that those messages are delivered to the target audience?

Patricia Yates

Yes. We have just got our PR results for last year. We delivered £104 million-worth of PR and international media for Wales. That was 12% of all we delivered internationally, so we are delivering disproportionately for Wales in that PR message. In newer markets the travel trade is really important. My colleague has already talked about our big event next year, when we have Russians visiting, and we have more international groups visiting from that. It is about getting the travel trade into Wales to show them the experience and the people. Where the Irish have been really clever is in making it about not just the environment and the built landscape but the people and the experience. It is getting that message over internationally as well—getting the travel trade in so that they understand, and getting the PR people and journalists in so that they understand. We also need to look at how we integrate Wales in our campaigns. For example, there are Wales images in “Sounds of GREAT Britain,” the big viral campaign we have going at the moment. We do a lot on social media. There is a lot of Welsh content on the LoveWall, as we call it, which is very photographic and inspirational. It is about seeding Welsh content through; when we place content on third-party sites such as Yahoo! and Expedia, it is making sure that we get inspirational Welsh content in there. We are doing a great deal to increase that. Recently we have done a lot of research into both long-haul and short-haul markets, looking at what drives people to travel and what are the barriers to travel. We will be working through that. Public transport is one of the issues we really need to pick up on. We need to get across a more integrated message about the ease with which you can travel around Britain. Many of our long-haul destinations do not have a public transport network like we do, even though we moan about it.

Guto Bebb

I have a final short question about the £104 million-worth of added value you offer, which was about 12%. Have those figures been made available to the Committee?

Patricia Yates

We have just had them. I can certainly send them as an update.

Guto Bebb

That would be very useful. Thank you.

Nia Griffith

Can I move on to the issue of targets? I understand that you have a target to attract 40 million visitors to the UK per year by 2020. Witnesses have commented to us that you are prioritising better-known parts of the UK. Is that true? Have you considered specific targets for specific parts of the UK?

Patricia Yates

No, I do not think that is true. In fact, it is absolutely the reverse of what we are doing. London held the Olympics in 2012, which was a big event. We had a huge strategy, and were tasked by Government to deliver a tourism uplift post-Olympics, with very stretching targets and a budget cut at the same time. We regard as part of the success of that the fact that 74% of people who saw Olympic coverage said that they wanted to explore other parts of Britain. We have put a huge effort into making sure that all of Britain is represented in what we promote overseas. We do not want people just to come to London, do a one-off visit and think that they have seen the UK; there is much more to Britain than that. Some of the values that the Britain brand is weak on internationally are things like countryside. We need to get people out to explore it.

Nia Griffith

Can I follow up on that? Let us park countryside and beaches, because if you come from a warm country you are not going to be interested in the beaches in Wales. What packages do you have for London-Cardiff-Swansea or London-Chester-north Wales, focusing on things like museums and art galleries—the city type of thing for people who are coming long haul, do not want to drive and need to rely on public transport and centres where there will be lots to do? How many of those packages are you promoting and selling? I have not heard a mention of those today.

Patricia Yates

Don’t forget that we do not sell packages. We work with the travel trade so that they put together packages. We have a new travel trade website that has itineraries on it. We have what is called a BritAgent scheme, which trains international sellers on the range of what there is in Britain. There is a specific module for Wales, so they can be educated on that. We have round tables on markets, for example. A week ago we had a round table on Australia. The Australians are really interested in exploring the whole of Britain. The travel trade that came to that absolutely wants to continue to take people through Wales. It is a strong market for Wales.

David Bishop

Can I quickly add a couple of things? Between April and September this year we are bringing 36 international press visits to Wales. Twenty-one of those will include time in Cardiff. We have a long-standing partnership with the FA Premier League. That means that in the past we worked with both Cardiff and Swansea; we are now working with Swansea—but there we are. We are very conscious of the fact that Wales is not purely mountains, castles, lakes and beaches; it is also cities and a vibrant city-break offer. That is part of what we promote. We work very actively with the travel trade overseas to help them to understand the entirety—the full range of experiences that Wales has to offer—so that they can package it up and sell it.

Patricia Yates

Can I say a bit about countryside? Our city offer is really important, but if you are sitting in a city in China the experience you are looking for is not just history and culture; it is about a relaxing environment. That is something that people need every year, whereas if you just have an offer that is about going to see major sites, you only need to see those major sites once. Getting the experience of a trip to Britain is an absolutely crucial part of what we need to do.

Nia Griffith

I am just worried that we often look at what might be called the easy targets—the northern Europeans and Australians, who are the types who are likely to go out and about, who are confident about driving and are confident with the language. What we really need to look at are the newer markets, where there is not that sort of confidence or facility with getting around the UK. We need to look at marketing to them in a way that is more acceptable for them.

Patricia Yates

China is absolutely one of our growth markets, so let me take that as an example. We have launched a China Welcome programme to make Britain the most welcoming destination in Europe. We invited businesses to sign up for that, as Welsh businesses such as Celtic Manor have done, so that we can share best practice and promote businesses that we know have the criteria to appeal to Chinese visitors internationally, and we can promote the fact that Britain is a welcoming destination. We have put a lot of effort into the new growth markets. There is always a balance between where you get value now—the people you want to come this year and next year, which is the travel trade’s immediate desire—and how you build for the growth markets of the future. You will see that in the way we allocate our funding, and in the GREAT funding; we absolutely look at the balance.

Chair

I have a quick question for you. Do you have some figures for the number of people coming here on what you might call standard two-week package holidays from developing countries like India or China? I would find it interesting to know, in terms of numbers, just how many people in countries we traditionally think of as poor—I know that is an outdated term—are able to afford to come over and have a two-week package holiday in the UK.

David Bishop

We will have to go away and look at the data we have. That is certainly something we have at a number of points in the past. I am not entirely sure how up to date it is, but I am very happy to go away and to come back on that.

Chair

It would be an interesting indicator of places we might want to look to. If you have something in that format, we would all find it quite interesting.

Geraint Davies

On the numbers, the Welsh Government say that VisitBritain’s activities generate only 4% of the total value of inbound tourism in Wales. Wales is about 5% or 6% of Britain, so you would think that, pro rata, we would get 5% or 6% of that, but the Welsh Government say that we are getting only 4% of that 5% from your activities. How do you respond to that? It sounds like a minuscule amount.

David Bishop

It is not 2.4% of 5%. They are incorrect, if that is what they are arguing.

Geraint Davies

No, it is 4% of the total value of inbound tourism. I was saying 4% of 5%; I do not know where the 2.5% came in.

David Bishop

To unpack this slightly, if there were no tourist boards there would still be international travel; that is the fact of the matter. We are targeted and funded by DCMS to deliver what is called incremental visits and incremental spend. There are a certain number of international visitors who would come to the UK each year. Our job is to get a little bit extra on top—think of it as being like the icing on the cake. Over four years, from 2010 to 2014, we have been asked to get 4 million additional visitors—call it 1 million a year, for argument’s sake. Our evaluation shows that last year we were directly responsible, through our marketing, for 2.4% of all international visitors who came to the UK; they chose to do so because of what we did. That is the reality of being funded and targeted to deliver incremental value. For the UK as a whole, we delivered 2.4%. For Wales, we delivered 4% of all international visitors. Far from saying that we are a minuscule part of what is going on, if you look at what we deliver for Wales versus what we deliver for the UK as a whole in terms of international visitors, we are actually doing much better in getting people to go to Wales. It is a misreading of the evidence to suggest that we are not doing that. You can have an argument about whether incremental value and incremental visits are really the right measure of success for a tourist board. That is a discussion we are looking at very closely in terms of various reviews that are under way, and where we pitch our tent come the spending round next year. However, the fact of the matter is that as things currently stand we are doing better for Wales than we are doing for the UK as a whole.

Geraint Davies

Can I ask you two quick questions? First, can you evaluate what the 4% is—how many people? Secondly, you are promoting Wales in 22 overseas markets, aren’t you? In which markets are you specifically pushing Wales ahead of other UK regions? Are there any places where you are putting Wales at the top of the pile in terms of targeting? What is the 4% figure? How many is that? Is it 10,000 people or 10 people?

David Bishop

I will calculate it while my colleague talks about the markets.

Patricia Yates

As you know, Visit Wales’s priority markets are Germany, the US and Ireland. As I said, we do not operate in Ireland; we have stood back and left that to Visit Wales to do.

Geraint Davies

Because it’s collapsed.

Patricia Yates

We are doing a piece of work that looks at which are the best customer segments and what will appeal to them and then matches them with destinations that would work in those countries. That is currently ongoing. At the moment we promote Wales equally internationally. Visit Wales has a particular focus in those markets. We are looking to make that offer clearer and more pertinent to the international customer. That is a piece of refining that we are currently doing.

Geraint Davies

But in the case of Germany, you would not put Wales first. It would be Britain first, wouldn’t it, and then Wales as a subset of that?

Patricia Yates

No. The understanding of Germans is quite differentiated. We have considerable attractions for them in the west country, in Wales and in Scotland. It is about what sort of thing they like and what they have to be talked to about.

Geraint Davies

I would have thought that an international visitor would know about Britain first, and then about Wales very much at the back of the room. That is not a criticism of Wales—it is just natural. People will normally want to come to London in the first instance; they even think about Europe and arriving in Britain. Is VisitBritain an essential front door for Visit Wales? Is there a problem with Visit Wales going off and trying to do their own thing and carrying too much heavy weight, when what they really should be doing is jumping on the back of VisitBritain? You would get the people through the door and we would grab them, as opposed to our trying to reinvent the wheel.

Patricia Yates

We see life in competitive markets. I would not say there is any market in which all the Britain agencies together are outspending their competitors, so it makes absolute sense, with the limited funds that we all have available, for us to work closely together.

Geraint Davies

Is there that intimate co-operation?

Chair

I want to butt in myself with a question on this. To pick up on what Geraint was saying—

Geraint Davies

I will leave it there, but do you want to finish off your sentence?

David Bishop

Yes; 40% of the 884,000 international visitors to Wales is 354,000 people.[1] When you think back to the context of our getting 1 million extra visitors a year, that is about a third, rather than a quarter.

Geraint Davies

That is good.

Chair

My colleague has run a tourism business—

Geraint Davies

Yes, I have run travel companies.

Chair

He is on to something quite interesting, and it is this. From the point of view of English taxpayers, you are being funded by DCMS, yet you are VisitBritain. We have a separate Visit Wales in Wales, which is presumably encouraging people to come only to Wales and not to England. In some ways, you are being quite generous in trying to get people into Wales, aren’t you, when we have our own body that is trying to get people into Wales as well and you are being paid for by the English taxpayer?

David Bishop

We are being funded by the British taxpayer, to be fair. Given that international visitors to the UK pay £6 billion in taxes to come here and while they are here, and our budget is £20 million, you could probably make quite a good argument that we are actually being funded by the international visitors themselves—and then some.

Chair

By the sounds of your evidence, you are doing a pretty good job of getting people into Wales.

Patricia Yates

Yes, we would say so.

Chair

So what is Visit Wales doing?

Patricia Yates

We already work closely with Visit Wales. They have three staff in our American office. We are looking at getting an implant into the London office. What does Visit Wales do? Our staff are in international markets. They understand the demand side. Visit Wales does domestic tourism, which we do not do at all.

Chair

Do you mean from within the UK?

Patricia Yates

Yes. It is also the custodian of the product. What we need is good, quality product and the packaging of product that makes it easier for the international visitor to access it and for the international travel trade to package and sell it. When we are promoting Britain, including Wales, on third-party websites, through social media, to international media, that rich content will then come through to us in a way that we can use.

Chair

It is unfortunate that I am putting this to you because they were not able to come and see us, for some reason I am trying to get to the bottom of— involving the Minister, I believe. You have just said to me that their role is to encourage domestic tourism—

Patricia Yates

I said that they do that uniquely, in that we do not do domestic at all. They also have an international role.

Chair

But you also mentioned that they have three people in the American office. Presumably they have people dotted around the world.

Patricia Yates

Not to my knowledge. They have three with us in America and one person who is coming to be with us in Germany.

Chair

As they cannot come in to answer questions, I suppose I will have to leave that one there. What about Poland and Japan? For some reason I cannot quite figure out, but that I am very pleased to hear, apparently Welsh is being taught at universities in Poland and Japan. Is that something you have been made aware of? Is there some mechanism by which we might encourage Welsh-speaking Japanese and Polish students to visit Wales?

Patricia Yates

On the international student market—given that we are following on from the British Council—I think that it is a really clever thing to do to get people here to study and form a lifelong love of the country, as well as to have their relatives come and visit, because you get money not just immediately but over a lifetime. That is a huge advantage. I am smiling because the Japanese market is a difficult one at the moment, but we should use that connection and get people who are ambassadors, particularly on social media, where it is very easy for people to talk about somewhere they love and connect with an authentic culture.

Geraint Davies

Is there a specific focus on converting foreign students at, say, Swansea, into ambassadors for the place, to get more tourism networking, but also things like inward investment? Is that part of your focus or not?

Patricia Yates

The whole premise of the GREAT campaign is to have the bodies that promote Britain overseas—the British Council, UKTI, ourselves and the Foreign Office—do that.

Geraint Davies

Through universities.

Patricia Yates

It is about Britain as a place to study, a place to invest and a place to visit. That layer of activity is going through there.

Nia Griffith

Would you like to comment further on the memorandum of understanding that I understand you have had with Visit Wales since January? What role do you think the person seconded to you would best carry out? It seems to me that there is still a lot of work to be done to make the most effective use of partnership working.

Patricia Yates

We have a number of formal arrangements with Visit Wales. We have someone from Visit Wales on our board already. We do not have the opportunity to present to the Visit Wales board, which I think we would welcome. Our CEOs meet regularly, and we have functional meetings for research and PR. That all goes very well. The MOU comes on top of that, as the formalising of a relationship that is already very active and engaged. The idea of having a member of Wales staff in our office is that it is just easier to be part of the conversation if you are where the conversation is taking place. When we are discussing marketing, trade engagement or our missions, having someone there who can link instantly into Visit Wales will be a real help for Wales, in terms of seeing what the international opportunities are and how we can pool Welsh product. We also have a very good relationship with the Wales Tourism Alliance, which is a very active member of our consultative body.

Chair

How often do you meet the Tourism Minister in the Welsh Assembly?

Patricia Yates

To my knowledge, we have never met the Tourism Minister. I gave evidence to the Welsh Assembly a couple of weeks ago.

Chair

To a Select Committee?

Patricia Yates

Yes. Our chairman and board have been to visit Wales recently, a couple of weeks ago.

Chair

Does the Minister responsible for tourism meet somebody in VisitBritain on a regular basis?

Patricia Yates

Not to my knowledge.[2]

Guto Bebb

You mentioned the Wales Tourism Alliance as a body that works with you. They gave evidence to the Committee highlighting the fact that they think that the GREAT brand has worked in bringing people to the UK but not necessarily in bringing people to Wales. If Visit Wales is supposed to attract people domestically, whose responsibility is it to try to make sure that tourists brought into the UK are shared around?

David Bishop

Visit Wales has a domestic and an international role. VisitBritain has a purely international role. As you can imagine, given that substantial amounts of public money are involved, we evaluate the effectiveness of spending on the GREAT campaign very rigorously. “Recallers” is a fantastic marketing term for “Do you remember an advert?” Those who recall the campaign are twice as likely to travel to Wales as those who do not, or have not seen the campaign at all. People who have been influenced by the campaign and go to Wales will spend three times as many nights in Wales as those who have not. In terms of holiday visits from markets where we are using the GREAT campaign—Brazil, China, France, Germany, India and the United States—Wales has seen the fastest percentage growth of any constituent part of the UK. It is absolutely the case that the GREAT campaign for tourism is delivering for Wales.

Guto Bebb

Are those stats available to the Committee?

David Bishop

Absolutely.

Guto Bebb

Basically, that contradicts the Welsh Government’s research that the GREAT campaign “does not offer a strong platform” for tourism in Wales.

Patricia Yates

Yes.

Guto Bebb

I am happy with that.

Simon Hart

Are trade fairs good or bad? Do they work? Is Wales adequately represented?

Patricia Yates

Trade fairs do work, particularly in newer markets where legislation may be complex, and personal contact is all. We run trade fairs. I would say that our most successful are the ones in Russia, China and Brazil. We have just done a big one in Malaysia, which pulls together the middle east and south-east Asia; we also do a big one in America. UKTI give some funding for new people who have not been to trade fairs at all, so this is an area where SMEs can get funding. Again, we evaluate the work that comes from that. People tell us that they get good business, but it all depends on our getting the right travel trade people to come and meet. And yes, Wales does come on them. They are a really good first step. It would be good if they were more joined up. I talk about the package, but what we tend to get is individual attractions and sites coming on those missions. We need to get a more integrated approach, so that an international travel trade person can package it more easily. We also have seminars on nations and regions of the UK. We have a seminar on Wales, so the international travel trade can engage with and learn about that. They are really valuable, and I would encourage Welsh suppliers to come on them. The popular ones sell out very quickly.

Simon Hart

I have one last question. Our colleagues in the Welsh Government in Cardiff say that Wales is “poorly represented” on the VisitBritain website. Is that a fair accusation, or are they talking nonsense?

Patricia Yates

If you look at digital and social media, our digital strategy is currently to get content on to third-party sites, because only 9% of potential international visitors come to DMO websites. Most international visitors look at 22 sites, so the important thing is to get your content in a place where they are looking, such as the Yahoo! and Expedia sites. We do some very clever disrupting marketing. If you google Paris, a British city will pop up and we will say, “Have you considered going to Cardiff?” It works. Very often on those sites people are looking for price and availability, so that sort of thing works. We get content from Wales and we feed that through internationally. That is where the bulk of our effort currently goes. Our website is ripe for redevelopment. We are looking at a digital strategy at the moment and we are in discussions with Visit Wales about Welsh content and what that will look like. What we have done on the current website is to have much more focused content and links down to destinations and attractions; the breadth and depth is not absolutely visible on the website at the first look, but it is all up for negotiation. We are looking to see what the next phase is.

Chair

I am going to rush everyone, if I may. Geraint, do you want to ask a very quick question?

Geraint Davies

I meant to ask how much work you do with individual tour operators abroad to get people to package up Britain and to come to Wales.

Patricia Yates

That is absolutely a focus. Two key parts of our Britain strategy and the target to get 40 million visitors were making sure that Britain is sold—engagement with the travel trade and making sure we get people to missions and bring people over to show them what there is in Britain—and making sure that we have the product, packageable and commissionable, to work for international buyers.

Geraint Davies

For Wales as well?

Patricia Yates

Yes.

Jessica Morden

Earlier in the inquiry we had some evidence from people saying that the Ryder cup did not benefit Wales as much as it should have. Were you involved in the promotion of Wales through that? Do you agree? If it is true, whose fault do you think that is?

Patricia Yates

We had some involvement; we would be in a supportive role. With the big set-piece events like the Olympics, it is about showcasing the destination at the time. The tourism follow-through—the hard work—comes afterwards. It was unfortunate that it rained—so God’s fault, obviously—but making sure that you get good images of the content that you want to show internationally and making sure that visiting journalists are blogging and being entertained well, so that they see the range of the Welsh product, is absolutely part of the mix that we would pass on as our experience.

Jessica Morden

With that in mind—NATO summit question alert—

Patricia Yates

I thought you might come to that next.

Jessica Morden

What lessons can we learn for the NATO summit, given that it is fast approaching? What is your role? Who is doing what?

Patricia Yates

Our role is very much supportive. This is a Wales event. We have introduced Wales to the GREAT team and some images have been agreed under the GREAT branding that will be used at the event itself. We have a really good PR team, which is working with them on the images that you will see on television screens and how that works in international markets, to make sure that Wales makes the best of that opportunity. There is particular interest in Obama coming and, if he brings Michelle, making sure that she has an interesting programme, because they are very active in social media.

Jessica Morden

We are all very interested in that programme.

Patricia Yates

There are some very practical things that can be done.

Jessica Morden

Newport also wants to be promoted through having the NATO summit; we want to improve the recognition of Newport as well as of Wales. When you are promoting Wales to international visitors, how can we use that opportunity to promote Newport as well? It is probably nothing to do with you, but I have just looked on the Government website that leads you to information about the NATO summit. There is an introduction to Wales, with Beaumaris castle, Caernarfon castle, Laugharne and Rhossili, all of which are beautiful and significant to Wales, but a bit more reference to Newport and the surrounding area would not go amiss. How do you think we can do that? Last week there was controversy over the logo, because it was felt that there was not enough reference to Newport in it. How do we do all those things?

Patricia Yates

You have the huge opportunity of actually having the media there. They will be in Newport. All the tourism businesses need to pull together and make sure that those media are really well looked after and have a great time. Internationally, not everyone gets that right. The media are a really important constituent in your tourism delivery for the future. If Wales is not well known, Newport is probably even less well known. Use the strong attractions and experiences that you have, so people go away thinking, “It is a really welcoming place. Michelle had a great time going round and has tweeted about it all.” It is using those opportunities.

Jessica Morden

Is it part of your role to go to journalists who are going to be around in the weeks preceding the summit, to help to look after them and to organise what they see?

Patricia Yates

We are having discussions with Visit Wales about what they would like us to do.

Chair

Thank you very much for that. As a Newport boy, now living in Monmouthshire, I really hope we are going to use this opportunity to raise the profile of both those wonderful places—the town and the county. Both of them need and deserve it. It is a golden opportunity I hope we will take advantage of. Thank you very much for coming in. International Representation and Promotion of Wales by UK bodies, HC 1206 26 [1] VisitBritain wish to correct this. The correct figure is 36,000 international visitors, which is equivalent to 3.6% of all the visitors VisitBritain directly attracts to the UK. [2] VisitBritain wish to correct this. VisitBritain’s Chief Executive, Sandie Dawe met with Edwina Hart, once, in 2012 when she was escorting a group of international travel trade members on a familiarisation trip to Wales.