The Wales Accommodation Occupancy Survey for April, May and June
2023 has been released and shows a decline in hotel occupancy
compared with each of those three months in 2022.
Commenting on the figures, Welsh Conservative Shadow Tourism
Minister, said:
“Today’s tourism figures are lacklustre at best. The only
comparison with 2022 is for hotel occupancy and to see a decline
is truly disappointing given that this is a comparison between
this year and the tail end of the Covid pandemic.
“Labour are again cherry picking the statistics with their report
summary, stating that these Spring figures are better than this
Winter’s, as if that was at all unexpected.
“The Labour Government have failed to attract visitors to Wales
since their harmful 182-day regulations came into force and plans
to introduce a toxic tourism tax fast approach fruition. Only the
Welsh Conservatives are intent on enhancing our tourism sector
with a positive, alternative strategy.”
April 2023 saw a decline in Welsh hotel occupancy to 76% from 80%
in April 2022, to 78% in May 2023 from 79% in May 2022 and to 79%
in June 2023 from 82% in June 2022.
ENDS
Note to editors: Link to the Wales Accommodation Occupancy
Survey: April - June 2023 can be found here.
The Welsh Conservative Alternative Tourism Strategy: a
positive alternative for Welsh Tourism includes:
· Freeing Welsh tourism by
making Visit Wales independent of the Welsh Government.
· Creating regional visitor
passes for local attractions to boost local economies.
· A plan for promoting
heritage and speciality tourism offers, such as sport and faith.
· Listening to businesses by
scrapping Labour’s toxic tourism tax and cutting the
self-catering accommodation regulation threshold to 105 days.
· Upskilling the industry for
the future with a Tourism and Hospitality Academy.
· Specific offers for
different international markets in different languages.
· Proactively capitalising on
major events and Wales as a filming location to encourage new
visitors.
· Explore and trial a
pilot tax free shopping scheme for international tourists coming
to Wales.
