Visit Wales ran a small-scale capital grants fund in 2025-2026. It supported tourism businesses to invest in weather-proofing measures.

Intervention 1 for Attractions
The journey began our £1 million pilot focused on our attractions.
The goal was to secure business continuity for our most-visited sites. The pilot was a huge success, mitigating the impact of adverse conditions, allowing attractions to extend dwell time, and providing a better, more comfortable experience for thousands of visitors.

Intervention 2 for Small and Micro-Businesses
Building on the momentum of the pilot, we launched the second phase with a dedicated £1.75 million programme.
We extended the eligibility to cover small firms (9-49 employees). Recognising they form the very heart of the Welsh tourism economy, we made sure to include our vital microbusinesses. The overwhelming demand confirmed the need for this support, demonstrating the industry's keen desire to invest in a year-round offer.

Intervention 3 for Our Medium-Sized Pioneers 
This final intervention focused on medium-sized companies (50-250 employees), ensuring that businesses across all scales of our industry had the opportunity to enhance their offering. 
This intervention allowed us to support larger-scale, strategic projects and completed our sector-wide commitment to climate resilience.

Purpose of the Fund 
We funded weather-proofing measures that would:

• Improve the visitor experience in all weather 
• Help your business grow and become more resilient 
• Enable you to offer the best possible welcome to visitors during the Year of Croeso

What did it fund?
Grants of between £5,000 and £20,000 were available to support the installation of weather-proofing measures as well as equipment and facilities that offer enhanced experiences in wet weather such as:

• Canopies, pergolas, or covered seating
• Covered walkways or visitor shelters
• Woodchip or gravel paths
• Hard standing for car parks
• Indoor play areas

Facilities had to be available for day visitors - facilities that are for the sole use of overnight/staying guests were not eligible.

The grant supported up to 75% of the costs of the weather-proofing measures (or up to £20,000 if this was less than 75% of the costs). No revenue costs were considered.

Projects had to be completed, paid for and claimed by 13 March 2026.
 

Brilliant Basics was a capital fund delivering small-scale tourism infrastructure improvements across Wales. 

Who could apply?
This year’s fund was open to:

• Local Authorities
• National Park Authorities

The purpose of the fund was to deliver improvements in basic but essential visitor infrastructure at strategic tourism destinations across Wales to ensure that all visitors have a positive and memorable experience throughout all aspects of their stay.

For this round of funding, all applications must have met priority (1) below and at least one of the other 3 key priorities:

1. Environmentally sustainable destinations and responding to the climate emergency. Develop new, or transform existing, infrastructure to make the destination more sustainable, helping to reduce the carbon footprint.
2. Alleviate pressure points at ‘hot spot’ locations and supporting high quality tourism destinations. 
3. Inclusive tourism and enhancing accessibility. Support projects that remove obstacles and barriers and improve access to facilities for all.
4. Enhancing the visitor offer, for example, through developing product experiences that provide a sense of place such as event infrastructure, interpretation schemes, trails and projects that showcase local food, heritage, culture and the Welsh language.

This was a capital fund. Revenue costs were not considered. 
Total grant available was £300,000 with a maximum intervention rate of 80%. There was no minimum grant amount. 

The closing date for this round was 22 November 2024. 

Offers made April 2025 to January 2027

Brilliant Basics was a capital fund for 2023-2025 to deliver small-scale tourism infrastructure improvements across Wales. 

Who could apply?
This year’s scheme was open to:

• Local Authorities
• National Park Authorities

The objectives of the fund were to:

• Invest in small infrastructure projects that benefit both communities and visitors in strategically important tourism locations.  
• Develop high quality infrastructure projects that support the wider tourism offer in destinations giving visitors a memorable experience throughout their stay. 
• Support basic facilities to remain open all year and cater for visitors well into the evening.

For this round of funding, the priority was focused on 4 key areas:

• Alleviate pressure points. Find infrastructure solutions to overcome pressure on areas as a result of increased visitor numbers.
• Environmentally sustainable destinations. Develop new or transform existing infrastructure to make the destination more environmentally sustainable, thereby helping to reduce the carbon footprint.
• Inclusive Tourism / Accessibility. Support projects that remove obstacles and barriers within a destination and improve access to facilities for all.
• Enhancing national products, for example, projects that enhance and raise the profile of the Wales Coast Path.

Level of funding available
This was a capital fund. Revenue costs were not considered. 

Total grant available was £300,000 with a maximum intervention rate of 80%. There was no minimum grant amount. 

The closing date for this round was 16 March 2023.

Offers made June 2023 to March 2025

Brilliant Basics was a capital fund for 2022-23 to deliver small-scale tourism infrastructure improvements across Wales. 

Who could apply?

This year’s scheme was open to:

• Local Authorities
• National Park Authorities

The objectives of the fund were to:

• Invest in small infrastructure projects that benefit both communities and visitors in strategically important tourism locations.  
• Develop high quality infrastructure projects that support the wider tourism offer in destinations giving visitors a memorable experience throughout their stay. 
• Support basic facilities to remain open all year and cater for visitors well into the evening.

For this round of funding, the priority was focused on 4 key areas:-

• Alleviate pressure points. Find infrastructure solutions to overcome pressure on areas as a result of increased visitor numbers.
• Environmentally sustainable destinations. Develop new or transform existing infrastructure to make the destination more environmentally sustainable, thereby helping to reduce the carbon footprint.
• Inclusive Tourism /  Accessibility. Support projects that remove obstacles and barriers within a destination and improve access to facilities for all.
• Enhancing national or regional signature products, for example, projects that enhance and raise the profile of the Wales Coast Path on its ten year anniversary.

Level of funding available

This was a capital fund. Revenue costs were not considered. 
Total grant available was £250,000 with a maximum intervention rate of 80%. There was no minimum grant amount. 

The closing date for this round was 4 March 2022.

Offers made April 2022 to March 2023

Brilliant Basics was a Wales wide fund that supported public, third sector and not for profit organisations to:

• deliver basic small scale tourism infrastructure improvements, and
• ensure that all visitors to Wales have a positive and memorable experience throughout their stay.

This fund was built on the previous rounds of funding via the Tourism Amenity Investment Support scheme (TAIS). TAIS was launched in 2017, and supported through the Welsh Government Rural Communities Rural Development Programme 2014-2020 (RDP), funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), and Welsh Government. 

Under the previous TAIS funding rounds, only rural wards in Wales were eligible under the RDP rules. With the addition of non-EU funding, the scheme was extended to those areas outside of the rural wards as part of Brilliant Basics. This ensured that all parts of Wales were able to benefit from the fund. For those projects located within the eligible wards, Brilliant Basics continued to be part funded through the Welsh Government RDP EU Programme. 

Funding Objectives

Funding of up to £10m for 2020 to 2025 was available to prioritise projects that would:

• develop quality visitor experiences with a Welsh sense of place
• enable a wide range of visitors to access and enjoy new wellbeing opportunities
• improve access to facilities and project an inclusive view of Wales
• invest in facilities that enhance Wales’ adventure offering
• contribute to key WG tourism initiatives including the Year of Outdoors campaign 2020 – 2021 and The Wales Way 
• encourage clean, green destinations for example through sustainable infrastructure improvements
• proactively promote a sense of place, culture and language
• provide year-round facilities across all parts of Wales
• invest in world-class experiences and events facilities

Support of between £25,000 and £128,000 was available for projects with a total eligible expenditure of £160,000, with a maximum intervention rate of 80%. 

Offers made August 2021 to March 2022