Summary of key findings
How has this research been conducted?
Visit Wales commissioned Strategic Research and Insight (SRI), an independent Cardiff-based research agency, to conduct annual research with the travel trade. The research sample size this year is 500 – comprising 463 telephone interviews and 37 online responses with
UK-based (domestic & inbound) and overseas-based tour operators. All fieldwork was conducted during February to March 2025.
£37m estimated value for Wales
Operators which Visit Wales has interacted with in key markets generated an estimated 405,200 bed nights at a value of £37.0m to Wales in 2024 (£33.0m in 2023).
Visit Wales is estimated to have influenced approximately £17.4m of the total value – a significant increase from £11.5m in 2023. This stems from 28% of operators who featured Wales in 2024 saying that Visit Wales’ information and ideas were ‘very important’ in helping them to feature or sell Wales products, and a further 27% saying the support was ‘fairly important’.
The whole travel trade population is larger overall than the operators which Visit Wales has had contact with. Therefore, the actual volume of travel trade business coming into Wales in 2024 is likely to have been greater than £37.0m.
Value by key markets
UK-based operators (domestic & inbound) contributed £20.3m in 2024 – over half the total. North America contributed £7.9m and German-speaking markets contributed £2.6m.
Increase in the active promotion of Wales
Just over half (54%) of operators featured Wales in their tours and programmes in 2024. Among these, 44% actively promoted Wales – a significant increase from 30% in 2023.
Regions of Wales featured
Operators featuring Wales in 2024 offered a reasonable level of regional spread overall. Many (72%) featured North Wales, followed by Cardiff (67%), South West Wales (54%), South East Wales outside Cardiff (52%) and Mid Wales (45%).
How is 2025 looking?
The estimated value of travel trade business to Wales in 2025 is £40.3m – an increase of 9%. However, much of the growth was expected to come from North America, and since the fieldwork in February / March, wider industry research shows that North America may not perform as well as expected because of economic uncertainty.
Increase in interest in Wales among operators
Many (63%) operators are interested in developing or selling more Wales products. The proportion with ‘strong interest’ (32%) has increased significantly from 19% in last year’s research.
Seasonal spread
There is strong interest in sending people to Wales in the shoulder season months of May and September. Most (78%) operators with an interest in Wales can foresee sending people in May, and 70% say they can foresee sending people in September.
What are the gaps in the Wales product?
Perceived lack of good quality hotels outside major cities with capacity for groups and who will work well with the travel trade is a key barrier to more business coming to Wales.
Perceived flight access is also a barrier. Visit Wales actively raises awareness among operators that Wales can be easily accessed through Cardiff Airport, or from Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester airports too. Operators mostly seem to know this, but some do not like the travelling time and would rather there were more direct flights to Wales.
Specific to the domestic market, there are issues with coach parking in tourism hotspots.
What are the opportunities for Wales?
Perhaps Wales’ biggest strength in the travel trade market is that once visitors do come, they are nearly always satisfied with their experience. Wales’ natural beauty is a key reason for their satisfaction.
This incentivises some operators to keep featuring and promoting Wales in spite of low consumer awareness because they are confident customers will like it if they come.
