VisitWales.com, the ‘official’ online showpiece for Welsh Tourism, is officially a failure. The parrot is dead. That was the message and admission loud and clear from a consultative meeting of Visit Wales officials and the Tourism industry held in Brecon on Tuesday.
Visit Wales, the website, has been an expensive (£2million+) disaster from its inception. The trade hates it for its unfathomable and needless complexity, the incomprehensible terminology used (a bed and breakfast is known as a ‘tourism product’!), and apparent lack of benefit in terms of more tourism business generated (see Dylan Jones-Evans for the recent shameful statistics that tourism to Wales appears to have grown inversely to the amount of money spent by the WAG on marketing it). On every measurable and unmeasurable level, this so-called destination management system (DMS) has been a failure, now publicly acknowledged, and yet … nobody is going to be held to account. Why not?
However, someone has benefited… Who? The developers of VisitWales to the tune of £2million + of Welsh taxpayers money. Is this a Welsh company that has made a total cock-up? No, it is an Australian company (worldnet) who were given the contract by the WTB - at the time a hugely insulting ’slap in the face’ to the Welsh web development community some of whom are world-class in their clientele and abilities and who could have and would have delivered a better product for half the price. So this is yet another scandalous and self defeating exercise in finding a supplier/provider for Welsh contracts by looking in places as far away from home as possible - in this case the other end of the world as far as OZ. Whilst we share with Australians a passion for Rugby and an enthusiastic much loved expat community, how that qualifies them to be interested or expert in the Welsh Tourism industry beggars belief. Perhaps the company was chosen for their technical abilities in coding a web based destination management system (DMS). Well we soon had the answer to that and an expensive answer at that.
What also beggars belief is that Visit Wales having admitted their failure with the DMS are only now ‘consulting’ with the industry’ in order to clarify their future roles and involvement in the online world. Well, I’m sorry but it is too late. Visit Wales is a dinosaur. It is irrelevant. It has been side lined. It has been bypassed by the tourism operators themselves (and by search engines) who are increasingly using their own websites and marketing to generate the business that should have come through Visit Wales. When people search online for holidays probably the last place they would go to is ‘the official tourism site’ - especially when it is as ‘clunky’ as Visit Wales.com.
To their credit Visit Wales more or less understand all this. Roger Pride and his new team of ‘digital marketeers’ now want to develop a ‘digital community for Wales tourism’. But, sadly, they only have a budget of £7million. £7 million!!!!! What on earth are they going to spend that on??? Google adwords? Staff salaries?? More pretty TV ads mis-aimed at the wrong demographic at the wrong time and in the wrong markets? Gordon Brown-it!
In a further piece of news guaranteed to make the web developer world blood to boil even further and tear out what remains of their hair, Visit Wales are in pole position for the process of bidding for £70million + of Convergence Funds from Europe in order to develop this ‘digital community’. Errrmmm. What are they going to do? Re-invent the flippin’ Internet??!! Doh! Even if they are successful (and good luck to them) this funding is scheduled to be in place in 2010, over 2 years from now! So it is an impossibility, given the speed of Internet technology that Visit Wales is going to be able implement a scheme that won’t be creakingly out of date or their niche occupied by someone else.
So what should be role of Visit Wales? Is there even a role for them? As a repository or guardian of knowledge/quality or good practice? Perhaps. There is a definite need in the industry for training and support services to the tourism businesses in bringing some of them (those that desire it) into the Internet age. This was a role fulfilled by Opportunity Wales (which is currently defunct ) who is also bidding for WEFO funds to try and resurrect itself for this very purpose. OW is much more qualified to fill a support and training role than Visit Wales.
Tourism is vital to the Welsh economy. It is to the great credit of Roger Pride and his staff to look for new ways of helping Welsh Tourism providers . This is a good team of excellent people but it is going to be difficult. Radical , flexible and imaginative solutions must be sought and that needs uncompromising leadership - let’s hope they are up for it. Finally a threat plea that if money is secured from Europe that these funds are spent in Wales with Welsh businesses. If in the unlikely event there are no Welsh providers of a particular service then for goodness’ sake create one from scratch.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Al // Jul 17, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Why wait for the WAG or anyone else to make one.. as you say, there are enough talented web designers in Wales, it’s the perfect opportunity for a startup. Community based, a-la Facebook or Digg or such, with recommendations, photos, forums etc. Wales has a lot to offer, but packaged marketing campaigns don’t work (simply by their corporate blandness - people switch off).
If I want to stay in a B&B in Pembroke, I’ll ask someone who has already been there. I want to visit a beach, I’ll ask someone which is the nicest one. The best advert for Wales isn’t some expensive TV campaign, or over-designed DMS/CMS, it the ordinary people, saying “come here! it’s great!”, and people who have been to Wales saying “go there! it’s great! here’s the photos!”. Surely…
2 Dylan Jones-Evans // Jul 19, 2008 at 6:25 am
Clive
You may be interested to know that I worked alongside the old Tourist Board to highlight the fastest growing tourism firms in Wales as part of my annual Fast Growth 50 project.
This year, they have refused to do so, despite the fact that we desperately need some ‘good news’ stories to highlight the best of the industry.
Of course, I could be cynical and say that this is because of my comments on the industry in the Western Mail and Daily Post but they wouldn’t be that spiteful, would they!
3 Bryan // Jul 21, 2008 at 9:26 am
What ill informed idiot wrote this drivel ! I thought I had woken up in 2002 - this is old news, do some research before you post next time.
AI wrote - “If I want to stay in a B&B in Pembroke, I’ll ask someone who has already been there” - exactly and how are millions of people doing that daily? - using a combination of Search Engines and UGC platforms like Tripadvisor and other UGC networks.
Raking over the same old ground will get Wales no where. If the welsh tourism industry stands any chance of becoming competitive in the future, it needs to get the industry and the organisations involved up to speed.
Sometimes you need to read between the lines - there some active people in the tourism industry that benefit from the rest of the industry’s inability to market themselves online. The status quo suits them just fine !
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