Coronavirus: Tourism Industry Update
The situation is developing quickly. Please follow the news reports and for latest advice regularly visit the Public Health Wales website and the Business Wales website
In order to provide impact data and to help support the industry through these challenging times we ran a telephone survey of tourism businesses in Wales in mid-March to find out how the industry was performing, and in particular learn how the COVID-19 virus was impacting on bookings and how businesses were preparing for the impact.
With the situation rapidly evolving since then, we continue to run surveys to track the impacts of the virus. Over the last week we conducted a second wave of the telephone survey which we plan to publish in the coming week, extended to 400 companies. The online survey has also been updated to include questions on financial support. Please complete the survey here.
If you completed the previous online version and want to submit a new response, you may need to refresh the browser page using CTRL+F5.
Business Rates Relief - reminder
In response to the Coronavirus outbreak, Welsh and UK Governments have announced a range of measures to support businesses and workers across Wales. These include Business Rates Relief. Find out more detail here.
Support is available in the form of various business grants, support for the self-employed, access to finance and support for employees. For guidance on all advice and support we would advise Tourism businesses and stakeholders in Wales to visit the Business Wales website or call Business Wales helpline on 03000 6 03000, and to regularly visit the Public Health Wales website for up-to-date public health information for you, your staff and your visitors.
Online Support
Business Wales launch new digital webinars for Welsh SMEs affected by COVID-19
Business Wales is launching a new series of digital courses and webinars, aimed at Welsh SMEs affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.
The ‘Covid-19 and Your Business’ series covers key topics including:
- alternative business models and diversification
- cashflow and finance
- HR policies and procedures
The webinars take place daily. During the webinars, all participants will have the opportunity to take part in a live Q&A by sending their questions to the presenters. Find more details here.
UKinbound - COVID-19 Legal Webinar
UKinbound is running a series of webinars for their members. The latest was a COVID-19 Legal Webinar that they ran on the 31 March 2020 in partnership with Travlaw. They have kindly given the opportunity for non-members to access the recording. It addresses issues such as: the most asked legal questions, good corporate governance for Directors, furlough and self-employed finishing with a Q&A session. You can access the presentations from the session and a link to the recording here (This is pre-recorded, you will be unable to ask questions).
Please note that whilst we were keen to signpost you to this information as it might be useful to your business, the information may have changed since the date of recording, and that in some instances the situation might be different in Wales.
Beyond the daily interaction we have with the sector across Wales, Visit Wales continues to receive feedback on a formal basis from the regional forums via the forum chairs as well as through representative bodies such as the Wales Tourism Alliance and UK Hospitality Cymru. As well as the ongoing dialogue, regular meetings are held with these sector representatives. The meetings are chaired by Jason Thomas, Director Culture Sport and Tourism, with the Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism in attendance where possible, and the views from the meetings and the wider sector are fed into Ministers at a Wales and UK level and through our Wales representatives on Visit Britain and the UK Tourism Industry Council, who also attend the meetings.
At this point, all Visit Wales campaign activity and press and media visits have been paused. We will be maintaining a much reduced presence on social media and concentrating on public health information and the simple message of “Visit Wales. Later”. The situation is reviewed daily and we will also be putting foundation work in place to ensure that we are in the best position possible to support the industry in the short and mid-term.
We are committed to providing the support and assurance the business community needs during these unprecedented difficult times and have issued several Coronavirus (COVID-19) related bulletins which can be found here. These include:
- 30 March: New £500m Economic Resilience Fund launched for Wales
- 27 March: Urgent Notice to Holiday Accommodation Businesses
- 27 March: Self-employment Income Support Scheme; Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
- 26 March: Coronavirus: Tourism Industry Update
- 25 March: Urgent Notice: COVID-19 – Guidance for Holiday Park owners and operators
- 24 March: Coronavirus Guidance on Further Businesses and Premises to Close
- 23 March: Tough new measures to slow the spread of coronavirus introduced today
- 19 March: Ministers announce new £1.4bn business support package
- 12 March: Coronavirus industry information
Make sure you stay up to date with tourism industry news by following us on twitter on @VisitWalesBiz and also encourage others who may benefit, to stay up to date by subscribing to our newsletter .
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