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Visit Swansea Bay 2014 Conference


C 3rd October 2014

Every year, we hold a conference for the local tourism to celebrate tourism in Swansea Bay. It’s a great event (even if we do say so ourselves), where we get to show what we’ve been doing over the past year, and local businesses get to feed back and ask questions. The news coming back was great to hear. The destination has been thriving with friendly new faces. We asked for a show of hands, and everyone reported a fantastic year.

 

Swans Legend Lee Trundle on Tourism

We were delighted to welcome ex-Swans striker and current Club Ambassador Lee Trundle as a guest speaker too. He spoke about his affinity for Swansea, Mumbles and Gower, reminding everyone not to take what’s on their doorstep for granted.  It’s one of the great things about working in the Tourism industry – particularly here in Swansea Bay. Our visitors constantly remind us of the area’s outstanding beauty, the choice of things to do and the friendly nature of the people.

The Competition

The team also talked about the Rhossili Bay competition that ran hand in hand with the launch of the new website and this year’s TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Awards. We showed this video of the winners enjoying a magical week at the National Trust’s Old Rectory, which overlooks Rhossili’s majestic sandy sweep.

 

Cllr Robert Francis Davies on Swansea Bay

Cllr Robert Francis-Davies, Swansea Council’s Cabinet Member for Enterprise, Development and Regeneration, said: “It’s great to hear Lee Trundle saying how important Swansea Bay’s beauty is in attracting world class players to the Premier League Swans, but it’s not surprising. It’s easy to take Swansea Bay for granted when you come from the area but everyone needs to remember how lucky we are to have such a stunning coastline and the world’s first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty so close at hand.

“The strong turnout at the annual tourism conference speaks volumes for how closely our tourism team works with the tourism sector across Swansea Bay to keep on improving the visitor experience at a time when tourism is already worth over £330 million to the local economy every year.

“We’ve already worked with our tourism businesses to develop a destination management plan that’s highlighting areas for improvement and monitoring progress, and the vast majority of businesses at the conference were reporting the same or better business than the same period last year. This is extremely encouraging but we’ll continue to do all we can to boost tourism because it’s a key driver of our economy and an important regeneration tool.”

 

The Brangwyn Hall

Tourism businesses represented at the conference were also given a guided tour of the newly-refurbished Brangwyn Hall. Swansea Council won’t just be using the hall for concerts in future. The authority will also be hiring the attraction out as a space to accommodate everything from weddings and wedding fares to conferences, seminars, award ceremonies, dinner parties and themed events. For more information, head to the Brangwyn Hall website.