3. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the role of faith tourism? OAQ(5)0107(EI)

Yes. Visit Wales continues to promote faith and religious heritage sites as part of the overall heritage offer. Our Year of Legends will focus very much on all aspects of Wales’s heritage.

That’s encouraging to hear. Faith tourism sites, such as Neath Abbey, and other Cistercian Way heritage, should be a huge draw for visitors, both domestic and from abroad, and particularly from the USA. Last year, you launched the faith tourism action plan to develop faith tourism as part of that wider visitor offer. How are you measuring its success, and can you say yet that it is persuading visitors to stay longer and spend more, both on and off-site?

We can if we look specifically at those sites that we measure visitor numbers for. So, for example, with the Cadw sites that are related to the question the Member asks, we’ve seen a considerable increase in visitor numbers. And, in terms of the associated spend, we’ve seen again an increase. We’ve seen, for example, with Cadw properties at Tintern and Valle Crucis and Strata Florida, between them, they’ve attracted more than 84,000 visitors. Now, in terms of the faith tourism action plan, of course, it’s very early days in the actual delivery of that action plan, but Visit Wales—and I think it’s a very important point that Visit Wales sits on the newly established forum that stemmed from the faith tourism action plan task and finish group, because it’s essential, in terms of protecting the future heritage of faith structures, that we have the key promotional vehicle there, offering advice and also offering a willingness to promote right around the globe some of the key features of what Wales can offer.

Last week, I was visited by a constituent interested in promoting faith tourism who was actually creating a website to do that for the south Wales area. Ireland had a signature project on St Patrick and the Christian heritage. Have the Welsh Government considered a similar project on St David and will the Government also consider a policy to protect key sites and market these sites around the world?

Yes, we already do that with the faith tourism section of the Visit Wales website. I think it’s important that we don’t see an overabundance of websites and web pages dedicated to what essentially are the same subjects, and that instead we are able to direct visitors who are looking to learn more about faith tourism to key portals. For that purpose, I am going to encourage the Member to, in turn, encourage his constituents to make sure that anybody who creates a website dedicated to a single or multiple heritage centre or a heritage visitor attraction directs people to the Visit Wales website, where they can learn more not just about what is in that very localised area, but right across Wales. We’ve been able to develop, through Cadw, a pan-Wales heritage interpretation plan—the first of its type in Europe—and that demonstrates how we are committed to capturing the essence of a Wales-wide cultural offer and promoting it across the globe. In terms of the outcomes—and the Member mentions the need to promote our sites better right across the globe—in terms of international visitors, it was a record year last year and one of the key factors that has attracted visitors to Wales is faith tourism sites. I’m convinced that, during the Year of Legends, that will remain so.