Management of the destination for visitors is guided by Monmouthshire’s strategic Destination Management Plan. The current Plan is being reviewed and revised to help deliver economic recovery post pandemic with a newly defined purpose to “grow tourism for the benefit of Monmouthshire’s people, environment and communities”. This aligns it with the national tourism strategy 'Welcome to Wales: Priorities for the Visitor Economy 2020 - 2025' which has more emphasis on sustainable economic development and delivering wider wellbeing goals (health, cultural and environmental) to all who visit, live, work and study in Wales, alongside economic growth.
The specific challenges facing the destination post pandemic are identified as follows:
- Recovering 2019 levels of tourism revenue
- Maintaining high levels of demand when outbound overseas travel picks up
- Maintaining high levels of visitor satisfaction, likelihood to repeat visit and recommend by ensuring visitors continue to receive a positive experience in destination
- Managing the destination effectively for the benefit of all stakeholders, including residents – to ensure continued host community support for tourism
- Increasing visitor yield by converting some of the existing day visitors to staying visitors and increasing the capacity of Monmouthshire’s serviced accommodation bedstock
- Distributing the benefits of tourism more evenly across the county, year and week
- Protecting and enhancing destination assets (targeting high yield responsible visitor segments) and developing new high quality experiences that will appeal to this audience
- Reducing tourism leakage to deliver maximum benefits to local communities by encouraging visitors (and visitor economy businesses) to spend more money with local independent businesses
The Plan provides the mechanism for public, private and voluntary sectors to work in partnership to deliver year round sustainable tourism growth across all parts of the county.
Download Monmouthshire's Destination Management Plan 2017-2020
Monmouthshire’s Destination Partnership
- The purpose of the Partnership, membership, and links to meeting agendas and minutes.
Destination Intelligence
- Facts, figures and survey results to inform destination (and business) development and marketing.
Tourism Business Support
- Details of the support and advice available to Monmouthshire tourism businesses
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