One reason I don’t want the
lockdown lifted. I don’t want the tourists coming back to Wales. Call me a
Welsh exceptionalist if you like but I feel that we are diminished as a nation
by our Tourist Industry. That is a misnomer. It is a collection of small to
medium sized business owners with B&B’s, Self Catering Accommodation and Hotels. They might pay their
subs to Visit Wales but they are ostensibly single operators out to make a
profit out of visitors. What do visitors get out of Wales? A change of scenery,
a holiday, activities, rubbing shoulders with the locals who are originally
from the areas they have travelled from especially in Mid Wales. The reason
that Ceredigion remained Covid Free for such a long time during the first
lockdown and through the stop start summer was because of its geography in relation
to the end of the M4 and the end of the A55. It would take another hour and a
half to get here from those two compass points. Road & Rail Infrastructure
bring the Tourists. Obviously I wouldn’t be writing this if I was a small
business owner but I’m not but I think it is ‘anfoesol’ immoral to make a
living off the backs of people who bring nothing to the area apart from their
money. They don’t bring a refreshing manner, they don’t bring a love and
respect for the Welsh Language. They arrive with the modern day version of the
bucket and spade namely a smart phone and attitude.
I don’t actually think that some
places actually want tourists. Porthcawl and Rhyl are used to them. Eryri is a
magnet for them as witnessed by those who tried to make the pilgrimage there
under lockdown. I ask the question "Are Beddgelert and Betws y Coed enhanced by
tourists?" Do they improve the area? They improve the economy and there lies the
rub where the National Motto appears to be “Diwedd y gan di’r geiniog”
Farmers make money from the land
that perhaps they have inherited. They invest their time into the production of
food. It is an essential service. I would argue that the Tourist Industry is
not an essential service. Farmers have had to diversify into running caravan
parks and offering accommodation to make ends meet. Fair enough. There is
something holistic and regenerating about this kind of venture but just opening
your hotel or Bed and Breakfast as a cash cow so that roads become clogged and
holiday makers just bum around the town just doesn’t make sense to me.
Pre lockdown and I know that we are going to go back to it when the balloon is lifted, in Spring and Summer there was always the feeling of soul erosion going on in Wales. Areas like Pen Llyn, Ynys Môn and Ceredigion become shape shifting places to accommodate the ‘fisitors’. I wish I knew what we could do otherwise but we know what the Industrial Revolution did to the ‘soul’ of South Wales, The Tourist Industry is doing the very same to the ‘soul’ of North and West Wales.
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