1.
The Learned Society of
Wales (LSW) is an independent, all-Wales, self-governing,
pan-discipline educational charity that was established in
2010. As Wales’s first National Academy of science and
letters, the Learned Society of Wales, like similar societies in
Ireland and Scotland, brings together the most successful and
talented Fellows connected with Wales, for the shared purpose and
common good of advancing and promoting excellence in all scholarly
discipline across Wales.
- The
Learned Society of Wales welcomes this opportunity to submit
comments on how Wales is promoted nationally and internationally.
The consultation is timely, as the Society has been working over
the past two years to better promote the intellectual and
innovative profile of Wales in a series of international
publications designed to showcase the contribution of the higher
education for research and innovation as well as Welsh culture more
generally.
3.
We have undertaken a campaign to promote Welsh Higher Education,
research and innovation to a domestic and international audience.
This campaign has included a feature article in one of the
world’s largest journals,
Science Magazine, commissioning a report by the
King’s College London Policy Unit on the
Impacts of Academic Research from Welsh
Universities, and a pull-out brochure promoting the
value and extent of Wales’s academic and research connections
internationally, which will be featured in Times Higher
Education magazine on 14th September 2017, and
on the THE website.
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Promoting a strong Welsh brand for domestic and international
audiences is important, both in terms of national confidence and in
order to develop the Welsh economy. Within the UK, Scotland is a good example where a
well cultivated HE brand and public support by the devolved
government has been an important asset attracting of inward
investment. In Scotland, the
promotion of HE institutions and their innovative capabilities
remains a key facet of the Scottish government’s overall
international brand promotion strategy and contribution to their
National Indicator for improving Scotland’s
reputation. In the Wales We Want Report (2014)
report, the theme of identity generated a great amount of
discussion with many feeling that it was important to portray a
“far more positive, inclusive and forward-looking
Wales”. Media was considered to play a key role in
actively promoting and helping establish a new “belief
that ‘Wales can be best in the world’”.
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International students contribute significantly to Wales’s
economic and cultural prosperity. In 2014, universities generated
£530 million of export earnings equivalent to 4% of all Welsh
exports. In addition to individual universities,
Universities Wales -
the body that represents the collective interests of
Welsh universities has joined together with the Welsh Government,
British Council Wales and the Higher Education Funding Council for
Wales (HEFCW) to form the Global Wales partnership designed
to promotes Wales’
world class higher education (HE) sector internationally.
Universities Wales has also developed two dedicated website
designed to promote and inform international students.
- This
response will mainly consider how Wales is promoted by VisitBritain
and Visit Wales, the Wales.com website.
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Historically several reports including the 2012 Cardiff Business
School published report “Selling Wales: the role of agencies
in attracting inward investment”, the 2014 National Assembly
for Wales Enterprise and Business Committee report and the Welsh
Affairs Committee 2014 have all highlighted the need to better
co-ordinate and develop a stronger Wales’s brand. At present,
Wales is promoted by a number of government agencies which appear
to overlap.
-
VisitWales’s visual brand is strong, promoting the Welsh
landscape and coastline. VisitBritain echoes this projection of
Wales, but the lack of connectivity between the two sites remains
an issue, as highlighted by the Welsh Affairs Committee 2014 on the
International representation and promotion of Wales by UK
bodies.
Each of the VisitBritain.com pages for the four nations of the UK
failed to link to the relevant local tourism agency – in
Wales’s case, Visitwales.com. This seems a missed
opportunity.
- One
useful and significant feature of the VisitBritain site, is its
online shop, where tickets for tours in each of the UK nations can
be purchased, and ideally should be something that visitwales.com
could link to from its own site. Another opportunity relates to
forthcoming events. Both discovernorthernireland.com and
visitscotland.com websites feature directories of forthcoming
cultural and heritage tours and events on their websites, along
with booking information.
Visitwales currently lists event by month, with no direct booking
information, and the events are not listed on related pages within
the site.
- The
development and promotion of cultural and literary tourism requires
more attention in Wales. A review of the two recent literary
tourism promotions (Dylan Thomas 100 and the Roald Dahl Centenary)
should be undertaken, as the of the positives and negatives of both
campaigns will provide important strategic lessons. Although the
‘Year of Legends’ was intended to promote Welsh culture
and heritage,
the focus seems to have largely focused on mythic aspects, rather
than contemporary interpretations of Welsh history and lived
experience, and Welsh culture. The attractive and informative
‘Land of Legends’ website (www.landoflegends.wales),
funded by VisitWales and developed by Literature Wales and the Arts
Council of Wales is not sufficiently highlighted on visitwales.com.
The resource was created to enable visitors to plan their own tours
based on Welsh literature and culture, but there seems to be only
one link to the site on the VisitWales website (the main year of
legends page), and it is not mentioned on the pages on Welsh
literature and culture.
- While
the projection of a mythic Welsh past has its strengths, many of
the ‘legendary’ experiences promoted seem to tie in
more with last year’s Year of Adventure, and rely heavily on
the Welsh landscape, or Wales providing a stage for events.
2017 is Scotland’s year of History, Heritage and Archaeology,
which explores similar themes to the ‘Year of Legends’,
but it is rooted in evidence and enquiry, which creates a better
sense of confidence, and an opportunity to promote national
achievements. Communities and culture create narratives of place.
The Basque Country captures this sense of a lived experience in its
promotion of “100% Basque experiences” which reflect
Basque culture and everyday life; these could offer a model for
VisitWales to consider developing.
- The
Welsh language is largely absent from the English (UK)
visitwales.com front page. This is disappointing given that Wales
is a bilingual nation; the VisitBritain’s Wales page mentions
“the lilting
rhythms of an ancient language” but provides no examples.
There are pages dedicated to Cymraeg in the Traditions and History
section of the VisitWales.com site which provide some examples (but
no audio or video), and a useful FAQ section. However, given the
Welsh government’s commitment to promoting and developing
Cymraeg, tourism should be actively promoting it as a living,
vibrant language. The Basque country’s promotion of the
Basque language to tourists is a useful example of encouraging
visitors to embrace and experience a minority language.
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Some of the materials
provided by VisitWales for tourism businesses in Wales are
inconsistent with the promotion of Cymraeg. Resources and guides
for tourism sector sit within the businesswales.gov website. The
2016 guide to The Wales Identity. A sense of place
fails to mention the word ‘cynefin’ – the unique
Welsh concept of a sense of a place and the narratives that
contribute to a sense of belonging. Furthermore, the Welsh language
is presented in parenthesis in one of the section on Welsh
identity: “(And don’t underestimate our ancient native
tongue – a simple ‘croeso’ makes a delightfully
distinctive first impression)”.
There is a danger of reducing a living culture and language to a
decorative function. The same guide also features two case studies
of accommodation businesses, and explores how they use Cymraeg. One
case study presents the use of the language in a confident manner,
seeking to make their guests curious and encouraging them to give
it a go. The second case study however, presents Cymraeg in more
problematic terms; on one hand celebrating its history and its
development, but also suggesting that guests may be intimidated by
it. Guides like this provide the opportunity to cross-promote other
government initiatives, and perhaps Welsh language courses, or
courses such as the Open University in Wales’s short course
‘Discovering Wales and Welsh’ could be promoted to
develop knowledge of Wales’s history, culture, language and
distinctiveness amongst tourist industry professionals.
-
VisitScotland Welcome Schemes
have been created to target niche tourist groups, and have been
developed in consultation with experts in the field they represent.
The criteria provide accreditation for a range of tourism
businesses (accommodation, visitor attractions and restaurants and
cafes) in recognition of special efforts made by businesses
to provide for visitors, and guide the visitors with a range
of interests to those businesses that pay particular attention to
their varied needs. Such
a scheme is something that VisitWales could develop for its
own market, targeting for example, cyclists, walkers, those
interested in ancestry, and those who are interested in
Cymraeg.
- The
wales.com website is an admirable attempt to develop a national
brand. However, its target audience(s) are unclear, as it seems to
target potential visitors, students, businesses and staff, as well
as providing authoritative facts and figures about Wales. Some of
the pages seem to duplicate visitwales content, and linking to
content may be a better use of resources. Attempting to promote so
many aspects of Wales on one site appears overwhelming, and a more
pared-back well signed posted website might lend a greater sense of
interest and confidence.
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Scotland.org, the Scottish government’s equivalent website
helpfully provides a range of ‘international
narratives’ for organisations to use to communicate
consistent and factually correct information about
Scotland.
Developed with stakeholders, the narratives include ones on
culture, the economy, energy, food and drink, and education, as
well as a more generic ‘Welcome to Scotland’ guide. A
similar development by the Welsh government would be welcome, to
better facilitate the promotion of Welsh achievements and
distinctiveness by organisations within Wales.
- While
we acknowledge that the range and diversity of promotion is
impressive, and much good work is being done by individual
agencies, the lack of a coordinated strategy and the disparate
delivery of that strategy militates against achieving optimum
impact. It is evident that agencies that are replicated across the
United Kingdom have elements of good practice that may be used
within Wales to more efficient effect in external promotion
campaigns.