AT the end of a week which saw more than 140,000 people flock to the National Eisteddfod at Abergavenny’s Castle Meadows, Brecon and Radnorshire MP Chris Davies has condemned the Welsh Government for their ‘failure’ to back the tourism industry in Wales.

The MP’s comments come as figures show that overnight stays in Wales have fallen dramatically over the last year, while across the rest of the UK the tourism industry is booming.

Long associated with the thousands who flock to the nation’s beautiful beaches, handsome hills and magnificent mountains every year, the tourism industry in Wales has been a great benefit to the economy and to jobs.

Locally, Brecon and Radnorshire has seen huge benefits from the tourism industry with money flooding into local businesses over the summer months.

However, Chris points out that in the first five years of the Welsh Assembly’s take over of the formerly independent Wales Tourism Board, overnight stays in Wales fell by around 15 percent.

And figures released from the Great British Tourism Survey from the past year show another reduction of 1.8 million tourism nights spent in Wales.

“We are right to be proud of our tourism industry in Brecon and Radnorshire, celebrating our beautiful landscape and the people that live here, and I will always stand up for our industry. Indeed, large numbers of excellent local businesses in our area rely upon the tourism trade each year, and the knock on effect to our local economy is substantial,” he said.

“However, the news of a fall of almost 100,000 domestic visits to Wales last year is deeply troubling, particularly when other areas of the UK are seeing significant growth in their industries.

“That is why it is simply not acceptable that the Welsh Government sit idly by, watching our tourism industry decline.

“Before the Welsh Government took control of tourism in Wales, the interests of those of us in Mid-Wales were much better served by the independent Wales Tourism Board.

All the Welsh Government has to show for its needless takeover of the board is abject failure.”

He is now calling on the Welsh Assembly to reappoint the Tourism Board ‘to give control of tourism back to the people of Wales’.

“I am also reiterating the call I made in the House of Commons to lower tax on the tourism industry to give our excellent local businesses the best chance to succeed,” he said.