WALES estimates that this year it will receive an additional 50,000 visitors who will descend on the country during October for the Rugby World Cup.
The business, which is expected to generate £12m of extra spending, will be a boost to the Welsh tourism industry which saw a 2% drop in arrivals last year to 9.8m.
The games will also give Cardiff an opportunity to show off its new Wales Millennium Stadium – the venue for the World Cup opening ceremony and the final – to an estimated worldwide audience of 3bn.
But Jonathan Jones, chief executive of the Wales Tourist Board, said the WTB planned to seize the opportunity to show an international audience that the country has more to offer than rugby.
In the UK, the WTB is re-running its advertising campaign launched last year which carries the slogan ‘Wales, Two Hours and A Million Miles Away’. It is aimed at people in the Midlands, London, and the southeast as 80% of visitors to Wales live in these regions.
Jones said that the campaign was considered to be a success in 1998 despite the fall in visitor numbers.
“Last year our business was down 2%, but the UK’s business was 9% down and Scotland’s was 11%, so we didn’t do that badly,” said Jones.
The advertising campaign is being backed up this year by the largest-ever direct marketing campaign organised by the WTB in partnership with the 12 marketing areas of Wales.
The campaign includes adverts in national and regional press and the distribution of 5m leaflets by door drops, inserts and direct mail.
Senior marketing executive David Stephens said the direct marketing campaign had resulted in a record number of consumer enquiries.
“We have received 230,000 enquiries this year, which is already 50% more than we got for the whole of last year,” added Stephens.
He said the WTB was planning joint travel trade activities with its seven partners in the TEAM Wales initiative which was set up last year to carry out training, advertising and marketing activities in the UK.
He said the WTB has drawn up plans for training sessions, workshops andeducationals, with Superbreak, Wallace Arnold, Best Western Getaway Breaks, Haven, Rainbow Holidays, Sunvil UK and Jetset Freedom Breaks.