WalesCymru.com

Have you ever been wondered what it’s like to cross wild and open country on horseback? If you’ve answered yes, then you MUST try Trail Riding.

This three and a half minute YouTube video follows Equitrekking.com host and travel expert Darley Newman as she joins Charlie Pollack of Caeiago for an equestrian adventure in Wales’ Cambrian Mountains.

If this inspires you Equitrekking.com features other Welsh rides, and WalesCymru features a long list of equine holiday operators. Autumn is a great time to do this, while the weather is still mild. What’s holding you back?

You’ve probably heard about this video already, if not the idea is simple. Take a young attractive Danish women who likes to drink, add a one night stand with a visiting tourist and the ‘inevitable’ result 9 moths later. The women of course is an actress and the video a hoax, but enough people believed it to be real to now feel very annoyed and cheated - OK they’re really pissed off with the Danish Tourist Board.

We know this sort of thing happens ‘all the time’, in-fact (in Wales) you don’t even need to be tourist to have a drunken one night stand; but should a country use free unprotected sex to market itself?

The two questions that come to mind: “How far would you go to market Wales?” and “Was there a Danish plan to deal with the fallout when this blew up in their faces?”

UPDATE: Between starting this blog entry and posting it the YouTube video was removed. The video link now goes to Mashable.com where I first saw this article. You can still see the original YouTube video here.

A recent review of the Welsh Tourism Industry conducted by L&R Consulting on behalf of the Wales Tourism Alliance recommended that three task and finish groups be established.  The one that is of particular interest to me is the “Digital tourism business framework for Wales task and finish group”.

This group is Jointly Chaired by Julian Burrell, of the Wales Tourism Alliance, and Roger Pride, of Visit Wales/WAG and comprises the great and the good of Welsh Tourism (see the full membership list here).

The role this group is to “consider, agree and be responsible for decisions taken in respect of the appropriate framework for digital tourism business for Wales”.

The Objective of group is:

To consider and agree a Digital Tourism Business Framework for Wales, to achieve this, the group will need to agree:-

• Key principles
• Component parts and how they might best be delivered
• The risks and how they will be managed
• Required actions and timeframes,  including whether or not to submit an application for European funding;
• How to ensure the tourism industry is content with the direction of the project and remains engaged as it progresses.

With a total Project Cost circa £18,500,000; I advice everyone with an interest in Digital Tourism in Wales to keep up-to-date on the working of this group by reading their blog (something I’ve only just discovered myself today):

http://dtbp09.wordpress.com

If anyone has any comments, observations of views on this, please feel free to post them here - I’d love to know what you all think; and esp. if WalesCymru ‘might’ have some role to play in this development.