A BUMPER school holidays, plenty of dry weather and help through the winter is needed to help salvage tourism in the area this year.
After record rainfall in June and July, traditional visitors to North Wales form the North-West of England have stayed away but tourism officials are now hopeful the change in weather leading into the school summer holidays will help repair some of the damage done to the industry.
Chris Jackson, chair of the North Wales Tourism group, said: “There are lots of factors which affect tourism in the area – but when you put wall-to-wall rain into the equation, it puts people off. A lot of businesses are about 10 per cent or 30 per cent down.
“Unless we get very, very good weather for the next 8-10 weeks, there will be serious problems in the industry going forward for next year.
"It’s absolutely crucial for the next six weeks in particular.”
He added: “What we have to remember is that for the past three or four years, the schools have broken up and the weather’s turned bad, as we’ve already had the good weather. But this year, the schools have broken up and the weather’s quite nice – and we’re already starting to see the benefits of that.”
Mr Jackson added the industry would need a sympathetic banking sector and a helpful Welsh Government to weather this year’s difficulties.