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Merthyr Tydfil tourist sector sees significant growth

Merthyr Tydfil Council

THE tourism industry was worth more than £130m in Merthyr Tydfil last year, according to council figures.

A report for the council’s regeneration and public protection scrutiny committee on Tuesday, October 22 said the tourism sector brought in £130.19m to the local economy in 2023.

This is the highest level of income from tourism since the council started recording data in 2014 and is up from, £113.4m in 2022.

The figures also show there were 1.69m visitors (up from 1.58m in 2022) with 200,000 visitors staying in the county borough in 2023 and 2022.

The report said the tourism economy continued to be a vital employer to the Merthyr Tydfil economy with the sector employing 1,171 full time equivalent jobs across the county borough in 2023 (down slightly from 1,180 in 2022).

It also said there had been a significant increase of serviced accommodation providers across the county borough with 270 classed as self catering, 16 serviced accommodation, 20 camping/caravan or glamping and nine hostels or bunkhouses.

Between 2014 and 2019, tourism’s economic impact in Merthyr grew from £63.5m to £103.09m but this fell to £35.96m in 2020 with the impact of Covid.

The number of annual visitors grew from 1.21m in 2014 to 1.71m in 2019 before falling to 486,000 in 2020 with the number of visitors staying in the borough growing from 160,000 in 2014 to 210,000 in 2019 before dropping to 59,290 in 2020.

And the number of full time equivalent jobs provided through tourism rose from 879 in 2014 to 1,211 in 2019 before dropping down to 620 in 2020.

The report said that prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Merthyr Tydfil’s tourism economy had seen a steady incline of economic growth year on year but added that the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was substantial and many tourism businesses ceased trading.

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But as Merthyr Tydfil started to open-up along with the rest of Wales and the UK the tourism industry exploded with the whole ethos of ‘staycations’ which saw people from all over Wales and the UK visiting other areas within driving distance.

The report added that by the middle of 2022 Merthyr Tydfil hit the headlines for  bucking the Welsh national average trend in relation to its increasing staying visitor rates.

During the same period, ‘Home and Away’ statistics named Merthyr Tydfil as being in the top 10 trending UK destinations for Airbnb stays and Merthyr Tydfil was listed alongside Prestatyn and Carmarthen for Wales’s most booked holiday properties.

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