Welsh golf tourism on the upswing

Golf tourism brought £38 million to the Welsh economy in 2013, an increase of over £4m compared with the previous year, new figures show.

In the period 2004-13, golf tourism to Wales generated £313 million to the economy with a total of 1.72 million golf visits.

There were some 196,000 golf visitors to Wales in 2013 (including day visitors), an increase of 11% over 2012 and almost 4% higher than 2011, the year following The 2010 Ryder Cup, hosted at The Celtic Manor Resort in Newport.

The 2013 total is approaching the record figure of 200,000 achieved in Ryder Cup year 2010.

74,000 golfers made an overnight stay of at least one night in Wales in 2013, more than 12% up in comparison with 2012. Expenditure by these staying golfers also rose by over 11%. The increase came from both green fee and non-green fee expenditure.

The volume of golf day visits in 2013 was 122,000, 10% up on 2012, while expenditure on these trips was 30% up, largely due to higher expenditure on non-green fee items such as meals and drinks, assisted by the good weather.

Minister for Tourism, Edwina Hart said: “These figures show the importance of golf tourism to our economy and that hosting the Ryder Cup in 2010 and looking forward to the hosting of our first Major with The Senior Open Championship being played a t Royal Porthcawl this July has played an important part in raising the profile of Wales as a golf destination – a destination where visitors can experience golf as it should be.

“During the Masters, Wales was also seen on TV screens as the Visit Wales golf advert was broadcast on Sky Sports and Sky Sports 1 during the tournament as a reminder of what Wales has to offer.”

Visit Wales will also launch a redesigned golf tourism website golfasitshouldbe.com