Well, it just may be the weather interfering with tourist visits if one is only considering Wales’s immediate neighbors who can peer out their windows in the morning and decide the day is not nice enough for a drive across the Severn. How, however, does the weather factor apply to the long distance traveler? An American who has already booked a trip to Wales does not have the option to cancel a visit on account of a bad weather morning. Besides, when we American visitors mention the abundance of Welsh rain we are chided with the adages “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute” and “In Wales you can see all four seasons in one morning”. These sayings, delivered so lightheartedly, seem to belie the fact that the Welsh do continue to consider their weather a major stumbling block to tourism. For according to Wales’s folk wisdom if it’s raining one minute it be sunny the next, and vice versa.

Chatting with a fellow reporter in Wales about the down trend in visitors to his country I put forth my views on how the weather simply cannot be the determining factor as to whether people, especially those who need to travel from overseas, come to Wales. “You know,” he considered, “that bad weather story may just be a red herring.” 

If people want good weather Spain usually has good weather, and so does the Caribbean. Wales is not a place that should be sold based on its good weather days. Rainy days do not keep small hotels in London from doing gangbusters. The Himalayas suffer severe weather. Does this stop people from traveling there? Hell no. In fact, it seems that the worse the weather in some places the more fascinated people become with it. Case and point, consider the many months the book Into Thin Air, a first-person account of a fatal Everest expedition, has been on the New York Times best seller list. And people continue to sign on for treks to this brutal summit. Weather is incidental. Real people travel for reasons other than a sunny day. 

My husband and I spent eleven May nights in the idyllic embrace of North Wales, exploring woodland and gardens, and journeying out to the cool immortality of the mountains. We were, alternatively, drenched, sunburned and windburned. It seemed we never could tell what to wear in the morning, so we’d load the trunk of our car with a choice of gear, as well as biscuits, maps and water. The rewards always outweighed the fickleness of the skies.

Can you imagine if there were others like us, American Cymruphiles, who could be counted upon to return yearly (as we do) to sleep eleven nights, eat thirty three meals, shop the shops, use the services, tip toe on Snowdonia’s paths and delight in the flowers growing in Wales’s many gardens? Well then,Welsh business people, attract us!

There are products Wales can get behind and market to the U.S. and the world as being genuinely “made in Wales” and concepts and beauty that the world can be shown are truly Welsh.  Such marketing programs wouldn’t flourish overnight; and committing to them would mean a lot of hard work. But getting out of bed in the morning is hard work, too. However, it is no worse than putting one foot out, following it with the other and hauling your derriere along. Even a journey of 100,000 miles begins with a single step. It’s obvious that part of the journey needs to cover the U.S. From experience -- reading newspapers and magazines -- I can tell you that right now Wales isn’t even trying to get America’s attention with as much as one hand clapping, leaving me to ponder the depth of John Cale’s question: “What’s Welsh for Zen?” 

Wales has recently been awarded £1.3 billion (to be distributed from 2000 to 2006) by Europe. This is the European Objective One grant. According to a tourism industry official, it is given to help build up commerce among small and mid-sized businesses. It must be kept in mind, however, that this money is earmarked for a country in need, one that qualifies for third world status. It’s a one time only grant for Wales, if only because tired countries in Europe’s east, once crushed by the Iron Curtain, will be eligible for the grant as the EC expands in their direction.

While it is not yet clear who will be handling the money for distribution to whom -- in fact, details as of this writing are quite opaque -- the money is coming and needs to be used wisely. If one of Wales’s major service businesses is tourism a portion of the money could be spent to improve this industry -- for example, educating and training small business owners (B&Bs, restaurants and other services) to provide globally competitive hospitality service. And the word to keep in mind is service. It’s a good word, and one that can make a world of difference to Wales. As a tourism industry official affirmed in our conversation about the service industry: “Service does not mean servile.” 

Standardizing what is meant in the hospitality industry by acceptable versus excellent service is not too wild a concept. After all, it is often the service and the service provider’s attention to details and not the weather that makes or breaks a traveler’s experience. Good service is the guarantor of repeat business. It is also what generates good word-of-mouth, something that is particularly important for small businesses, which usually cannot afford substantial marketing costs.

If Wales were to take the hard road now toward excellence, someday someone working in one of the country’s beautiful hillsides may look out the window and exclaim “Look! It’s raining tourists!”