The Wales 'brand' in Cardiff

"To say Wales is not spectacular for its size is crazy talk."

AlwaysBeBlue you are comparing to what? you think there are not castles, small towns, coasts and scenery else where?

If we can be realistic we could focus on what is truly likely to be interesting to a range of visitors, if we start promising the spectacular and they get here and don't find it, they won't be back.

All this reminds me of when I used to live in Newport, and they decided to do open top Bus tours, you would just cringe when you saw the couple of board tourists on top who where wondering what the hell they where doing there.

Ok, so I still dont get you.
Are you saying because there is a castle in Scotland that someone from America should swerve Wales?
What has Scotland got that Wales has not or Ireland ?

What are you thinking we should have that would make people not feel disappointed?

But I do get you with Newport, I didn't know they had tourists to be honest

Ok, so I still dont get you.
Are you saying because there is a castle in Scotland that someone from America should swerve Wales?
What has Scotland got that Wales has not or Ireland ?

All I'm saying is what we have is not particularly unique, and we shouldn't be surprised if people choose other locations to visit that offer similar experiences.
If you where doing a once and a life time trip to Europe from overseas, there are just so many places they have so much more than we can offer. It makes sense to just accept that.
Everywhere around the world many people feel that were they live is somehow special but only a few places truly are that special.

What we can do however is change what we have, we can look at the man made pine forests the desolate waste lands of the valleys and deserted seaside towns and bland middling cities and learn what we can do better to make them more attractive to visitors.

AlwaysBeBlue - OK I'll take the bait. In the past few years alone the Welsh language has come under attack from (amongst others) Buzz feed, Snickers, Katie Hopkins, Zoe Williams - The Guardian, Rod Liddle - The Times, Noel Edmunds, Jeremy Clarkson, AA Gill and Roger Lewis in The Mail.
The attacks on its very existence in the mainstream media are almost weekly. No other language has to justify its very existence in this way.
To suggest that our lyrical, historic, living and breathing language which is spoken by hundreds of thousands is somehow responsible for a weakness in our identity is frankly offensive. It's the language that my family grew up with and is the language I and many others are passing on to our children.
I don't normally adopt a tone like this but I'm extremely disappointed to see these kinds of views being expressed in this forum and hope that you recognise why many will find them offensive.

Cardiffian, against my better judgement I am going to wade into this conversation because when I was younger, I choose Wales as a mandatory stop in a once in a lifetime overseas European trip. Coming from North America I’m mad about castles. And Wales has the best concentrations, north and south, in the world. Also, many North Americans can trace their ancestry back to Welsh immigrants and come here just to see where their distant relatives came from.
Overseas travellers choose destinations based on interests. West end shows, monarchy, Roman ruins, art galleries, fashion, whatever… We may not be on the map for many of these but nowhere surpasses Wales for its historical castle fortifications.

jones4891, i think the crutch of your argument is that Welsh as a language is important to you, however its not important to those who don't speak it, bar some colloquial words and does not define our culture and only forms a small part of our distant history. Do people go to Barcelona to speak Catalan, do you go to Ireland to speak Gaelic, no they have defined cultures separate to that that encompass a who range of things.

For those that are stating Wales is somehow special in terms of scenery and historical towns, look at countries like Romania/Bulgaria/Croatia, they have stunning Unesco towns, hot weather all summer and beautiful scenery, and all with much more European investment. Whats the difference between Dubrovnik and Coney, walled towns next to fabulous coastlines and pretty scenery, walk through Conwys bland streets, tarmacked roads and car parks and you can see why they dont come here.

Cardiffian, against my better judgement I am going to wade into this conversation because when I was younger, I choose Wales as a mandatory stop in a once in a lifetime overseas European trip. Coming from North America I’m mad about castles. And Wales has the best concentrations, north and south, in the world. Also, many North Americans can trace their ancestry back to Welsh immigrants and come here just to see where their distant relatives came from.
Overseas travellers choose destinations based on interests. West end shows, monarchy, Roman ruins, art galleries, fashion, whatever… We may not be on the map for many of these but nowhere surpasses Wales for its historical castle fortifications.

We have the most per square mile, you will find far more in England, in better shape and far more interesting/majestic/beautiful!

Cardiffian, against my better judgement I am going to wade into this conversation because when I was younger, I choose Wales as a mandatory stop in a once in a lifetime overseas European trip. Coming from North America I’m mad about castles. And Wales has the best concentrations, north and south, in the world. Also, many North Americans can trace their ancestry back to Welsh immigrants and come here just to see where their distant relatives came from.
Overseas travellers choose destinations based on interests. West end shows, monarchy, Roman ruins, art galleries, fashion, whatever… We may not be on the map for many of these but nowhere surpasses Wales for its historical castle fortifications.

We have the most per square mile, you will find far more in England, in better shape and far more interesting/majestic/beautiful!

England's may be in better condition, Wales has more romantic ruins. Whether this makes them more interesting, majestic or beautiful is entirely subjective. I'd say it makes them sufficiently different in character to warrant their uniqueness in comparison to their English counterparts. Just as Scottish castles have quite a different architectural quality to those in Wales and England.

Also having lived in the North West of England for 6 years I can't say I ever felt there was any quantity of castles within easy reach in the same way that you have in this area. Cardiff Castle, Castell Coch, Caerphilly, Ogmore, Raglan, Chepstow and numerous other smaller castles all within an hour's drive.
This list from the Manchester evening News focuses mainly on Cheshire and Yorkshire, suggesting there isn't much at all in Greater Manchester or Lancashire :

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... er-9499574

My point being that there may be big areas in England where you'd really struggle to have a day out at a castle. I don't think the same can be said of Wales.

jones4891, i think the crutch of your argument is that Welsh as a language is important to you, however its not important to those who don't speak it, bar some colloquial words and does not define our culture and only forms a small part of our distant history.

I just don't agree with you here sorry. Welsh was spoken by the vast majority in 1800 but by only around half the population a century later. During the 19th century it was eradicated in various ways, both active and passive. I wouldn't call this distant history as it was only around 4 generations ago.

More recently whole Welsh speaking communities were uprooted forcefully across Wales. Most famously in Tryweryn with the flooding of Capel Celyn but also in Mynydd Epynt for the creation of a British Army firing range in WW2. I implore anyone who isn't aware of the devastating impact this had for Welsh speaking communities in rural mid and East Wales to read up on it. It's a fascinating yet tragic history and goes a long way to explaining why whole swathes of rural Wales today are seemingly Anglicised.

Cardiff now has one of the highest concentrations of Welsh speakers in the country, something which would have been unthinkable even a generation ago. To suggest that Welsh is somehow something of peripheral interest or only of significance in the distant past is misguided.

Cardiff and Cardiffian are clearly the same people.
I have travelled and lived in many countries over the last 20 years. Wales is a beautiful and unique country. It's a shame people like Cardiff/ian don't realise this but you can't please everyone, some people just like a moan.

Its not about moaning, its about being realistic and taking your rose tinted sunglasses off.

jones4891- Welsh is not of interest to the vast majority of tourists, it adds very little to visitor experience or to local life, its a way to communicate, its not a culture. Its increase in use is purely down to exclusivity in schools and forms no important factor in a persons success later in life.

jones4891, the north west is a bit grim, the north east however will give you fabulous gems such as Alnwick/Bamburgh/ Newcastle/Durham/Barnard/Lindisfarne to name the most famous let alone the 'romantic ruins', although there does seem to be a few castles in the north west too (i guess you just wernt that interested in visiting them ), and England definitely has more romantic ruins.

jones4891/Thewasp - have you really traveled outside the UK/Europe (Benidorm/Calais are not travelling extensively!), because even a trip around Britain tells you all you need to know about Wales. Go to Cornwall and tell me our beaches and seaside towns compare, go to Scotland and tell me North Wales and our castles/capital city compare, go to the lake district and tell me our reservoirs compare. Im not saying we have nothing of value in Wales, just thats theres always somewhere better and we should look at them and say what can we do to emulate their success and make things better here, not say its amazing the way it is here and make shit all effort in making it better.

When people talk about making things better they are labeled as moaners in Wales, when people in other countries do it things get better. Well to you who want to label me and Cardiffian (seperate people thank you) as moaners i name you parochial plebs.