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Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Jillian MacMath

What a holiday in Wales could look like this year

The First Minister has outlined how holidays might look in Wales this summer, amid hopes there may be some relief on the horizon for the tourism sector.

Speaking at the Welsh Government coronavirus briefing in Cathays Park on Monday, Mark Drakeford said it's unlikely that tourism will this year go back to the way it operated prior to coronavirus.

He said there will still be restrictions in place and "the tourism industry will be captured by them", but trips to self-contained accommodation may be a possibility.

This could open the doors for the letting of holiday cottages and AirBnbs to resume.

"There is, in a public health sense, I think, a distinction to be drawn between people who have their own kitchen, their own bathroom...." Mr Drakeford said.

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"That will be different, I think, to someone travelling to stay somewhere where they are sharing kitchens, sharing showers, sharing toilets, where inevitably the level of risk would be great."

Mr Drakeford said those holidaying in self-contained accommodation would still be governed by the five mile advice once they arrived, just as local residents will be.

Guests would not be "shooting around everywhere, meeting lots of different people," he said.

The Welsh Government will need to first "secure community consent" before tourism is reopened, he said, adding that there will be a "very strong reaction at the community level" in North West and South West Wales where there have been very low levels of the virus.

Re-opening tourism in these areas runs the risk of large numbers of people travelling to these localities, he said, which could increase local transmission of the virus.

"All of that will have to be very carefully navigated," he said.

He did not provide a timeframe for when holidays of this nature may be permitted.

He said the Government will be meeting today to look at the "long list of potential ideas" for easing lockdown measures at the end of the current three-week period. He said officials will then reduce that to a short list, which will be looked at in greater detail next week.

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