Nothing is ever new!!

Faith Tourism Officer Caroline Evans looks ahead to Visit Wales’ Year of Croeso 2025 and how we can get involved.

Visit Wales, the Welsh Government's tourism marketing department that promotes Wales as a tourist destination, has just announced its theme for 2025 – the “Year of Croeso”, Welcome.

Visitor research showed that the friendly welcome visitors get in Wales is a key reason for many choosing to return time and again, “a testament to Wales’ culture and its people, and the primary influence for Visit Wales choosing the ‘Croeso’ theme for 2025. ”The Year of Croeso aims to celebrate the distinct and varied ways in which people from across the UK and the world can feel welcomed when they holiday in Wales. The marketing campaign will kick off in January with a big tag on “Hwyl”, having fun and joy with others, albeit our friends, family or community.

Listening to the Visit Wales webinar in October, I had a distinct feeling of déjà vu - this is something that all of us in the Church do anyway, year in, year out, don’t we? In the lead up to Christmas, we are all busy; repairing, cleaning, decorating, preparing to welcome in our visitors, whether it is to our church or our homes. The furniture industry sells more sofas in the fourth quarter of the year than any other! It doesn’t hurt, however, to have a think about how welcoming our churches are when the decorations come down – what impression do we give in mid-February to someone looking at our church from the road, as they open the door, as they walk around, as they sit in a pew to take in the atmosphere?

Visit Wales will be looking for input from those of us welcoming visitors to our precious premises – they are always looking for content for their output and can help with this – so if you have any events coming up then tell them about it, it could be a concert, a tea party, planting some trees or cleaning the local well.

They are putting up an industry website https://industry.visitwales.com/ and will have a Wall of Croeso feature on the Visit Wales homepage.Croeso 2025

Anecdote: a recent visitor from England wanted to attend a local country church service. He was told that all the churches within 20 miles held their services on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month. He dubbed the 2nd and 4th Sundays as Satan’s Sundays – no guessing which weekend he was staying, a sad welcome!