Tourism Barometer: June wave 2025

Main findings

Mixed year to date

About a quarter (23%) of tourism businesses have had more customers to date this year compared to last year, and a further 41% have had the same level. However, 36% report a decrease.

Non-accommodation sectors are close to matching last year’s performance, but accommodation sectors have had a challenging year to date, especially the self-catering sector, whereby 17% have had more customers this year but 47% have had fewer.

South East Wales is faring similar to last year, with 27% of businesses seeing increased customers vs 25% seeing a decrease. The other three regions of Wales are all down on balance.

Sunny spring weather helped many businesses

Spring 2025 (March to May) was the sunniest and warmest spring on record in Wales and the UK according to the Met Office. Two in five (40%) businesses with increased customers year to date attribute their upturn in business unprompted to the sunny spring weather.

Lack of disposable income is hampering demand

On the flip side, two in five (40%) businesses with decreased customers attribute their downturn unprompted to ‘people lacking in disposable income’.

Summer performance depends largely on last minute bookings

Current occupancy rates for August are 76% in the caravan & camping sector, 72% in self-catering and 65% in serviced accommodation. Many operators say they need more bookings than this in peak season but that there is a strong trend towards booking last minute. The trend is being driven by waiting to see what the weather forecast shows and disposable income, so both factors will influence the performance of Welsh tourism businesses this summer.

Confidence to operate profitably

About one in six (16%) operators feel ‘very confident’ to operate profitably this year and a further 41% say they feel ‘fairly confident'. This is in spite of significant cost pressures.