Museum forced to turn away visitors

National Museums and Galleries of Wales are now free

A museum in south Wales had to close its doors - after too many visitors turned up on Bank Holiday Monday.

As tourist venues in many parts of Wales were hoping to recoup losses made during the foot-and-mouth crisis, the Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagans near Cardiff was forced to turn away business, when more than than 12,000 visitors turned up.

But across Wales visitor numbers gave a mixed picture of the health of the tourism industry - and there were warnings that the industry was far from back to normal.

In general throughout the whole of Wales, however, the main worrying factor is that the forward bookings for June, July and August are still down.

Wales Tourist Board Chief Executive Jonathan Jones

The museum had been holding its annual May Fair celebration with traditional dancing, rural crafts and a Victorian fair.

"With 12,000 people, we reached capacity and had to close the doors," said Helen Jones from the museum.

"I think the success is a combination of beautiful weather and the fact that we now operate a free-for-all policy.

"Also people know that the museum is definitely open and it is somewhere they can come."

'Very busy'

In north Wales, Snowdonia National Park officials have reported a "marvellous" response following the reopening of four paths to the summit on Friday for the first time since the foot and mouth crisis began.

"It is not normally a very busy weekend for us," said a spokesman.

"The number of visitors picked up slowly on Saturday and we have been very busy ever since.

"The weather has helped - and we have had full co-operation from walkers who have been disinfecting and heeding our advice on things like not discarding food on the mountain."

Seaside areas

Elsewhere in Wales, seaside towns and coastal resorts reported a good number of visitors over the May Bank Holiday, but areas affected by foot-and-mouth have not done so well.

Wales Tourist Board chief executive Jonathan Jones said: "If you look at the seaside areas and those areas that are not affected by foot-and-mouth then they are doing better.

"If you look at those areas - certainly in Powys - where the access to the countryside has been closed down since February they are doing very, very badly.

"In general throughout the whole of Wales, however, the main worrying factor is that the forward bookings for June, July and August are still down.

"Those people who have cancelled still remain cancelled. Bookings are not coming in for those three crucial months of the year."