I am sure many of you are looking forward to the bank holiday weekend at the end of the week, a last chance to get away with the family before the school term begins.

For many businesses in our tourism sector, this is a great opportunity to attract more visitors especially considering the glorious weather forecasted.

Accounting for 150,000 jobs in Wales and 5% of our GDP, tourism is crucial to the Welsh economy, especially to rural and coastal communities.

Unfortunately, the Welsh Government’s policies have not been directed at supporting this vital industry.

Currently, businesses in the hospitality and leisure sector in England have a 75% reduction in business rates that they pay thanks to the previous Conservative Government.

This was implemented to support small businesses such as pubs in a time where they had to rebuild from a once in a generation pandemic and global inflation.

Despite receiving the equivalent funding to implement this policy, the Welsh Government did not pass these savings down to businesses, choosing instead to only cut  rates by 40%.

This means that hospitality businesses in Wales pay almost double the business rates tax that their counterparts in England do.

To make matters worse, the Welsh Government has doggedly pushed for the implementation of a tourism tax, taxing visitors to stay in Wales.

This has the potential to be damaging to the local economies of rural communities.

Businesses in Wales have to compete with businesses in England for visitors, so any increase in cost will do nothing to help entice more tourists.

With one in seven jobs in Wales being in the tourism sector, a tax on tourism would be a tax on jobs.

Finally, the tourism sector is also facing the very real threat of the introduction of the 182-day occupancy threshold.

This requires self-catering properties to be available for commercial letting for at least 182 days in a year to qualify for business rates.

If a property does not meet this criteria, the owner is then liable for the higher rate of council tax which is up to 300% in some parts of Wales.

Decisions like this are having an incredibly detrimental effect on the sector, so I hope the new First Minister will change direction and choose to work with, not against this incredibly important sector.