Travellers to Wales

This project will build on the work undertaken from 2013 to 2017 on the European Travellers to Wales 1750-2010 project, a collaboration between researchers in Modern Langages based at Bangor University, Swansea University and the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies and their partners at the National Library of Wales and the within the museum sector in Wales. Broadly speaking, the original project set out to explore the responses in travel writing of European travellers coming to Wales over a period of nearly three centuries. The research uncovered travellers' responses to Wales as a peripheral, at times unexpected nation with a culture often little known in the European context. Underpinning the project was the creation of a searchable open access database of accounts of travel (etw.bangor.ac.uk/accounts-of-travel) which now contains over 400 entries.

This follow-on project aims to exploit the material held in this database by working with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Mouments of Wales and Visit Wales to help to promote Wales, its history, cultural heritage and landscape more widely to national and international audiences by developing an interactive mobile-friendly website that allows users (primarily but not exclusively from German and French-speaking Europe) to create themed travel routes through Wales and to access historical, site-specific material that interprets individual locations from the perspective of travellers through time (in particular the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries).

The interactive website will make this newly recovered historical material available to new, general audiences in a way which will have a positive impact on the tourist activity in Wales, in so doing contributing to one of the most important elements of the Welsh economy and targeting one of the key markets identified by Visit Wales. The development of this new website will exploit the unexpected quality and quantity of previously unknown or forgotten material dating to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which has been uncovered during the main research undertaken for the European Travellers to Wales project and which is now surfaced in the database. The material in question covers a period of great change in the landscape, culture and heritage of Wales and modern-day visitors will be able to 'experience' those changes through the eyes of their travelling predecessors, thus opening up a unique view of Wales to a new generation of travellers from Europe, but also casting a new light on the perception of Wales over time for visitors from the United Kingdom and other parts of the world. This will be made possible through the collation of exisiting digital materials and the development, using the expertise of the Royal Commission team, of new digital resources consisting of historical visual material, digital visualisation and reconstructions, panotours of gigapixel photography and Virtual Reality experiences. Downloadable materials will also be made available. The website will be hosted by Bangor University and promoted globally via the various platforms operated by Visit Wales.

There are four main areas of potential impact:

1. Tourism. The main beneficiaries will be the Welsh tourism sector (public and private sectors) together with the heritage-focussed third sector. Based on the historical material that will be used to generate the website, as well as being able to promote the previously unknown material in the context of existing marketing campaigns, Visit Wales will benefit in relation to the preparation of future annual themes, campaigns and marketing strategies. It is expected that the product will affect touristic behaviour and travel destinations across Wales as previously "untold" or "lost" stories are brought to light. Likewise, the private tourism sector will benefit from tourists' access to the website as the generated itineraries may encourage users to plan their stays, activities and spending around the selected themed travel destinations. The heritage-focussed third sector will be another benefactor, as CADW and National Trust sites, museums and galleries can be flagged on the website as travel destinations where they are mentioned in the historical material.

2. Other cultural/educational groups. The follow-on project will give users access to an extensive range of travel experiences and descriptions of Wales. While the website is primarily aimed at tourists, it may be of equal interest to history associations, school parties or educational bodies in planning themed study tours. Likewise, local communities and schools may benefit from using the website as it will enable them to explore their home towns with "a stranger's" eyes and experience their familiar surroundings in new ways.

3. Media. Where interest is raised in the media following the launch of the website, programmes may follow "themed trails" or explore the different geographical areas of Wales from different, but related angles, either in the footsteps of one or more historical traveller. The digital products could also be used in programmes.

4. Broadly speaking, the follow-on project contributes towards the cultural, intellectual and commercial enrichment of Welsh, British and international societies. It promotes a greater awareness of the relationship between Wales and other European countries, and facilitates improved cross-cultural understanding. This has the potential to impact on the way in which governmental bodies such as the European Commission Office in Wales, the British Council in Wales, the Welsh Government, as well as other sub-state European regions, view the positioning of Wales in the European context and beyond at a time when this context appears to be in flux.