Summer sun brought visitors flocking to Welsh beaches

The drive to increase visitor numbers, improve business practice and increase profitability dominated discussions as delegates from Wales' largest industry gathered for the conference.

The second Wales Tourism Alliance Conference takes place at the Imperial Hotel and continues on Monday.

Wales Tourist Alliance (WTA) chairman Julian Burrell opened the conference, hosted by BBC Wales personality, Frances Donovan.

Delegates will concentrate on helping tourism operators improve their businesses and provide information on the latest industry developments.

Organised by the WTA, an umbrella group representing over 7,000 members of the industry in Wales, the conference has been sponsored by the Tourism Training Forum For Wales and other organisations connected with tourism.

Tourism's �2.5bn a year Contributes over �6m a day to Welsh economy Employs 100,000 people 10,000 private businesses Contributes 7%m of Welsh GDP 50% of revenue is in rural Wales

Chris Osbourne of the Best Practice Forum, will tell delegates what successful businesses in Wales are doing to raise levels of service, productivity and profitability and how they could benefit from the Forum's groundbreaking "Profit Through Productivity" programme.

Wales Tourist Board chief executive Jonathon Jones will also deliver an industry update to delegates.

In addition, there will be a number of seminar sessions on recruitment of key staff, employment law, increasing profitability by investing in people and other essential topics needed to attract more visitors and run successful enterprises.

"After the tremendous success of our first-ever conference in Cardiff last November it was important to establish our pan-Wales get together as an annual event, said Julian Burrell.

Powis Castle doubled its visitors in 2002

"Twelve months ago we brought speakers from around Europe to Cardiff to look at how we could improve our individual and collective marketing.

"This year we are concentrating on boosting business practice and raising quality," he said.

"Tourism is easily Wales' biggest industry with a presence in all parts of Wales. Millions of pounds are spent each year by visitors on holidays, breaks and conferences and each one of them goes on to spend a lot of money in the nearby economic community.

"It is something that has been increasingly recognised by the Welsh assembly since the WTA set up in 1997.