It’s the first of three bank holiday weekends in May and Tenby is undoubtedly one of the best places in Wales to enjoy them. The beaches, the narrow streets, the castle walls, the shops, the restaurants, the pubs..... it’s widely considered to be the best seaside town in the country and with good reason.
Around two million people visit Tenby every year, the majority of whom stay in and around the town, with more than half of all visitors travelling from England. And 2023 promises to be as busy as ever, with people from all over the UK desperate for a trip to the seaside after a tumultuous few years of Covid lockdowns followed by a largely crippling cost-of-living crisis. You can get the latest WalesOnline newsletters e-mailed to you directly for free by signing up here.
But is Tenby - a small town with a population of just over 4,000 - still ready and able to cope with the influx? On Easter weekend a pictured showed people queuing up in Tudor Square waiting to get inside Tenby House (it's below in case you haven't seen it). It was a striking image showing the popularity of the town whose beauty and location - sat high above wonderful beaches - make it what it is, but they also make it a draw for everyone in the country.
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There are other magnificent tourist spots in west Wales of course. Unfortunately, none of them are as accessible as Tenby. On Saturday, for example, there were eight trains connecting the east of Wales and England with Tenby between 6.43am and 7.03pm. It’s hardly Euston Station, but it’s better than the public transport on offer in other beauty spots along the west Wales coast.
New Quay, Newport (Pembs), Llangrannog, Tresaith, Aberaeron, Aberystwyth, St Davids - none of them are accessible by train. Even Saundersfoot, three miles north of Tenby along that coast, doesn’t really have a train station. There is one but it’s a rural half an hour walk from the beach - good luck navigating that on a family holiday.
All of which leaves Tenby as THE place to go in west Wales. But far from being trepidatious about what the bank holidays and the summer months will bring, business owners in Tenby are excitedly looking forward to the swathes of tourists who will spend their holiday cash in the town. After all, it’s not been an easy few years.
“In 2021, when people could travel but not go abroad, that’s when we had to put in place systems to cope,” said Angus Dunlop, owner of Tenby Boat Trips, which currently runs two boat trips a day, but by mid-July will offer up to 10 per day. "We introduced things like internet bookings to cope with the extra numbers and those things have stayed in place, so we are in a better position to cope with things now. All the things we introduced then have really helped us to become better organised for when we do get really busy.”
Angus thinks Covid has changed a lot of people’s mindsets when it comes to how they spend their free time and their holidays. Perhaps, people came to Tenby for the first time then, because Magaluf and Benidorm were out of the equation. “People maybe have realised that they can have a holiday here in Wales, without going abroad or even to Cornwall. It opened their horizons to what is on their doorsteps.”
After losing out on trade in 2020 and 2021, the sense in Tenby now is that it can’t be busy enough, and that the months ahead are when the town really comes into its own. Is there anything Angus would change? “More parking spaces would be good,” he said. “There was a park and ride in place a few years ago so we could do with that coming back.
"We are a commercial operation. We want to grow our business and invest in our business, and the ability to put money back into that is huge. We want to expand and improve what we offer to our customers. The business community here is very strong, and we know that if we’re busier then the pubs will be busier, so it helps everyone. Our main focus as a business community is to be a family friendly town, that’s our market. The days of being known as a town for stag dos and hen weekends are gone.”
There are a plethora of nice places to eat in Tenby, and the choice on offer has just increased by one with the opening of the brand new Ronni’z Lounge on High Street. It’s owned by Matt Ronowitz, who also runs the Qube restaurant down the road and, alongside his brother Elliot, The Cove bar across the street. “I had my first ever job here when I was 13,” said Matt inside his new restaurant and bar which for years previously was a popular town centre cafe. He, like other business owners, is adamant that Tenby can cope with the flock of tourists that are soon to arrive over the ensuing weeks and months.
“Tenby is not too busy,” he said. “What it seems to have lost is the social drinking culture. Since Covid, people don’t seem to go out to just drink - the town gets very quiet early. I think, with Covid, we lost a lot of trade because people weren’t able to just stand at the bar, and we haven’t got back into that habit.
"Before, people would be shoulder to shoulder at the bar. It’s not like that anymore. That’s one of the reasons why I decided to open this place - people like to come out and have a few drinks with food and have a few cocktails. In peak times it’s always busy, but in Qube the trade on weekends is very strong all year round. It used to drop off around October, but it’s busier now because there are more holiday lets and more Air B&Bs.”
One challenge for Matt and other people involved in the hospitality trade is the availability, or lack, of staff. “I think people realised that they valued their time more after Covid - people enjoyed having time off and time to themselves, so the industry has struggled to get staff. But I think that’s coming back slowly because people have realised they need to work more hours to pay their bills during these times - the cost of everything has gone up so people need to do that little bit more.”
Ironically, although Covid battered everyone in the hospitality industry, it also helped businesses in the long run by gearing them up for the post-lockdown age; it made people prepare for crowds and different obstacles like never before. That, said Matt, would ensure that Tenby could cope with anything. “Over the past couple of years places have increased their capacity and the council has been very, very good with letting businesses have tables and chairs outside all year round, which creates more of a continental feel for the town, so there’s definitely enough room here in Tenby.”
Heading south from High Street, through the ancient castle arches and past Tenby Bowling Club, you’ll find tranquil streets lined with colourful B&Bs and guest houses within earshot of the seagull chirps which emanate from South Beach. One of those wonderful terraced holiday spots, in the middle of Victoria Street, is Lindholme Guest House, owned and run by Rachel Thompson and her husband Chris. They took the business over in 2017 after the previous owners had run it for half a century, and this time of year, from April onwards, is the start of the busy season.
“I grew up in Tenby but moved away to work,” said Rachel, sitting next to a bay window which looks out over the quiet street outside. “We wanted to come back here because we wanted to come back home, we wanted a better lifestyle and a better quality of life. We did brilliantly for the first couple of years after taking over, and then Covid hit. I remember it so clearly.
"From late February (2020) the bookings just started dropping off - cancel, cancel cancel. We had been looking forward to the summer and then all of a sudden our income just dropped off a cliff. By the time we sat down to hear Boris Johnson announce lockdown we had no bookings at all for the rest of the year. It was very scary.”
Because of the fear that hit businesses like this one at that time, the idea of being busy and packed out in 2023 brings nothing of the sort. There’s a sense that things are back to normal now, and that there is plenty of money to be made after the uncertainty and hastily readjusted budgets of 2020 and 2021.
It seems like an age ago already, but in 2020 thousands and thousands flocked to Tenby in the latter part of the summer, only with restrictions tying them to their tables or prohibiting them from standing at bars or wandering into cafes and pubs unannounced. That, Rachel said, made it the most manic summer of all, even if, statistically, there were fewer people in Tenby than in a more conventional holiday season. That picture captured outside Tenby House earlier this month was nothing compared to then.
“By July 2020 you could come to Tenby but you would struggle to get anywhere to eat because of the social distancing rules,” she said. “It was mad then because we went from having nobody in town to having lots and lots of people here. It can never be busier than it was in 2020. It was a glorious summer and restrictions had just been eased but there were still rules in place about the number of people allowed in pubs and restaurants. There were queues outside and places were only letting people in ‘one in, one out’ - so it will never be busier than it was then.
“This is a small medieval town with small streets so it will always look really, really busy in the summer months. If the weather is nice you can’t be in a better place than Tenby; it’s a brilliant holiday destination, and there’s definitely enough here to go around. Even in the summer, nobody will struggle to get a room, there’s definitely enough capacity.
"There are flats, there are Air B&Bs, cottages, B&Bs, hotels, and people can also go towards Saundersfoot, St Florence, Manorbier - all these places are within five or six miles of Tenby. The locals are friendly, there are lots of nice places to eat, places to stay, great fish and chip shops, beaches everywhere. It’s beautiful and it’s definitely ready for the summer season. Why wouldn’t you want to come here?”
Around two million people have no answer to that question every single year, and 2023 promises to be no different. As Tenby lingers patiently during the calm before the storm, it is more than ready to once again live up to its reputation as Wales’ best and most popular seaside town.
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