Newly-released figures show the tourism industry in Pembrokeshire has experienced steady growth over the last seven years - and that visitors to the county are spending significantly more than they used to.

The total amount spent by visitors in local businesses topped a whopping £585 million last year, up from £502 million in 2009. That’s an increase of 16.5 per cent.

Most of the additional spend on accommodation is in the serviced accommodation sector - hotels, guesthouses, inns and B&Bs. The number of staying visitors has remained fairly stable at 4.3 million but they are spending more.

Visitors who come to Pembrokeshire for the day but don’t stay overnight remain at about 10 per cent of the total number of visitors.

Spending on food and drink has grown from £95 million in 2009 to £111 million in 2015. It has slowly overtaken spending on holiday accommodation in the last 10 years, which totalled £106 million last year. However, the accommodation sector still employs more than twice as many people.

The figures are from tourism data produced annually for local authorities in Wales known as STEAM (Scarborough Tourism Activity Monitor).

Alan Turner, tourism marketing and development manager at Pembrokeshire County Council, said: “It’s great to see tourism in Pembrokeshire continuing to prosper in an increasingly competitive and worldwide marketplace.

“The hard work of the Destination Pembrokeshire Partners will have played a significant role in generating this growth. The partnership includes the Pembrokeshire County Council’s tourism team, Pembrokeshire Tourism, PLANED and the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

“Our own marketing activity has been performing particularly well with the number of people accessing the Visit Pembrokeshire website topping 750,000 this year with three months still to go. PR activity and social media reach has also been extremely good.”

The positive trend appears to be continuing this year, with a combination of better weather and the uncertainty of Brexit encouraging visitors to ‘staycation’ in Wales. One prominent hotelier in Pembrokeshire even said it was ‘the best year the hotel has ever experienced’.

This optimism seems to be backed up by the Wales Tourism Business Barometer survey carried out by the Welsh Government during the summer. It suggested that the tourism industry in Wales has enjoyed a busy summer with ‘increased visitor levels across all industry sectors and regions of Wales’ and operators ‘fairly confident for the rest of the year’.

Keith Lewis, cabinet member at Pembrokeshire County Council responsible for Tourism, said: “These results show that the tourism industry is working hard to provide the type and quality of service that modern visitors are looking for.”