Post by Gareth, Registration Lead, Welsh Revenue Authority
As we reach the end of 2025, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the progress we’ve made building Wales’ visitor accommodation registration service. This service will allow all visitor accommodation providers in Wales to register from autumn 2026, and your input has been crucial in shaping it.
Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg
A year of progress
It has been an incredibly busy and productive year for the team. We’ve moved from the discovery phase to building a working version of the service that people can now test in a safe environment. This is a significant milestone for us.
Building the registration journey
The team has been working hard to build the different routes through the service. We’ve completed building the registration journey for individual accommodation providers and companies. In our most recent sprint, we made good progress on the route for charities. We built 17 screens for charities and would have finished the entire journey, but we found a design problem that needed solving. It was a lesson on how important it is to fully design the journey before we start building it.
Testing with users
We also launched our first external testing environment this month. This allows us to test a working version of the service with real users in a safe and secure environment. It will help us spot and fix any problems early on. Our first testing session happened this week and we’re excited to see what we learn from it.
Working together
None of this would have been possible without the support and feedback from accommodation providers and the tourism sector across Wales. Your input has been invaluable in shaping the service.
Whether you’ve attended a user research session, tested early designs, or shared your thoughts at one of our events or webinars, you’ve helped us understand what the service needs to do to work for you. Thank you.
We know this has been a busy year for everyone in the sector, which makes your willingness to spend time with us even more appreciated.
What we’ve learned
Building a digital service is never straightforward. We’ve learned important lessons along the way, particularly about the value of testing designs with users before we build them.
We’ve also seen how crucial it is to work as a multi-disciplinary team. Our designers, developers and user researchers work closely together, and this collaboration has helped us solve some difficult problems.
For example, we redesigned some of the most challenging questions in the service: how to ask about accommodation availability. We needed to create a question that makes sense for different types of accommodation, and working together helped us achieve it.
One breakthrough this month was developing a clickable prototype in Figma. This is a tool that lets us create realistic versions of the service that users can interact with. It means we can test ideas and gather feedback much faster, helping us respond to what you tell us almost immediately.
Looking ahead to 2026
We’ll be continuing to build and improve the service in 2026. There’s still work to do before registration opens in autumn 2026, but we’re confident we’re on the right path.
In the new year, we’ll be conducting more user testing sessions. We’ll also be working on some of the more complex parts of the service, making sure it works well for accommodation providers in different situations.
Have your say
We would love to hear your thoughts on what we have shared so far. We are always looking for people to test our designs with. If you would like to share your thoughts or take part in research, contact us at wracommunications@wra.gov.wales.
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From everyone on the visitor accommodation registration team, thank you for your support this year. We’re looking forward to continuing to work with you in 2026.
Please note: Everything we share is work in progress and may change as we continue developing the service based on your feedback and what we learn through testing.