According to the Wales Tourism Alliance (WTA), tourist information offices could be on the brink of extinction as online guides become the most popular way to research a destination.

The latest council to hold talks on the future of its tourism offices is Monmouthshire which currently uses half of its £368,000 tourism budget or running and maintaining the offices.

The number of visitors to tourism offices has dropped in Chepstow, Monmouth and Abergavenny while visitors to the county’s website have increased by an astonishing amount.

Powys council, which formerly had 14 offices, now only has one as the demand for tourism offices declines with the advent of online guides.

A spokesman for WTA said that while tourism information centres serve a purpose in a s much as they provide information for people who have already arrived at their destination, there is no longer as much demand for them as ways to book beds and more people are turning to internet based research for booking their holidays.

He added that there is now a huge question mark looming above tourist information centres as to what their actual purpose should be.

While not everybody uses the internet to book holidays, an increasing number of people are turning to this method as it is faster, more efficient and allows travellers to book holidays from the comfort of their own home.

Monmouthshire council has stated that it will conduct a review of the service starting in the new year but has insisted that it is not about the money even though they recognise the cause for concern.

The council revealed that the amount of people visiting tourism centres in the financial year 2008/09 was 133,430 but the figure had dropped to 124,587 in the financial year from 2009/10.

It was also telling that the number of page views on tourism-related pages had increased over the same period from 2.6m to 8.9m.