Memorandum submitted by English Heritage
INTRODUCTION
1. This document represents English Heritage's
response to questions posed by the DCMS Select Committee as part
of its inquiry into tourism in the UK. The response does not cover
all the questions asked by the Committee, but concentrates on
questions where there are particular issues for tourism and the
historic environment. This response does not cover specific factors
affecting heritage tourism in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
BACKGROUND
2. English Heritage is a non-departmental
public body established under the National Heritage Act 1983 to
help protect the historic environment of England and promote awareness,
understanding and enjoyment of it. The historic environment is
all around us and encompasses the whole of our historic landscape
and buried archaeology, not just visible buildings and scheduled
monuments. It is our most accessible cultural resource and has
a powerful influence on decisions made by foreign resident and
domestic tourists to undertake holidays and day trips.
3. English Heritage has long experience
in managing and marketing visitor attractions. English Heritage
looks after over 400 properties including some of the most iconic
historic places in the country such as Stonehenge, Whitby Abbey,
Dover and Kenilworth Castles, Battle Abbey and Osborne House.
These sites are visited by people from all over the world as well
as domestic holiday makers and day visitors. There are 5 million
visits a year to our pay sites and an estimated 6 million visits
to our free sites. We currently have a major programme to invest
in improving the quality of the facilities and the visitor experience
at our sites. In addition the grant schemes operated by English
Heritage have contributed to the upkeep of heritage assets that
are part of England's tourism offer.
4. The importance of heritage related tourism
in England can be demonstrated by the following key facts.
— At least 56.4 million visits to heritage
visitor attraction sites in 2005.
— Recent trend of visits to heritage
sites is broadly flat with small year to year changes. Within
this overall trend, visits to sites with gardens have grown but
visits to castles and forts have fallen.
— About 33,000 people work at heritage
visitor attraction sites of which over 21,000 are unpaid volunteers.
— Average adult admission charge at
pay sites is £4.57.
— 69.9% of adults resident in England
visited a heritage site at least once in the past 12 months.
— 50.7% of adults from black and minority
ethnic backgrounds resident in England visited a heritage site
at least once in the past 12 months.
— 53% of those visiting heritage sites
say that the main reason they do so is personal enjoyment and
relaxation.
— 3.39 million members of the National
Trust and 630,000 members of English Heritage.
— More people go to an historic property
at the weekend than attend a football match.
— A number of places rely on their
heritage tourism for much of their economic activity, for example
York, Bath, Canterbury.
— 400,000 volunteers in the historic
environment sector.
— 12% of all holiday visitors from
North America go to Stonehenge.
— Market research shows that visitors
from all over the world value this country's history and heritage,
and that access to history and heritage, always a strong driver,
remains a core reason for coming to this country. According to
a survey of visitors to the Britain and London Visitor Centre
56% had already or were planning to visit one or more of a castle,
church, monument or historic house. Research carried out in 10
emerging tourism markets found that the most likely activity that
people would take part in when visiting Britain was again visits
to a castle, church, monument or historic house.
5. Responses to specific questions posed
by the Committee are set out below:
The effectiveness of DCMS and its sponsored bodies
(such as VisitBritain) in supporting the industry.
The structure and funding of sponsored bodies
in the tourism sector, and the effectiveness of that structure
in promoting the UK both as a whole and in its component parts.
What data on tourism would usefully inform government
policy on tourism.
6. The comments below take these three questions
together. We believe that there is a very important role for both
DCMS and VisitBritain in supporting the tourism industry. In the
light of the findings about the importance of the historic environment
to the brand image of this country to foreign tourists, the maintenance
and enhancement of that environment is a key factor in underpinning
the growth in tourist demand. Policies and funding to achieve
that desirable state of affairs are not the responsibility of
any one body or person, but the DCMS should make sure that its
own policies and funding allow the historic environment to make
its full contribution to the tourism offer. In addition there
is a leadership role for DCMS in ensuring that other organisations
in the public and private sector are aware of the contribution
they can make to the historic environment.
7. Individual organisations in the heritage
tourism sector undertake marketing, promotion and research, but
because the benefits of such activities are likely to go beyond
any one organisation's immediate interests, there is a risk of
under-provision, compared with what would be desirable for the
industry, and by implication for the whole economy. Therefore
there is a case for some co-ordinated public funded promotion
of the industry to make up for that under-provision. However,
while there is a clear justification for public involvement the
scale and nature of that involvement is less obvious. In particular
the increasing use of electronic media to communicate information,
ideas and opinions directly to consumers may be complementary
to, but also in part substitutes for, traditional means of communications
such as books and tourist offices. But whatever the format of
communication we know that VisitBritain's marketing effort can
generate excellent returns to the industry, and net additional
activity to the economy as a whole.
8. Public investment and marketing effort
by regional and national organisations should market areas or
groups of attractions rather than individual attractions. This
can have a beneficial effect by encouraging people to stay longer
in a place or region and therefore spend more money in the local
economy. An example is marketing for the area around Hadrian's
Wall where the different attractions work together to produce
joint publicity and leaflets. An additional consideration is that
visitors come from very diverse backgrounds and with different
requirements. Marketing and the services provided by the tourism
industry should be planned with this diversity in mind. Another
example English Heritage is involved with is the Sacred Britain
Tourism Partnership, a grouping of organisations with an interest
in promoting tourism to historic places of worship. We have a
particular interest as a major grant-giver to places of worship,
given that we include a standard condition of grant requiring
the grant recipient to open the building to the public. We have
a wider interest as well in encouraging access to the historic
environment.
9. We value timely and accurate data about
short term trends in the sector in order to monitor and benchmark
the performance of our own sites, and we supply data to VisitBritain.
We also support the collection of annual data to monitor longer
term trends in visits, by site type, by region, by type of visitor,
entry charge paid, and employment. These data are regularly reported
in Heritage Counts, the annual report on the state of the historic
environment. Data of sufficient quality and data will be needed
to accurately monitor and predict the impact of the Olympics on
different forms of tourism. In general we believe better co-ordination
of the collection and analysis of tourism statistics would be
of benefit to all those involved in the sector.
The effect of the current tax regime (including
VAT and Air Passenger Duty) and proposals for local government
funding (including the "bed tax") upon the industry's
competitiveness
10. VAT is an issue for the heritage sector
because of the different treatment of new build (zero rated) and
the generality of expenditure on repairs and maintenance to buildings
(subject to 17.5%). We believe that this discrepancy provides
an incentive for owners and developers to demolish old buildings
or heritage features and replace with new. English Heritage and
others in the historic environment sector are of the opinion that
this is a perverse incentive for heritage and environmental reasons.
A recent report from the Select Committee on Culture, Media and
Sport, Protecting and preserving our heritage supported
the sector's view. However, the Government has chosen not to make
any fundamental changes to VAT for construction, and due to EU
rules, there is now no scope to make any fundamental changes until
2010 at the earliest. The Listed Places of Worship Grant scheme
refunds VAT on specified expenditure for listed places of worship
(and recently extended to listed monuments). But there remains
a large amount of the historic environment owned by non-commercial
organisations or private individuals that have to pay the full
rate of VAT on most repairs and maintenance. Given that the historic
environment is such an important part of the tourism offer, we
believe that the tax system should provide incentives for its
preservation and improvement rather than undermine it as is the
tendency now.
The practicality of promoting more environmentally
friendly forms of tourism
11. We believe that the historic environment
can make an important contribution to sustainable development
and protection of the environment through the preservation of
existing buildings rather than demolition and building new. Demolition
and building new can have significant negative impacts through
increased demand for landfill and extraction and transport of
natural resources. Tourists are both attracted to old buildings
and distinctive places and landscapes and contribute directly
and indirectly to their upkeep through expenditure on admissions,
retail and accommodation. As part of its investment in its own
sites, English Heritage is successfully implementing a range of
environmentally friendly projects including reusing an existing
historic building as the visitor entry point in Osborne House,
combining a Visitor Centre for our site and a Tourism Information
Centre for the wider area in a single bespoke building at Helmsley
Castle, and developing a policy for locally-sourced food in the
catering facilities at its sites. Other examples of important
heritage buildings and sites that have been maintained and enhanced
through strong links with heritage tourism are briefly described
below:.
Cliveden: An example of a conversion
to a hotel. A country house built by Charles Barry in 1851 on
the site of a previous house built by the second Duke of Buckingham.
The present site consists of a grade 1 listed garden, extensive
woodlands and Italianate mansion. The house has been host to virtually
every British monarch since George I and has been home to three
Dukes, an Earl and Frederic Prince of Wales. In 1893 it was purchased
by the Astor family and became a meeting place for the great and
famous including Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, and George
Bernard Shaw. The property and gardens are now run by the National
Trust, but the building is also let as a hotel operated by a private
company. An example of a site that is both a visitor attraction
and a commercial operation that contributes to the sustainability
of the historic environment.
St Ives: An example of a fishing and
seaside town that has reinvented its tourist offer to include
cultural activities, while retaining its historic buildings and
distinctiveness. The success of Tate St Ives in attracting visitors
and economic activity is itself partly based on the attractive
historic environment of the town, and at the same time the owners
and managers of that historic environment benefit from the higher
incomes and expenditure associated with the Tate.
Saltburn-by-the-Sea: pier restoration
and heritage centre. The pier was built in the 1860s and is now
the only remaining pleasure pier in the North East. Grant from
the Heritage Lottery Fund enabled a restoration programme to take
place, with improvement in access. The pier has enhanced the locality
as a tourist attraction and beneficial knock-on effects on local
businesses.
Clacton: seafront gardens Clacton's Edwardian
were a popular visitor attraction until the 1990s when they became
run-down and overgrown. HLF grants have enabled extensive repairs
and improvements to be carried out together with new facilities
and access. The gardens are now the focus of community events
and are part of the overall improvement in the character of the
resort that has led to increase in visitor numbers.
Bexhill: De La Warr pavilion First public
building in the UK built in the Modernist style. Built in 1935
to a design by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff the structure
quickly became a popular public space and also including cultural
and leisure facilities for local people and tourists. Following
an £8 million restoration project (funded by the Arts Council
England, Heritage Lottery Fund, and others) completed in 2005,
the pavilion provides an art gallery, auditorium, studio space,
terrace and bandstand, public spaces and retail outlets. Visit
numbers since re-opening have been encouraging demonstrating that
a striking design can attract interest and economic activity.
How to derive maximum benefit for the industry
from the London 2012 Games
12. There are activities planned for deriving
benefit before, during and after the Games. English Heritage and
other national cultural organisations are planning the delivery
of a Cultural Olympiad running from 2008-12. The Cultural Olympiad
is not confined to sport, but embraces a huge spectrum of activities
from visual and performance art to the historic environment and
science. In addition to the Cultural Olympiad English Heritage
is planning events, publications and exhibitions that will celebrate
and complement Britain's hosting of the Olympics. After the Games
there is an opportunity to enhance and develop the tourism offer,
with direct or indirect links to Olympic activities and sites.
March 2007
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