Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 64)
TUESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2007
MR COLIN
DAWSON, MR
ROBIN BROKE,
MR GREGOR
HUTCHEON AND
DR SIMON
THURLEY
Q60 Helen Southworth: Have you made
any assessment of the changing culture patterns with younger people?
I have been absolutely astonished to see how many young people
have taken on camping. It is a huge change, in that young people
who wanted to go into the city and did not wear coats in the evening
are now wanting to spend their holidays under canvas.
Mr Hutcheon: Anecdotally we are
getting evidence that people are wanting to holiday at home because
they are getting the environmental message. I was having a debate
with Robin before we came in about whether there was evidence
yet that would convince you guys that this was the real case.
Q61 Helen Southworth: Is this something
that DCMS should be taking up; that as a government department
it should be looking at its climate change obligations? Do you
have an opinion?
Mr Broke: No, I do not think government
needs to do more than is happening anyway. People need to be informed
and allowed to make their own decisions. As I say, there are already
signs that people will do the right thing, given half a chance—whatever
the right thing is. If we think that part of that right thinking
will be that they will wish to stay here, then once we have fixed
the weather we can really go to town on ensuring—
Helen Southworth: Surely you are not
going to tell me the whole problem is the weather, so you cannot
do anything. I do not believe that.
Mr Sanders: An extra hour of sunlight:
Q62 Helen Southworth: What about
that?
Mr Hutcheon: I am not sure about
whose role that is. This comes back to some of the issues we were
talking about before. On the one hand, we need some data, to know
how significant is the business case for this growing, environmentally
aware tourist market and how can we grow it. That is about information
and evidence and data. There is a leadership role, though, for
government on addressing the specific issue on climate change
and for which DCMS should take responsibility, and that would
be in partnership with VisitBritain and other government departments,
in helping work out what that should be. In some cases, we may
have to face some difficult decisions. What do we really think
about low-cost flights and expanding aviation? What do we think
about the degree of investment in international marketing and
marketing Britain abroad against the domestic market? What do
we think about potentially damaging developments that may be visitor
attractions in themselves but undermine the quality of the local
landscape? Those are very difficult issues which, if we were serious
about confronting the bigger challenge, then we as a sector together
need to address those.
Q63 Alan Keen: This is not going
to help this inquiry at all, but I thought I would share a social
observation with you. We all know about the postcards going out
saying, "Weather beautiful scenery wonderful, rows not quite
as good as last year." Helen painted this wonderful picture
of serenity, sitting around the computer and booking a holiday.
Now it could be because I am married to an MP, but we get our
rows out of the way even before we get on holiday! As a serious
point, with some of the websites it is difficult to book directly
with a hotel because of the way that some of the companies manipulate.
Are you aware of this at all? It is very frustrating.
Mr Broke: You are taking evidence
from BHA.
Chairman: That is probably a question
for them.
Q64 Mr Sanders: Cultural Olympiad.
What do you know about it and where did you hear it?
Mr Broke: Certainly I have been
to a meeting with English Heritage, taking the lead with Heritage
Link. Currently, of course, there is no money and so I think we
have to accept, therefore, that there will be a need to link events
that are probably going to happen anyway and package them in some
sort of helpful manner—rather like Sea Britain 2005—and
I think that will be thoroughly satisfactory. I think I am right
in saying that we are the first nation to be doing a Cultural
Olympiad: we are setting the standard and therefore we cannot
help but be the best.
Dr Thurley: English Heritage are
taking the lead in convening a series of meetings, mainly with
the intention of trying to get the cultural end of visitor attractions
together for the Cultural Olympiad. I believe there is work going
on on what is known as "a big idea" which will be launched
at the Heritage Link AGM in December. There is quite a lot of
work going on and we are taking our coordinating role quite seriously.
Chairman: I think we are done. Thank
you all very much.
| 
