Churches Tourism Association

A new report commissioned by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) reveals for the first time the scale of the heritage tourism industry in the UK, estimating its gross domestic product (GDP) contribution to be £20.6 billion. This research establishes that heritage tourism makes a bigger contribution to UK GDP than advertising, car manufacturing or the film industry.

CTA comment: given that churches represent about half of all Grade I Listed buildings, and that 51% of tourists make visits to churches (according to VisitEngland data), it is disappointing that the words ‘religious’ and ‘faith’ occur only once each in the general introduction, and no reference is made to ‘churches’, ‘places of worship’ or ‘sacred’ buildings in the 44-page document.

Although many of those who work in the heritage sector deplore the instrumentalist notion that heritage investment has to be justified in terms of financial outputs, these findings nevertheless provide important evidence to support the argument that investment in culture and heritage yields a very substantial dividend and that they have an important role to play in the economy, not least at a time of low growth and recession.

Jenny Abramsky, Chair of the HLF said: ‘We now have the figures to prove that heritage packs a substantial economic punch. Last year, domestic and overseas holiday visitor numbers grew as the wider UK economy was shrinking. Our museums, historic sites and landscapes are proving to be an immense and essential attraction, bringing in new visitors and boosting local economies. As we all look to economic recovery, we must keep investing in heritage tourism so that it continues to flourish, bringing with it key economic benefits’.

The report — Investing in success: Heritage and the UK tourism economy — was researched by Oxford Economics, who looked at the extent to which tourism visits and expenditure are motivated by heritage. You can read more and access a copy of the report here.

It concludes that more than 10 million holiday trips are made by oversees visitors to the UK each year with four in ten visitors citing heritage as the primary motivation for their trip to the UK. Heritage tourism expenditure was taken to include not just the direct cost of entry to a historic house, for example, but also linked expenditure, such as money spent in hotels, restaurants and shops. The report found that the heritage tourism sector — including historic buildings, museums, parks and the countryside — directly supports an estimated 195,000 full-time jobs.

The report also concluded that, unlike more mature industries in the UK, tourism has the potential to be one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy over the next decade, and that heritage will be vital to that growth.