Economic Value of Ireland's Historic Environment - The Heritage ...

According to Valuing Our Environment research, the totality of Wales' environment - covering its
management, use and appreciation, together with associated multiplier effects - provided jobs for some
170,000 people nationally (as of 2000), with associated annual spending contributing around £1.8bn
(€2.1bn) in wages.
2.3.2 Historic Environment Impact Studies
Turning to more closely specified heritage sector studies, work carried out in North East England 14 has
suggested that heritage (here defined as built heritage elements, together with the museum sector)
supported more than 7,300 jobs in total. Of these, around 1,500 were employment posts in heritage
organisations, with approximately 360 jobs being created indirectly as a result of the spending of the
heritage sector on goods, services and capital projects, and the spending of the wages of historic
environment sector employees. However, the report notes that the most significant economic impacts are
the result of tourism spending of over 6 million visitors annually to heritage attractions in North East
England. According to the study this accounts for an estimated £180m (€210bn) of visitor-related
spending in the region, approaching one-fifth of total tourism spending in North East England.
At the national level, pioneering work carried out on the economic impact of the historic environment in
Scotland 15 has shown it to be a highly significant contributor to the Scottish economy. Including indirect
and induced effects, it is estimated that the historic environment supports approximately 60,000 FTE
employees and contributes some £2.3 billion (€2.7 billion) in Gross Value Added (GVA) to Scotland‟s
national income (2.6% of Scotland's overall GVA). The greater share of economic impacts relate to
tourism expenditure attributable to the historic environment, whilst construction-related impacts (covering
restoration and maintenance of historic buildings) are also identified as a major contributor.
Comparable work undertaken recently in Wales has also attempted to more closely estimate the
particular contribution of the historic environment as a subset of Wales' wider environment 16 . This study
has asserted that in economic terms the historic environment sector supports 30,000 FTE jobs, with a
corresponding contribution to Welsh national income (GVA) of more than £800m (€930m) or 1.9% of total
national income. Importantly, the research also highlights through the use of case studies the
considerable wider public value – to economic, social and environmental wellbeing - of the historic
environment to communities in Wales.
2.4 Social and Cultural Benefits
Picking up on this point, beyond consideration of conventional notions of 'economic value', previous
studies have also recognised the often very significant contributions that the historic environment makes
towards social and cultural objectives. For example, as a valued cultural resource, the historic
14 Economic, Social and Cultural Impact of Heritage in the North East, (2005), North East Historic Environment
Forum
15 Economic Impact of the Historic Environment in Scotland, (2009), ECOTEC
16 Valuing the Welsh Historic Environment, (2010), ECOTEC
8