Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future

Developing Archives and AudiencesThe ArchivesGateway … couldplay an importantpart in any campaignto promote theattractions of theUK as a heritagetourist destination.The ancestral tourism market has local, regional andnational potential. Family History is one of the fastestgrowing recreational interests in the world and is in the topfive of the most popular topics for internet searching. Manypeople have a strong urge to visit the places where theirancestors lived, and research has emphasised theimportance in the visitor experience of visiting places oforigin and the excitement of touching original documents.Ancestral tourism has been recognised as a significantniche market, and one with growth potential for bothpublic and commercial sectors. Archives have respondedby developing websites such as ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk,the official government source of genealogical data forScotland, to support these needs.39Archives have a central role to play in the developmentof this market, attracting overseas visitors, and improvingthe quality of visitor experience. The Archives Gateway,with easy access to all kinds of archives will be certain toencourage greater ancestry tourism, and provide additionalopportunities to attract new visitors and new investment.It could play an important part in any campaign topromote the attractions of the UK as a heritage touristdestination. In Scotland, genealogical tourism isrecognised as an important contributor to local economicgrowth and in Northern Ireland it is being seen as an areafor rapid development.Commercial ActivitiesThere is evidence that many archives work to turn theircollections to commercial advantage, to generate income.Enterprise activities such as paid research services,publishing, the sale of books, images (through imagelibraries) and related historical and heritage merchandisehave all been successfully used for income generation.Large-scale operations such as those run by The NationalTrust have developed this into a thriving business. TheNational Archives has developed highly sophisticatedcorporate and commercial activities, ranging from imageand brand licensing to publishing, retailing and venuehire. Commercial film archives and national and regionalfilm and television archives have raised revenue throughsales of copies of images and footage to the media.