image for illustration: View of Syon House from Syon Park by Robert Lamb, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Historic England (HE) has explored how to measure the value of heritage attractions in a way that captures the additional benefits people receive beyond just the ticketed experience.
Historic England writes:
This research funded by the DCMS Culture and Heritage Capital (CHC) programme and conducted by Historic England (HE) addresses this question using an economic technique known as the Travel Cost Method (TCM). TCM works by analysing how total expenses, including travel costs and the value of visitors’ time influence their decisions to visit a site. By conducting this analysis, we capture benefits that go far beyond what is paid for entry. Unique to this study is the integration of innovative mobile data analytics, providing a blueprint for evaluating historic attraction sites, both paid and free.
For paid sites, this shows the additional non-market value above and beyond their market value, whereas for free sites, this provides a value to sites otherwise not valued because there is no direct financial transaction. Using over 500,000 data points from English Heritage booking records and hundreds of thousands of anonymous mobile GPS data points, this research offers an improved understanding of visitor behaviour and site value.
What we found
The findings show that visitors gain far more than just a ticketed experience – they derive benefits that include cultural, educational, and recreational benefits. These benefits extend beyond market values, as traditional economics often focuses solely on transactions like ticket prices, leaving the broader significance of heritage visits unaccounted for.
Understanding these values is crucial for ensuring historic attraction sites are preserved and appreciated for generations to come.
- On average, visitors felt the experience was worth more than what they paid. The extra value they gained (known as consumer surplus) was £5.31 per person when using mobile data and £5.75 per person when using English Heritage data
- These findings highlight that heritage sites provide significant economic and cultural benefits to visitors, far beyond their market value. This includes the joy of exploring history, learning new things, and enjoying time in beautiful settings
- Across the 10 sites studied, this extra value was equivalent to 57% of the ticket price for sites analysed using English Heritage Trust data and 45% for sites analysed using mobile data
- The study found a strong match between the results from mobile data and traditional English Heritage records, showing that mobile data is a reliable way to measure the value of heritage sites
Across 10 sites, there is considerable additional benefit that historic attraction sites bring
Significance: By analysing these datasets independently, the study demonstrated the potential for mobile data to support and, in some cases, replace surveys or traditional booking data.
This is particularly interesting because:
- The English Heritage dataset, though not the primary focus of the study, served as a robust comparison to validate the accuracy and reliability of the mobile analytical data. The similar values evaluated between the 2 datasets supports the use of mobile data as a credible tool for evaluating visitor behaviour
- Many culturally significant sites lack direct monetary transactions (like ticket sales), making it difficult to understand and measure their value. Mobile data provides an affordable and scalable way to estimate their non-market values, capturing benefits that go beyond the simple price of entry
- English Heritage sites represent only a fraction of England’s historic and cultural attractions. Smaller or free-to-enter sites, which often do not collect visitor data, can be evaluated using mobile analytics. This opens new possibilities for understanding and advocating for the value of lesser-known or underfunded sites
- Mobile data captures real-time anonymised visitor trends, which is absent in survey-based methods. This allows for more accurate and timely analysis of visitor trends, particularly useful for sites that experience fluctuating visitor numbers
View the Executive Summary & Report
