{"id":23640,"date":"2019-08-20T16:03:10","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T15:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=23640"},"modified":"2019-08-17T17:16:48","modified_gmt":"2019-08-17T16:16:48","slug":"dcms-committee-create-a-uk-garden-city-initiative-to-boost-untapped-potential-of-garden-tourism-to-uk-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=23640","title":{"rendered":"DCMS Committee: Create a \u2018UK Garden City\u2019 initiative to boost untapped potential of garden tourism to UK economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-22319\" src=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/formal_garden__UK_Gov_Open_Licence_v3_0.png\" alt=\"formal garden\" width=\"282\" height=\"141\" \/>A new report by Parliament\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/business\/committees\/committees-a-z\/commons-select\/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee\/\">Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Commons Select Committee<\/a> concludes that garden tourism has much more economic potential, yet to be exploited, and that gardens should be formally recognised as part of the UK\u2019s creative sector.<\/h3>\n<h6><em>image: Open Government Licence v3.0<\/em><\/h6>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"rte main-introduction\">\n<p>Parliament UK writes:<\/p>\n<p>Create a \u201cUK Garden City\u201d initiative to boost untapped potential of garden tourism to UK economy, says DCMS Committee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"ctl00_ctl00_FormContent_SiteSpecificPlaceholder_PageContent_ctlMainBody_wrapperDiv\" class=\"rte\">\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/publications.parliament.uk\/pa\/cm201719\/cmselect\/cmcumeds\/2002\/200202.htm\">Read the report: Garden design and tourism\u00a0[HTML]<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/publications.parliament.uk\/pa\/cm201719\/cmselect\/cmcumeds\/2002\/200203.htm\">Read the summary [HTML]<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/business\/committees\/committees-a-z\/commons-select\/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee\/inquiries\/parliament-2017\/garden-tourism\/\">Inquiry: Garden design<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Committee&#8217;s Report<br \/>\n<\/strong>New report concludes that garden tourism has much more economic potential which is yet to be exploited and that gardens should be formally recognised as part of the UK\u2019s creative sector.<\/h3>\n<p>The government should launch a \u2018UK Garden City\u2019 initiative in order to boost the support for garden tourism and maximise the benefits it brings to the economy, says a new report by the Digital, Culture Media and Sport Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Garden tourism generates almost \u00a33billion in GDP to the UK. In this new report, MPs highlight that although gardens make up a significant part of tourism revenue and contribute significantly to the UK\u2019s international standing, they agree that the benefits the sector brings are \u201cnot properly understood\u201d and\u00a0 \u201cunderestimated in financial, social and cultural terms.\u201d*<\/p>\n<p>The Committee makes wide-ranging recommendations to the government and arms lengths bodies, include VisitBritain, to boost the untapped potential of the garden industry to the UK.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Steps that the Government and other bodies could take to enable the garden tourism to thrive:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>The benefits that the City of Culture initiative brings to local areas is well-evidenced. The creation of a &#8220;UK Garden City&#8221; competition as a counterpart to this would raise the profile of garden tourism. The DCMS Department should scope out how such an initiative could work in the next twelve months, with a view to launching the first competition before the end of 2020.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>The DCMS Department should convene a new taskforce including representatives from VisitBritain and the gardening sector to better co-ordinate garden tourism marketing activity. They should meet before the end of 2019.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>The DCMS Department and Visit Britain should increase the evidence base for garden tourism, including tracking the ongoing economic contribution of the sector and including such data in official department estimates. This could be done within the new Tourism Data Hub recently announced since the launch of the Committee\u2019s inquiry.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>Local Enterprise Partnerships are a key vehicle for driving local\u00a0 economic growth and could play an important role in spreading the benefits of garden tourism more evenly across England. The DCMS and VisitBritain should build on the April 2019 guidance to Local Enterprise Partnerships by more explicitly championing garden tourism, and proactively seeking to ensure that tourism is included in the local 10 industrial strategies of areas that contain the 20 most visited gardens outside London.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Chair&#8217;s comment<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Damian Collins, Chair of the DCMS Committee said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cBritain\u2019s gardens are part of what make Britain great. It\u2019s time for the garden design and tourism industries to be properly recognised for the significant contribution they makes to our economy. It was clear from the evidence that there is so much potential here that needs to be tapped in to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why in this report we\u2019re calling for the government to create a UK Garden City competition (similar to UK City of Culture initiative) give a boost to the marketing for gardens and better track the sectors contribution to the economy.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/business\/committees\/committees-a-z\/commons-select\/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee\/news\/garden-tourism-report-published-17-19\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more&#8230;.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more background see the <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=22318\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IHBC NewsBlog<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new report by Parliament\u2019s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Commons Select Committee concludes that garden tourism has much more economic potential, yet to be exploited, and that gardens should be formally recognised as part of the UK\u2019s creative sector. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=23640\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23641,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23640\/revisions\/23641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}