As musical shrines go, Manchester’s Salford Lads Club, made famous by indie rockers The Smiths, may not have the pulling power of Graceland or the Grand Ole Opry, the home of country music in Nashville, Tennessee.
But the unassuming recreational club is typical of an untapped British tourism resource – the rock ’n’ roll heritage site.
The Salford Lads Club, which featured on the sleeve notes of The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead, could soon be at the forefront of this new strategy to put it and many other British musical sites beside Buckingham Palace and Stonehenge as premier tourist attractions.
UK Music, an umbrella group representing the commercial music industry believes that, despite the success of festivals such as Glastonbury, which is now the largest in the world and brings in hundreds of thousands of overseas visitors, the government is failing to give music venues the same support as Britain’s other tourist spots.
VisitBritain, the UK’s tourism agency, reckons 21 percent of potential visitors to a country are drawn by its bands and music. Glastonbury boosted the local economy in Somerset and beyond by £36 million in 2008.
“There is a strong musical heritage in this country,” said Feargal Sharkey, the chief executive of UK Music.
“We want to get people to understand that the music industry is far more important than just youngsters sitting around listening to records.
“We want to ensure that when the government is drawing up its tourism strategy over the next few months it embeds music.”
UK Music commissioned Bournemouth University’s school of tourism to come up with a strategy to be published later this month. Consumers spent a record £1.5 billion last year at live music events. Scotland has expanded its live music industry by 37 percent since 2006. – The Independent on Sunday