Participation
The number of people and time spent engaging with heritage
How we engage with heritage
How people spend their time is a key factor in wellbeing. There is plenty of evidence for the benefits of cultural leisure activities and heritage has a lot to offer too – from volunteering to look after a historic site, spending time learning about a traditional craft, visiting a castle or fort, or even just meeting friends on a historic high street.
If we want to understand the impact of heritage engagement, it is important to understand who is taking part and who is not, so we need to find out:
- Which people are visiting, taking part or volunteering? And therefore also, who are the people not engaging?
- How many people visit, take part or volunteer with heritage?
- How often and for how long?
- Where else do they visit, take part or volunteer?
- Why people take part and what value they gain from the experience.
What we already know
Looking across available research, here are short overviews of the findings on:
Heritage is a vital part of our lives and interest in heritage continues to grow.
In 2021/22, 63% of adults in England explored a historic site. Over 15 million heritage-related overnight trips were recorded in 2021, a sharp rise from just 1 million in 2019.
Heritage also plays a major role in tourism. In the past 2 decades, visits to historic attractions have surged, reaching nearly 76 million in 2018/19. A 2023 survey found 78% of international travellers said history and heritage influenced their choice of destination, with Britain ranking as a top location.
But heritage isn’t just about physical sites – it includes intangible cultural heritage, like traditional crafts and cuisine. Engaging in these traditions fosters personal growth and a sense of place, strengthens communities and supports cultural exchange. With many tourists seeking out these experiences, sharing cultural heritage benefits the economy too.
From boosting tourism to improving wellbeing, heritage is more than just history – it’s a living, evolving part of our daily lives.
People care deeply about heritage. More than a third of adults in England have taken action to protect historic places – whether by signing petitions, joining groups, donating, or attending public meetings.
In 2022, over half a million people gave their time as heritage volunteers. Volunteers report an improved quality of life, with lasting positive effects including stronger social connections.
Beyond personal benefits, heritage engagement builds valuable skills such as teamwork and communication.
Heritage even strengthens local communities. People living in conservation areas are twice as likely to get involved in local planning and development decisions.
From preserving history to enriching lives, heritage plays a role in shaping both individuals and communities.
If you need to use this evidence in a report or funding application, you can find more detail and the sources of the evidence by following the link below:
How can you measure your impact?
With the right data, you can get insights into the real-world benefits your work brings to individuals, communities and society. The data can reveal patterns of access and inclusion, and show the connection between your work, the wider community and economic value.
You will need to decide on an effective way to count participants and will also need to do a short visitor survey to collect basic information about them. This is sometimes called a demographic survey.
Here we introduce ways of counting, and what to ask participants to get the participation insights and evidence you need. We want to find out:
1. How many people visit, take part or volunteer?
Social impact is about the difference your work makes, but you need to know how many people that difference reaches. Without visitor numbers, you can’t fully assess the scale of your impact. It helps to show funders and stakeholders that your work is not only meaningful but also widely felt.
By tracking changes over time, you will know if your audience is growing, declining, or shifting. Use the data as a baseline for comparing different events, programmes, or seasons. It supports better planning, resourcing, and reporting.
When combined with other data (like who is visiting and why), it gives a fuller picture of how your organisation is creating social value in the community.
2. Who are the people visiting, participating in, or volunteering?
Carry out a demographic survey of participants to find out who is taking part and, therefore, which people are not.
When collecting this personal information, you must minimise the risk of identifying individuals to such an extent that the data you collect is effectively anonymous. Find out how to anonymise personal data from the Information Commissioner's Office and ensure you comply with the UK data protection laws.
See advice on using surveys for data collection
Survey questions should cover:
Different age groups may engage with your offer in different ways (for example, older adults for wellbeing, younger people for learning).
Find out whether you are reaching underrepresented age groups like teenagers or older people at risk of isolation.
Results may support claims around lifelong learning, intergenerational engagement, or youth inclusion.
Understanding gender balance helps assess whether your space feels equally accessible to everyone.
It can also help you monitor gendered patterns in volunteering, participation, or access.
Use your findings to support goals around gender equality and inclusive participation.
Helps monitor if you are successfully engaging groups who are historically underrepresented in cultural spaces.
Evidence of promoting cultural equity and inclusive representation.
Religion can shape cultural interests, community connections, and participation habits.
Helps ensure events and spaces are welcoming and relevant to all.
Supports claims around cultural sensitivity, interfaith inclusion, or social cohesion.
Helps identify whether disabled people can access, participate in, and feel included in your space.
Supports efforts to remove barriers, whether physical, sensory, digital, or attitudinal.
Gathers evidence for work around accessibility, inclusive design, and equal participation in cultural life
Helps identify whether LGBTQ+ people feel welcome and represented in your space.
Important for understanding how inclusive your offer is for marginalised groups.
Supports work around diversity, equity, and creating safe spaces.
Education level links to cultural participation and confidence in engaging with heritage.
Reaching people with a range of qualifications may reflect success in reducing barriers to access.
Responses may highlight the contribution of your work to informal learning and widening participation.
Shows how your organisation supports people at different life stages, such as those not in traditional employment, carers, and retirees.
Can help highlight your role in skills-building, volunteering, or wellbeing support.
Evidence of contributing to social inclusion, confidence, or work readiness.
Postcodes can be mapped against the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) to see if you’re reaching communities most in need.
Postcodes also show how local your audience is and whether your organisation is making a difference in your own area.
This information is essential for demonstrating place-based impact.
3. How often do people visit, take part or volunteer?
As well as counting people and knowing which people are engaging, it is also useful to know how often people are engaging.
Asking about how often people visit, who they come with, and why they visit helps understand how engaged visitors are, whether your offer is part of their regular life, and what they value most, such as learning, social time, or relaxation.
This insight shows the deeper impact of your organisation's work. It will also help you improve your offer.
Are people discovering you for the first time, or are you building a loyal, returning audience?
First-time visitors indicate that you are reaching new people.
Repeat or regular visitors suggest that you are providing ongoing value, and that visitors perceive you as an integral part of their life or community.
Sustained engagement demonstrates deeper impact.
This provides more detail on frequency of use, helping you understand how embedded your attraction is in people’s lives. Someone visiting 5 or more times a year probably sees you as a trusted community space.
Occasional visitors might be drawn by specific events or seasonal programming.
Frequent use can indicate wellbeing, learning, or social benefits, especially for local or underserved communities.
Measuring group size is especially useful for understanding family or community visits.
Family or intergenerational visits may have greater social value (for example, shared learning, bonding, access for children).
This question brings insight into social context. Are people coming alone, or with friends or family, or as part of a structured visit with a school group, or support worker?
Visits with schools, carers or support services often link to education, inclusion, or wellbeing goals.
Answers will reveal your reach and visibility. Are you finding new audiences? Are visitors coming through community partners?
Partnerships with local groups or word-of-mouth may reflect community trust and relevance.
Discover your visitors' intent and motivation. Are they here to learn, relax, be social, or support a child?
Responses will help to align visitor experience with outcomes like wellbeing, cultural participation, education.
4. Where else do they visit, take part or volunteer?
Find out how your attraction connects to the local visitor economy and what your role is in the wider cultural ecosystem.
You are part of regeneration, place-making, and economic value, all of which are components of social value.
Responses will help you understand your place in the visitor journey. Are you the main draw, or part of a day out?
Your social impact is likely to be stronger if you’re a destination of choice, rather than a side stop. It shows you are more relevant to your visitors or participants.
This question brings insight into the cultural engagement habits of your visitors or participants. Are you attracting regular culture-goers or first-timers?
If you are engaging people who do not often visit similar places, you could have more social impact.
Knowing this will help you with audience segmentation and planning, and understanding whether you are expanding people’s interests.
Broadening access to heritage and culture is a key impact for funders and inclusion strategies.
This question provides insight into decision-making behaviour, which is relevant for accessibility, barriers to entry, and spontaneity.
If people feel comfortable dropping in without planning, it often signals low barriers, inclusiveness, and community trust.
How to use your findings
Counting people helps turn your heritage attraction from “a nice place” into a measurable force for good. It proves your reach, tracks your growth, can justify funding, and forms the baseline of your social impact story.
Demonstrate your reach
Counting how many individuals benefit from your attraction, shows the scale of your work. Whether it is 100 or 100,000 visitors, that number tells funders, stakeholders, and the community that your space is being used and valued.
An example could be: “We engaged over 3,000 local residents last year, 45% of whom were from underrepresented communities.”
That information makes a powerful social impact statement that starts with accurate counting.
Measure growth or change over time
Tracking visitor numbers year-on-year helps you measure your organisation’s growth or the effect of specific outreach efforts.
If you launched a new education programme or community event, did it boost footfall from your target groups?
Demonstrate inclusivity
Counting people, especially alongside demographic surveys, helps you answer:
- Are we truly inclusive?
- Are certain communities engaging more than others?
- Are we reaching those we aim to serve?
Without basic numbers, it is hard to know if your impact is broad, deep, or just assumed.
Funding and advocacy
Funders, sponsors, and public bodies often ask for hard data. They want evidence that their support helps real people.
Good data makes for stronger funding applications and impact reports.
For example:
"Our community heritage days reached 850 people over 3 events, including 200 young people from schools in low-income areas."
That information is more compelling than just saying "It went well".
Calculating social return on investment (SROI)
Social value is often measured using frameworks like SROI, and you need visitor numbers to estimate that value.
For example:
- What is the value of improved wellbeing for X number of visitors?
- What is the value of increased educational engagement?
If you do not count your visitors, you have no way to quantify this.
Internal learning and planning
Numbers help you understand how effective your programming is. For example, you might find:
- Saturday events attract more families
- Outreach events double your visitor numbers
- Certain times of year are quiet, prompting seasonal strategies
Evidence of community need and impact
If your aim is to serve the community, you will want evidence to show that the community is actually turning up.
Later, you can combine quantitative data (how many) with qualitative insights (what changed) to paint a full impact picture.
Case studies
Using evidence to secure community funding
See how a small heritage organisation can use existing research to demonstrate the potential social impact of their heritage project when applying for funding.
Understanding the impact of heritage events
A fictional case study illustrating how a small heritage organisation can use simple yet powerful methods to measure the social impact of their events.
Also of interest
