The Economic Influence of Surfing in Cornwall

The Economic influence of Surfing in Cornwall

Literature Review

The economic influence of surfing in Cornwall is put in context by an article by Billings (2005) who reported on the Cornwall Tourist Board’s search for an agency to handle its one million pound United Kingdom advertising account. There is no incumbent on the business, as the organization has previously used local agencies on a project basis, and this work has promoted initiatives such as Cornwall Pure Business, a recent drive to encourage businesses to relocate to the area. Tourism is in fact one of the biggest industries in the South-West, and in 2003 was worth 4.9 billion pounds, with one billion pounds of that generated by Cornwall, and hence has a major economic impact on the local area, and the United Kingdom as a whole.

The tourism industry also impacts on other aspects of the economy, with Meadwell (2002) claiming that “Tourism is booming and office rents are up [in] Cornwall. In April 2002, Ryanair launched a daily flight from Stansted to Newquay and back, the number of cars using the A30 has increased year on year, and the number of holidays taken in Cornwall likewise.” Yet as early as 2002, the tourist industry was helping to highlight a fundamental flaw in Cornwall's plans for continued economic growth: the lack of transport infrastructure. “The trains that are busy and slow, the A30: the main arterial route into the county, regularly gets snarled up with traffic because large chunks of it are still single carriageway [and] most agents put infrastructure at the top of their list of what the county must do to maintain the business momentum.” (Meadwell, 2002) Indeed, it has been claimed that the amount of tourism overloading the transport infrastructure has actually hindered industrial development in the county, thus contributing to Cornwall’s status as a rural poverty area, with no other major industries.

These concerns on the status of the tourist industry as a whole are reflected in the surfing industry, with the Economist (2000) covering the economic effects of the Rip Curl Surf 2000 festival. The article claims that “On the face of it, such glamorous surf events indicate a vibrant local sporting and tourist culture. But this is August, the height of the season. Already, because of the short English summer, thoughts are turning to September when the tourists go home. Despite the sunshine, the beaches and Rip Curl, Cornwall has for some time been England's poorest county.” The article goes on to discuss that, whilst much of the South West, notably Wiltshire to the east, has benefited from the increasing prosperity of London and the “M4 corridor” during the 1990s, Cornwall and Devon have slipped farther behind. Cornwall’s economy has been badly affected by the decline of traditional industries such as clay and tin, and the explosion in tourism has lead to unskilled seasonal jobs replacing the semi-skilled ones which were lost.

The Economist (2000) believes that a potential likely source of the region's salvation might be “quality tourism”, such as �The Tate’, at St. Ives, a modern art gallery which has been a great success since it opened in 1993. This shift could potentially be supported by some of the indirect influences of surfing on the Cornish economy, the main one of which is the impact of the large surfing communities. For example, Marketing Week (2004) reported that when “cult U.S. singer-songwriter Donavon Frankenreiter” arrived in the United Kingdom to promote the release of his music album, he headed straight down to Cornwall, as he, together with “surf legend Jack Johnson” are already well known amongst the Cornish surfers. Indeed, according to the article, “News of last Monday's gig at Porthtowan's Blue Bar spread so quickly throughout the surfing community that tickets sold out within two hours.”

Aims and Objectives

The main aim of this dissertation is to ascertain whether surfing has