The cultural heritage sector and economic statistics. Profiling contemporary cultural heritage practice in the nace codes

Critiquing the classification of the cultural heritage sector in the NACE Codes, the paper argues that in failing to capture the contribution of key actors the existing classification does not offer an accurate measure of the magnitude or diversity of economic activity in the sector, and the contribution it makes to the European economy. Moreover, the classificatory hierarchy employed in the NACE Codes is not utilised fully with respect to the sector, leading to the exclusion of relevant specialisms, such as Conservation-Restoration, from the data. It is argued that the NACE Codes reflect a somewhat anachronistic model of a sector dominated by public institutions when in fact the majority of today’s practitioners work in the private sector. The paper proposes an alternative classification of cultural heritage, arguing that the relevant Division in the NACE Codes should be renamed «Cultural Heritage Activities». The paper finishes by considering how cultural heritage might be developed as a discrete sector, where the activity of Conservation-Restoration is situated alongside all other heritage related activities.