What to do about tourists in Cambridge

Encourage them, is the simple answer.

I didn’t (initially) choose this topic. It was a presentation, believe it or not, at the Cambridge Antiquarian Society spring meeting (March 2019). What is their interest in Cambridge tourism? Pretty negative, from the sound of it. And after hearing complaints about the tourists (including local councillors asking for bus parking to be more controlled, and one comment in this presentation about a tax on coaches visiting Cambridge) I am moved to write.

Here, then are my suggestions for the positive management of tourism in Cambridge, based on the following premises:

• Tourists visiting Cambridge is a good idea. The tourists should not be shunned. After all, they could be visiting Alton Towers or Madame Tussauds. Here, they are looking for an educational experience.
• The tourists are concentrated in and around Kings College. Hence there is a need to disperse the tourists. I suggest three new areas: Parker’s Piece, the station, and the area around Kettle’s Yard. 

 Here, then, are my ten suggestions:

1. A new museum of Cambridge positioned perhaps at the railway station – the Mill building. This museum would be (a) the designated repository of archaeological finds in Cambridgeshire, (b) would cover Cambridge growth and industry rather than the University specifically. Alternatively, it could occupy the former cinema in Hobson Street (which has been empty for years). This museum should take over the computing museum, which has truly the worst location of any museum ever.
2. Converting two or three of the city centre churches to tourist-based activities: St Bene’t, or Little St Mary’s. This policy has been very successful in Norwich.
3. Double the size of the Fitzwilliam Museum, with Heritage Lottery Funding. The Fitzwilliam is capable of taking twice as many visitors as it currently has. The Ashmolean had 937,000 visitors in 2017, and is moving from Feb 2019 to seven-day opening. The Fitzwilliam had 397,000 visitors in 2017. Here is a way of relocating over half a million of Cambridge visitors!
4. A museum of Cambridge University. This could be based in the Police and Fire Station building, both relocated further out of the centre. Include rooms on China and Cambridge, Japan and Cambridge, with details of alumni and artworks, etc. The Oxford Story was in my opinion a very valuable introduction to the university for visitors. It had around 165,000 (declining to 100,000) visitors per year.
5. The Cambridge Museum (formerly the Folk Museum) takes over the church of St Giles opposite and becomes twice as large. Create a museum cluster around Kettle’s Yard, with a redesign of the whole area, to create a more pedestrian-friendly space, including street cafes, and other public spaces. Make this space one of the dispersal zones.
6. The Cambridge University Library opens a museum and café, showing some of the illuminated manuscripts from its collection. The Bodleian has 771,000 visitors annually.
7. A tourist train, battery-powered and single-deck, running through the middle of Jesus Green and Parker’s Piece, as well as the central triangle (King’s Parade, Sidney Street, St Mary’s Street). Each train holds a maximum of 50 people. The train route would start at the station and would go around the central triangle.
8. Open some university buildings to visitors, such as the Senate House.
9. Congestion charging for cars along Trumpington Street and Regent Street, set at a price that means the traffic is not gridlocked along these streets.
10. Sign posts between the station and the city centre, including signs to individual colleges (how radical!) The principle is simple: do you want to encourage tourists, or confuse and bamboozle them, as currently happens? Anyone arriving at Cambridge Station only reaches the centre of Cambridge with great difficulty.