I wonder if the total number of people visiting museums is really
declining, or if museum visitors are just being spread more thin due to
ever increasing numbers of museums. I would guess that the problem is
not that fewer people are visiting museums in general, that doesn't seem
to make sense. I think that it's just there are more museums to see and
so the numbers visiting a specific museum are in decline but not museum
visitorship in particular. In other words, is our visitor base becoming
diluted due to more competition between ourselves?

For example, our Fall Festival at one of our sites has had declining
attendance over the last several years, but it is not necessarily
because fewer people are wanting to attend a Fall Festival, it's just
that there are more Fall Festivals to attend in our area now, there are
several historic sites in the area now hosting a similar sort of event.

John Peterson
Historic Sites
Jackson County Parks & Recreation
Blue Springs, Missouri

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