Hey Greg - nice tohear from you - as you can see I am still doing basically the saame job - only they have recently added the Hamilton Farmers Market to my portfolio. thanks for your input to my questions ! I went to the British Museum conference last October and met David Fleming and Sam Mullins - it was great to see them in action on their own turf! Ian Ross and I meet on a regular basis for lunch - any news from down under? -----Original Message----- From: McManus,Greg [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: February 10, 2000 4:50 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Admission Fees /Policies Hi Marilynn: I think it would be bad practice to change admission policies too regularly, particularly in terms of the local community. At Rotorua Museum we dropped all admission charges for local residents in 1997 (they have to produce some sort of evidence of residency such as a library card, etc.) and increased charges for out of town visitors. The result is that our local visitor numbers increased dramatically (about 800% in two years) and out of town visitor numbers increased markedly also (keeping in mind that we became much more aggressive in our marketing at the same time). We experience little resistence from overseas visitors to the admission fee, and only occasional resistence from visitors from other parts of NZ. So, my response to your questions would be: -can you get can corporate sponsor to contibute for several years? difficult to have free admission one year and not next? It would be problematic to change policy too frequently and expect to retain public goodwill in my opinion. -are admission fees really a barrier? In our experience they are a barrier to the local community but not, by and large, to visitors from out of town who seem to expect to pay for attractions while on holiday anyway. -will attendance increase significantly? Local attendance would undoubtedly increase if it was free. From our experience it is also possible to increase paying attendance when coupled with aggressive and targeted marketing. Hope these thoughts from a fellow MMI '96 alumni are of some use! Best regards Greg Greg McManus Director Rotorua Museum of Art & History Te Whare Taonga O Te Arawa Government Gardens Rotorua NEW ZEALAND Tel. 64 7 349 4350 Fax. 64 7 349 2819 Mobile 025-2714328 [log in to unmask] -- ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).