Jennifer,
We have similar issues at our site, which includes
outdoor programs, house tours and rides on a horse drawn railroad.
We have set tour size limits for each part of the
program. The limits are constantly "pushed" by adding a few extra
guests.
Tours that are too large make it hard on the
docents/guidesm, they result in damage inside the house, and the reduce the
quality of the visitor experiance. We base the tour size on;
size of indoor space (your local fire marshall can give you a formula based
on square feet of a room) on seats available (on our train) but also on the size
of the group a docent can handle. We also take into account class
size (all of our programs can accomidate one class, some can handle
two)
The preasure to allow tour group size to grow comes
not only from within but also externally... I once had an asian woman tell me "we are chinnese, we are small" while
pleading for a tour twice our normal size... (in her case she was trying not to
hire a second interpeter)
Good luck, it will be an ongoing
battle.
Randy Hees
Patterson House at Ardenwood Farm
City of Fremont,
California
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