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]

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