ARTS

Museums

Damaging admission Iwas intrigued to watch on television a few weeks ago an unsolicited tribute to the pulling power of the nation's cultural insti- tutions. The unlikely location was a fruit farm in Kent, where 70 or so illegal work- ers had been rounded up by HM Customs for deportation. One Czech student was being interviewed. 'Well,' he said, by way of explanation, 'what else do you expect us to do when it costs £4 to get into the Science Museum?'

I was still pondering the magnitude of his sacrifice when the National Audit Office report, Department of National Heritage, National Museums and Galleries: Quality of Service to the Public, landed on my desk. A slim manual costing £8.25, it focused on five institutions — the British Museum, National Gallery, National Museum of Sci- ence and Industry, Natural History Muse- um and National Portrait Gallery — and examined their 'planning, management and delivery of services', as well as the 'effec- tiveness of market research and promotion- al services' they had undertaken.

The results were impressive. According to the visitor survey commissioned by the NAO from John Brown and Company, `specialist consultants in heritage market- ing', 98 per cent of visitors expressed them- selves as being 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' with the museums and galleries under scrutiny. The approval ratings for exhibi- tions and display would have been balm to the ego of a Stalinist dictator: 86 per cent considered the general layout good, 90 per cent the general presentation, 81 per cent the space to view, 85 per cent the lighting, 95 per cent the cleanliness. Even the labelling — usually the biggest bugbear merited a 71 per cent vote of confidence.

In addition, according to the institutions' own corporate plans, satisfaction with their educational services and facilities was high. Modern and innovative approaches were being employed to provide information and aid interpretation, and all the institutions reviewed were 'enthusiastic to widen access to their collections'. Some exhibited part of their holdings permanently at out-stations. Some had regular touring programmes. All lent works to other institutions. All provid- ed access on request to works not on dis- play. All answered public and academic enquiries in person and by correspondence. All published books and catalogues on the collections.

Perhaps daunted by some of the dead- souls statistics helpfully provided by the institutions (50,000 specimen loans each `Michael, please. Nobody guffaws any more!' year from the Natural History Museum, 300,000 enquiries handled by the British Museum), the report conceded that it was difficult to measure the added value of `widening access'. But it also freely conced- ed that the curatorial dominance of plan- ning decisions, which had sometimes been considered a hindrance in the past, no longer seemed to be an impediment to decent exhibitions, display, access and interpretation. The report had little to sug- gest by way of improvement to these core activities — the more prominent display of information leaflets here, more foreign lan- guage guides there, longer opening hours for all.

It is clear, however, that the NAO was not really interested in what might have been deemed the 'public service' role of museums and galleries in bygone years, still less in specialised services to scholars. Rather it was concerned with measuring service as defined in 'service industry', the commercial sector which had mushroomed so spectacularly during the Thatcher years. This was where the 'relevant professionals' had been brought in, even replacing the traditional curatorial hierarchy in some museums. This was where the real revolu- tion had taken place — in shops and restaurants, promotion and publicity.

Here was a golden opportunity for the new hierarchy to shine, to demonstrate with batteries of impressive statistics their institutions' competitive edge and improved market share, healthier balance sheets and better value for money. But regarding such essentials the report was curiously reticent, even — dare one say? — unbusinesslike.

An obvious difficulty standing in the way of making invidious market comparisons was that two of the institutions —the Natu- ral History Museum and the Science Muse- um — charge and the rest do not. So the lower levels of visitor satisfaction (69 per cent) found at the Science Museum might be because, according to the museum (and swallowed as fact in the report), 'charging heightens people's awareness of value and quality and one would expect them to be more critical in a museum that charges'. This would not explain, however, why the Natural History Museum's visitors appeared to be 10 per cent more satisfied than those at the Science Museum. Per- haps, the latter institution suggested, not having a major programme of temporary exhibitions had an adverse effect dinosaurs winning out over Michael Fara- day, so to speak.

The Science Museum also pointed out that polls commissioned by them and con- ducted at five times from September 1988 to May 1992 showed more consistent and favourable results than those listed in the report. But as we are not given the sample base for either survey it is impossible to judge their relative authority.

When it comes to retailing, the 1991-2 shop turnover figures were splendid, partic-

ularly for the free museums: £3.6 million at the British Museum, £2.9 million at the National Gallery, compared with £1.6 mil- lion at the Science Museum and £1.3 mil- lion at the Natural History Museum. Yet on average only 60 per cent of visitors went into the museum shops and the average amount spent at each institution varied from 56p to 92p, which 'generally seemed low by industry standards for visitor attrac- tions where £1 would be a reasonable tar- get'. The Science Museum had used visitor research and retail consultants to develop a product strategy for its shops but, accord- ing to the survey, 57 per cent of the 65 per cent who did visit them still spent nothing.

As for the catering facilities, only 30 per cent of visitors used them. The NAO had its own observation to make here: 'The non-acceptance of credit cards at several of the catering outlets may be an inconve- nience, particularly for overseas visitors, and could well lose customers'. More of a deterrent to auditors in Belgravia than to families in South Ken, possibly, given that the main criticism of the facilities on offer was their high prices.

It was on the promotion and public rela- tions front that the heritage marketing con- sultant came into his own, reporting enthusiastically where he encountered like- minded spirits at work. Here the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum scored, for 'professional marketing activi- ties had expanded rapidly since the late 1980s when admission charges were intro- duced'. The Science Museum had even taken steps to gauge the effectiveness of its

advertising. Yet it appears that despite run- ning 16 campaigns in 1991-2 and winning several awards for the quality of its market- ing — including a Campaign prize in 1991 for the most effective poster advertising only 1 per cent of visitors were attracted to the museum by its posters.

Both the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum had researched non- visitors to ascertain what 'misconceptions, apprehensions or prejudices inhibited their potential audiences'. These non-visitors featured in a final appendix to the report, where the admission statistics of national museums and galleries from 1987 to 1993 were given. In 1987, the British Museum had 4 million and the National Gallery 3.6 million visitors; in 1991, 5.4 million and 4.3 million respectively. In 1987, figures for the Science Museum and its out-stations were 4.7 million and the Natural History Muse- um just under 2 million; in 1991, for the now charging museums, they were 2.5 and 1.5 million respectively.

Perhaps the Czech student was not the only potential visitor to find the admission charge something of a challenge. Perhaps others shared his 'misconceptions, appre- hensions or prejudices', not about science or natural history, but about the cost of admission. Perhaps their first priority was to see the collections, not to go shopping or to have a snack. So maybe the NAO could improve the quality of its own service to the public by undertaking a serious cost benefit analysis of admission charges to national museums, not to mention one on its own report.