01/06/2023
Updates 01/06/2023: Ohio's Travel Industry and Current Travel Research
IMPACTS GIVES INSIGHTS TO PROJECTED ATTENDANCE FOR CULTRAL ENTITIES
Key findings from IMPACTS, publish Jan 1. 2023:
- For exhibit-based entities (museums, historic sites, aquariums, zoos, etc):
- The attendance to these cultural entities averaged 96% of their 2019 attendance levels in 2022
- The current market potential for exhibit-based organization for 2023 is 98.6% of their 2019 attendance. Meaning, an exhibit-based organization that welcomed 100,000 visitors in 2019 should expect to engage with 98,600 in 2023
- Though some exhibit-based entities did great in 2022, some did not. It is worth noting some organizations perform better than others in general. For example, zoos dramatically outpace children’s museums, surpassing 2019 attendance levels
- For performance-based entities (symphonies, theaters, ballets, etc.):
- The attendance to these cultural entities averaged 81% of 2019 attendance in 2022
- The current market potential for performance-based organizations for the year 2023 is 82.7% of their attendance in 2019
- Actual attendance may be lower if performance-based organizations continued to reduce their programming. If there are fewer opportunities to attend performance-based entities, then attendance will be down.
- Overall market potential hasn’t exceeded 2019 for several reasons:
- Some performance-based entities have comparatively older patrons perhaps most impacted by the pandemic. Some are also facing challenges surrounding diversity and inclusion
- One may think that those who attended the theater or zoos pre-pandemic will come back, but that is not the case. The demand for onsite cultural engagement remains redistributed for some organization types
- Though people are looking to travel in 2023, it is hard to get them to visit cultural organizations. A solution to this is special consideration to marketing as we live in an increasingly targeted world
- For every one person who did not go to a cultural entity in a day, the organization loses 1.25 people over the year. This to due also losing the additional social media posts, word-of-mouth endorsements, and stories shared by those who went for a visit