Fall 2006

Partners in Tourism: Culture and Commerce is a coalition of cultural service organizations, the travel industry, and federal agencies that provides a forum for collaborative research, education, promotion and advocacy with the common goal of advancing the role of culture and heritage in the travel and tourism industry.

National Trust Historic Sites

Adapt for Today’s Traveler

Jim Vaughan, the National Trust’s Vice President for Stewardship of Historic Sites, shared advice with fellow CEO’s at the September 2006 American Association of State and Local History Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.  According to Vaughan, most National Trust’s sites tend to attract either younger or older audiences, but don’t draw families. 

“We tend to see either empty-nest older couples or younger visitors in their late 20’s or early 30’s that haven’t yet had children,” Vaughan explained.  “Our visitation numbers drop when we look at our visitors in their late 30’s to early 50’s who have children at home.”

Vaughan shared several strategies the National Trust is testing at their historic sites.  The Trust has recently developed a new “Partner Places” program which promotes historic sites across the country that meet certain criteria in exchange for offering a discount to National Trust members to extend the Trust’s network of historic sites.  The Trust’s historic sites have also found that weekend events have been a successful way to boost attendance.  Vaughan reports that “with increasing numbers of shorter, weekend trips close to home adding festivals and special events have helped to boost visitation overall and increase repeat visitation at a number of our sites.”

The National Trust has also been experimenting with in-depth experiences offered to a limited audience.  For example, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio offers design classes in Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio.  “Imagine being able to design your dream home or learn more about the Prairie Style in Wright’s own drafting room,” Vaughan explains.  At the Pope-Leighey House, the Trust offers a behind the scenes “Tech Tour” which offers an exclusive opportunity for eight guests to spend two and half hours in the house for $25/person.  Vaughan notes “guests are allowed to sit on the furniture, take all the pictures they want, even crawl under furniture to see how it is made if they want to.  For the Frank Lloyd Wright fanatic, this is the ultimate experience because they are free to do what they want, within reason.  By limiting the numbers and having good supervision, we also limit the impact on the house and the collections.  While this wouldn’t make sense at all of our sites, this is an ideal and appropriate value-added experience for this site.”   These intensive tour experiences have also been appealing because they generate more revenue per hour than traditional tours.

The Trust is looking at other ways to extend the experience for visitors beyond the tour itself.  “There are ways to continue the experience and connection with a site even after the visitor has finished their tour” Vaughan explains.  “For example, sites could look for ways to leave visitors with additional information or ‘fun facts’ to take back home.  One strategy that we are exploring at the National Trust is having a kiosk where our visitors can enter their home zip code at the end of a tour and get a printout of all the historic preservation work the National Trust is involved with in their backyard.” 

What strategies are historic house museums in your area trying to improve visitation?  Send your stories to cht@nthp.org and we will consider them for a future issue of Cultural Heritage Tourism News.

More information on the National Trust's Partner Places:

http://www.nationaltrust.org/historic_places/

Become a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation!

Join today! www.nationaltrust.org

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