Not content with recently smashing one attendance record, visitors are still pouring into the Otago Museum, making an eventual new annual record a likelihood barely five months into the new financial year.
More than 270,000 visitors surged through the museum in the first five months of the financial year starting on July 1.
This was up more than 117,000 - or about 77% - on the 152,984 who visited the museum in the corresponding period last year, figures tabled at an Otago Museum Trust Board meeting stated yesterday.
A record 472,600 visits were made to the museum in the year ending on June 30.
Museum chief executive Shimrath Paul said museum administrators had initially been sceptical about the continually rising figures recorded by the museum's front entry counting equipment since mid-year.
However, further checks had confirmed the figures were correct, he said.
Visitors were continuing to be attracted to the museum by its popular tropical forest and its array of about 1000 tropical butterflies, he said yesterday.
Attendance at the museum's Discovery World science centre, which hosts the forest, has, accordingly, continued to rise-from 27,235 in the first five months of the previous financial year to 40,393 for the same period this year.
However, Mr Paul said visitors drawn by the forest were realising that the museum itself had many other attractions which were also worth visiting.
