A fashion exhibition, pyjama party and after-dark events for the student-aged crowd have helped keep Otago Museum’s visitor numbers up.
Otago Museum director Dr Ian Griffin said the museum finished the year just shy of its target of 350,000 visitors as 326,354 people walked through the doors last year, despite there being no international visitors with closed borders.
The museum’s science centre Tuhura had 73,421 paid visitors, easily beating the target for the year of 65,000.
The planetarium eclipsed its target of 15,000 visitors as well, with 15,300 visiting over the 2020-21 year.
Pyjamarama sold out, After Dark sold out, the museum’s latest exhibition "Fashion FWD: Disruption through Design", was recently named a finalist in the Designers Institute of New Zealand Best Awards, Gin & The Collections and Wine and Design proved popular, with three events selling out.
These showed staff were working hard to attract locals, Dr Griffin said.
"You’ve got to remember these are bringing in new audiences," he said.
"The thing I take great heart from ... I’ve been director for eight years and I think the best we did in those eight years was around 360,000, and we average between 330,000 and 350,000.
"So we’ve managed in a year with no international tourists to really bring it home."
In his update to the Otago Museum Trust board yesterday he said the museum was missing out on $40,000 a year from cruise tours alone.
The closure of international borders and operating at Alert Level 2 for 40 days over the past financial year reduced the museum’s venues business by 80%, he said.
The treasurer’s report from Jamie Adamson, of Deloitte, showed the museum had a year-to-date loss of $607,335 after depreciation.
This was ahead of a budgeted loss of $1,383,024, and last year’s loss of $1,470,846, he said.
