The past year has been one of the toughest financially in the 63-year history of the Lakes District Museum, with figures showing a "considerable" loss of $66,000 for the Arrowtown institution and a "small loss" of almost $2000 for its post office.
Chairman John Wilson will tell museum supporters that a combination of decreasing patronage by visitors to Arrowtown and rising costs had the museum trading at a loss for the year ended July 31, in his report to be tabled at the museum's annual meeting tomorrow.
"The decreasing patronage was a result of lower numbers of tour buses with passengers from North America, Europe and from Japan and Korea," Mr Wilson said.
"There has been a small increase in the number of FIT [free and independent traveller] visitors in campervans and rental cars, but not enough to compensate for the drop in the tour bus business."
Savings of 10% needed to be made and, after Bill Dolan consulted staff to explain the predicament and take advice, the board restructured operations, Mr Wilson said.
This involved three staff redundancies, changed winter hours, reallocation of staff duties and the introduction of an accounting software package.
Overtures had been made to the Queenstown Lakes District Council about increasing its annual $45,000 grant.
It was indicated a request would be considered by the council's 10-year planning committee.
The financial plight of the only heritage museum in the Southern Lakes was reinforced by director David Clarke in his report to be tabled at the meeting. Other than the small council grant, income was generated by members, subscriptions, admissions, book shop sales and from his "constant seeking of funding, sponsors and donations", he said.
Mr Clarke assured members the archive would not close or fall into disrepair and it was still used daily.
However, the facility cost $30,000 more to operate than it made in revenue and "something had to be done".
Trained volunteers were likely to run the archive in the future.
Mr Clarke said marketing was one area where costs escalated and needed to be reduced.
A new front desk position will be created which would involve marketing to accommodation providers and information centres around the district.
A small customer survey in March found only 25% of visitors through the door paid to enter the museum, while the free gallery attracted 40%, with the remainder using the book shop and information centre.
A follow-up survey was planned for next month.
The 63rd annual meeting will be held in the museum on Thursday at 7.30pm and everyone is welcome to attend.
The guest speaker will be Captain David Morgan, of Auckland.
The Air New Zealand chief pilot and airline operations and safety general manager will talk about taking family representatives to the Antarctic on the Erebus 30th anniversary commemorative trip in November 2009.
Capt Morgan is the nephew of museum committee member Ann Bain.
