The Good News

The size and scope of museums and parks in the U.S. is quite impressive.

• 850 million people visited museums in 2012

• 292 million people visited national parks in 2014

• The average annual visits to a county park is 2 million

• Over $2B is spent annually on education programs at museums

• 55 million school groups visit museums each year

• There are 640 million acres of federal public land

• (http://www.rff.org/files/sharepoint/WorkImages/Download/RFF-BCK-ORRG_State Parks.pdf)

• There is an average of 468,566 nature centers in public parks

• Over 148,000 people are employed by museums, historic sites and similar institutions.

• There are 15,000 historic house museums

The Bad News

On the other hand, visitation is stagnating at most parks and museums, except at National Parks which has seen a recent increase.

• Visitation to museums is only increasing for the 65+ age group

• 37% of Americans have never visited a museum

• Millennials are the biggest generation ever at 83.1 million, yet only 13% of 18–24 year olds visited a museum in 2012

• Only 21% of museum visitors are minorities

• Children today spend less time outdoors than any other generation

Worldwide, museums are on the increase. For instance, there are 3,800 museums in China and this number is growing. The worry is how will they keep the visitors coming. Many worry if they can keep the visitors coming. Funding from government is on the decline. How can museums and parks stay relevant?

What To Do About It

Innovation is the American way. Museums and parks must embrace this and not get stuck by the traditional approach. Here are some ideas to keep your site relevant.

You can modernize your old dioramas. The Field Museum does this with videos. Even though it seems dioramas are going out of vogue, we see a trend of making them more immersive and hands on by adding technology. Check out what they did with the old Cyclorama at Gettysburg to keep it fresh. Our research shows kids love animals and big wows!

The American Alliance of Museums publishes TrendsWatch every year giving suggestions. This year’s include: share your data – it’s the open economy, embrace technology – wearable tech, and make it personal.

Don’t be afraid of entertainment. You must connect with visitors intellectually and emotionally. Millennials don’t want a monotone lecture. I love what Museum Hack is doing with their non-traditional tours.

Try new things. The New Museum is the first to have an incubator space. That’s reaching out to your community in a brand new way. How cool is that?

Embrace social media and modern marketing. Know Your Own Bone can give you tips on how to do that.

One of my staff members said if there was free wifi in nature everyone could take selfies and that would get young people outside. Who knows, there may be an idea in there somewhere. Richard Louv offers many suggestions on how and why to embrace the outdoors. I know I do my part to promote it. Horicon Marsh is doing it too.

Even when history is destroyed people come up with creative ways to preserve it like they are doing with Project Mosul. Now if they can do it, so can you. Go get’em!

What are you going to do to increase attendance at your site?