Pay as you go: a new proposal for museum pricing

Abstract

Museums have many different goals beyond economic efficiency, such as creating educational value, financial revenue, attracting donors, and gaining international or local prestige. Various pricing schemes with the aim of reaching these goals have been discussed. The classical pricing schemes are entry prices and free entry with exit donations, allowing for various additional goals. Each scheme has advantages and disadvantages. We propose an innovative pricing instrument: exit prices that reflect the time spent in a museum. This scheme has a number of advantages, in particular to increase the satisfaction and number of visitors.

Keywords:

• museums
• admission prices
• visitor satisfaction
• cultural economics
• museum management

Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to Andreas Spillman, Director of the Swiss National Museum, for helpful suggestions. The authors further thank John O'Hagan, Reiner Eichenberger, Margit Osterloh, Alfred Kieser, Antoinette Weibel, and Reto Cueni for their feedback.

Notes

1. Noble's five goals were later condensed to preservation (as combination of collection and conservation), research, and communication (which includes exhibition and communication); see Weil (1990)

2. The relationship between quantity and quality does not have to be uniformly negative. Many people do not enjoy being in an empty museum, so that in that range more visitors increase the utility of the other visitors.

3. There are also studies that find a stronger impact of charging on attendance. The AEA management consultants calculated that by introducing an admission charge (depending on the pricing scheme) the British National Museum's attendance would drop between one-quarter and one-third. Museums, which initially charged but then removed the fees, were able to increase the numbers of visitors significantly. For example, in the Art Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the number of visitors increased from 600,000 to more than one million (see Anderson 1998).