22 October2015
Charging for Museums
A tourist turn off or tough necessity?
by Lynda Goetz
Hurry, hurry, if you want to see the historic sites of Greece or gain entry to their museums! Prices will be going up significantly from April next year. Greece announced last week that it would be increasing the prices of entry to its celebrated tourist sites, including the Acropolis and Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games, in order to raise additional money from the tourism industry, one of Greece’s key sources of revenue. Figures available for tourist numbers visiting Greece show a steady increase from the 1970s onwards, when the so-called era of mass tourism began. Numbers reached over 20 million in 2013 and were predicted to reach as many as 26 million this year, in spite of the economic and political problems of the country.
Reports in the UK press differ as to the proposed hike in prices, with the Guardian reporting an increase at the Acropolis of 66% from €12 (£8.80) to €20 whilst the Times claims it is to go up to €52, an increase of over 400%. According to the Greek Culture Ministry, prices at other sites and museums will rise by 50% during the peak tourist times from April to November, but there will be a 50% discount during the rest of the year. Greece’s 1.2 million unemployed will not be charged for entry. Greece claims the decision will “put the rates on a par with the rest of Europe”.
In this country, most of our most famous museums and galleries are free to all-comers, whether they be unemployed, UK taxpayers or tourists. Only major exhibitions are charged for. True, a few historic places like the Tower of London (£23.10) are not cheap to visit and there are limited concessions, but Britain shifted to free museum admission in 2001 and, although there has been little or no attempt to copy this around the world, nor has there been much debate here about re-imposing charges. Would this not be, as the Greeks have decided, a useful additional source of revenue? According to the website www.visitbritain.org the number of tourist visits to the UK in 2014 was over 34 million. Would fewer of them visit our museums and galleries if we were to reintroduce charges? Would it matter?
Although many museums and galleries in the U.S are free, in New York it costs $25 to get into either MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art) or the Metropolitan Museum. This amount has not changed for a number of years, but it provides serious income. Visitor numbers at MoMA have not exceeded those at the Tate in London for several years now, but is this due only to the fact that the Tate doesn’t charge? Indeed are visitor numbers in themselves the achievement or objective? When the free entry policy was adopted in this country, it was designed to attract a more varied ‘clientele’; to bring in those for whom a museum or gallery visit was not a part of their general life experience. Interestingly, when France, under President Sarkozy, briefly experimented with free museum and gallery entry in 2008, the conclusion was that the increase in numbers was mainly regular gallery-goers taking advantage of the situation and making multiple visits. However, although the experiment was judged a failure overall, it did bring about one important change. Research showed that most of those attracted by free admission had been young and as a result most French museums and galleries now offer free admission to residents up to the age of 26.
Here, I think, we come to the nub of the question. Why is this country pretty much the only one in the world to offer free admission to everybody, including those visitors from abroad who would probably expect to pay in their own country? Surely it would make some sense to work out a system whereby residents of this country, either in general or on a concessionary basis (e.g. under 26, unemployed and pensioners – or perhaps not pensioners given the recent news about so many of them being better off than those in work! Italy no longer allows free entry to over 65s – the concession was withdrawn in 2014), could be allowed free entry, but those visiting the country would be expected to pay? If Greece with its 26 million tourists is hoping to use the money which it charges them to help meet the austerity tagets imposed on its population by international bailout creditors, could we not perhaps consider using some of the money which our 34 million visitors might otherwise spend elsewhere or in other countries to deal with some of our own debt? Would that really be such a retrograde step?
For some bizarre reason, free gallery and museum entry, rather like the NHS being ‘free at the point of delivery’, seems to have become something of a sacred cow. Could there be a reason why most of the rest of the world sees fit to charge, if not all their own residents, at least tourists, for most of their cultural attractions? Could it be that otherwise the cost of maintaining them becomes prohibitive and that in the face of funding cuts they may not even be able to keep them open at all?
To be fair, the Greek travel industry does not seem so keen on the new move by their government. The federation of Greek travel agents has apparently written to the country’s Prime Minister Alexi Tsipras, as well as to the culture ministry, to ask that the price rises be not ‘enforced abruptly’. They have requested that, instead, they be introduced gradually over a three year period. They consider that the increases to the ticket prices of museum and archaeological sites plus the VAT hikes on all goods and tourism services will burden ‘the travel package so much that it will become uncompetitive in the end’. Is that fear one that might apply here too? Is London already so expensive for tourists in terms of travel costs, accommodation and restaurants that to add to those bills by charging for museums and galleries on top might drive them away?
A friend recently went to Vienna, where she and her husband had a really enjoyable few days. They spent something in the region of £200 in entry fees between them. There was no question in their minds of being put off going to any of the places they visited simply because of the charges. So is it all largely a question of expectation? It would seem that they might have had better value if they had bought a ‘Vienna pass’ (www.viennapass.com) which buys ‘free’ entry to a large number of attractions over a specified number of days for a fixed price. (Mind you, you might have to rush around and visit rather more of them than you had intended to get the best value from it). So, if by any remote chance the question of charging those busloads of Chinese tourists disgorged in front of the Kensington museums were ever to come up, perhaps we should get Boris’s successor to consider the introduction of something similar for non-UK resident visitors to London. That way, neither residents nor tourists would have too much to grumble about.
