Invitation to Tender – Research into admissions pricing policy – AIM

Research into admissions pricing policy in museums and its impact

Introduction  

A coalition of museum sector bodies is seeking a researcher or researchers to carry out a piece of work exploring admissions policies and pricing strategies in the UK museums sector and producing guidance organisations can use to decide on ticketing in the current environment of post-covid lockdowns and organisational budgets and visitor budgets under significant pressure. 

AIM is a thriving UK museum membership organisation with over 1000 museum members, helping heritage organisations to operate as effective charitable businesses. We represent a wide range from some of the largest attractions in the country to small, grassroots heritage organisations across a huge range of subject areas and localities.  

Museums Galleries Scotland is the National Development Body for museums and galleries in Scotland and offers strategic development support to the sector. For further information about Museums Galleries Scotland visit www.museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk/about-us/

The Welsh Government, through its Culture Division provide advice to the relevant Ministers on museum, archive, arts and library policy. The Museums Branch of Culture Division delivers a development and support service for the local museum sector, including managing the Museum Accreditation Scheme in Wales, grant programmes, training and advice, and are part of the Museum Development UK network. Welsh Government core funds Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum Wales as a sponsored body. 

Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our strategic vision in Let’s Create that by 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where everyone of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences. We invest public money from Government and The National Lottery to help support the sector and to deliver this vision. www.artscouncil.org.uk 

The National Museum Directors’ Council (NMDC) represents the leaders of the UK’s national collections and major regional museums. In 2019/20, our member institutions received over 85 million visitors. NMDC acts as an advocate on behalf of members and their collective priorities and provides them with a valuable forum for discussion and debate and an opportunity to share information and work collaboratively. While our members are funded by government, the NMDC is an independent, non-governmental organisation. 

Art Fund, the national charity for art, supports museums and galleries across the UK to share great art and culture with everyone. Art Fund’s work is made possible by its 130,000 members through the National Art Pass and the generosity of trusts, foundations and individual donors. 

Background 

In 2015 The Association of Independent Museums and Arts Council England jointly commissioned research into the impact on museums of charging for admission or having a free entry admission policy. In March 2016 the Museums Libraries and Archives Division of the Welsh Government (MALD) also joined the project.  

The aim of the research was to understand the experience of museums that have moved from free admission to charging, or charging to free admission, or to ‘hybrid’ models (e.g. charging tourists but free entry for local people), and to investigate different pricing strategies and their impact. The key findings were:  

• There were no defining characteristics that distinguished charging or free-entry museums, and the picture is much more complex than often assumed, since on in three independent museums are free-entry and on in three local authority museums charge for admission. 
• There is no direct link between the diversity of audiences and whether a museum charges for admission or not, with the pattern in terms of social mix being very similar. However, such a finding needs to acknowledge that the general social mix of museum visitors is not always representative of the wider social mix within their communities. 
• Donations are more affected by a range of other factors than by whether museums charge for admission or not. 

• There is no consistent relationship between levels of secondary spend and whether a museum charges for admission, with other factors having much more influence. However, some evidence has emerged showing visitors to charging museums are more likely to have visited the shop (or used on-site catering), than visitors to free-entry museums. 
• Dwell times are typically longer for museums that charge for admissions 
• The process of charging creates a focus for the visitor welcome and captures information about visitors. Where museums are free entry, alternative approaches are required for these elements. 
• In making any changes it is especially important to communicate clearly with stakeholders and the local community about the reasons for the changes and to ensure that staff are positive and confident about explaining them to visitors. 

 The full report is on the AIM website  

https://aim-museums.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Final-Report-Taking-Charge-%E2%80%93-Evaluating-the-Evidence-The-Impact-of-Charging-or-Not-for-Admissions-on-Museums.pdf  

AIM also commissioned and published a Success Guide to Setting Admissions Policy and Pricing https://aim-museums.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Successfully-Setting-Admissions-Policy-and-Pricing-.pdf. The guidance summarises the key findings of the report and identifies key lessons and issues for museums to consider when reviewing their own charging position. 

Purpose of the new research 

The aim of this piece of research is to update and extend the findings of the 2015 project. The guidance was published in 2017 and is now 5 years old. The museums and heritage sectors are continually becoming more sophisticated in terms of commercial operation as well as constantly striving to expand and diversify audiences, within an increasingly competitive market for how people can spend their leisure time. More pressingly, museums have been significantly affected by Covid, both financially and socially. While visitor numbers are recovering many organisations don’t expect to return to pre-covid visitor figures until 2023 or later, particularly those which previously had a high proportion of international visitors. Covid has also sparked introspection and debate in the sector regarding the likelihood of further withdrawal of public funding and operating models in the sector, for example around charging for temporary exhibitions, the tension between offering new visitor experiences and environmental sustainability, and providing community and communal space.  

In addition to the driver of covid, museums are increasingly pressured by the cost of living crisis, which affects both their own operating costs and their staff but also the ability of families around the UK to access leisure. It is important to understand, therefore, why people choose to go to a museum instead of another experience and their willingness to pay (in a psychological rather than contingent valuation sense) for that experience. 

AIM therefore wishes to understand what has changed since the previous research and expand the research with two goals: 

• To understand current and potential pricing strategies, models and benchmarks, and their high-level impact on the museum’s audiences; and how museums can adapt charging to respond to the current environment and to be prepared for what may happen in the future.  
• To create outputs museums can use to decide admissions strategies that maximise income from those able to pay, put the museum in the right pricing bracket in the market, and still offer pricing options that make it accessible and welcoming to all. This guidance may be the form of a framework museums can use to think through factors which affect pricing and build a model that works for their unique place, audiences, offer, and context. 

Scope 

We want to look at museum pricing models and strategies and which are most effective in maximising income to museums and encouraging a diversity of visitors. 

In particular we would like to understand the range of current sector practice to identify:   

• What strategies do museums use to set their admissions policy and pricing? For example, are these purely cost-based or do they use any value-based strategies?

• What ticketing models do museums use? Have these changed since the 2015 research? For example, multiple ticket options (pay once and get free admission for a year, season tickets, membership and Friends schemes), discounted tickets (OAPs, students, local residents), separate ticketing for exhibitions or events (in both paid-entry and free-entry museums)

• What are the business benefits of different ticketing options and are any particular ticketing options more effective in maximising income? What is the price elasticity of different options?

• Are any particular ticketing options more effective in generating a long-term relationship between visitors and the museum?

• What are the gift aid implications of ticketing options and how does this affect admissions strategies? 

• What is the relationship between ticketing and visitor diversity on multiple axes (including racialised minorities, age, disability, socioeconomic diversity)? How can museums become more inclusive through their choices around admissions? What is the role of changing ways of accessing tickets (e.g. online purchase)?

• What is the current/potential role of dynamic pricing?

• Updating benchmark data on admissions prices.

The research should focus on what works and what others can learn from existing practice and consider both what is good for museums and what is good for the visitors. 

Researchers will need to demonstrate an understanding of admissions and pricing across the leisure sector and existing research including on the psychology of pricing, which is likely to take the form of a light-touch literature review. 

The study should look at the experience of a variety of types and size of museum including smaller and volunteer-run as well as large museums or museum services with multiple sites. The study should cover the range of UK museum types including independent museums, local authority, and university, and look at free museums as well as. It should not include free entry to national museums, which is a matter of government policy, but should cover the national museums’ other chargeable activities. 

Elements of what researchers may consider on different types of museums include: 

• Pay to enter museums 

• Willingness to pay for different elements of museum activities and why people choose museums from amongst paid leisure activities 

• Business benefits of different charging models 
• Tax and other implications, including perverse incentives from e.g. different gift aid treatment of different admissions policies 
• Unintended consequences of different ticketing models 
• Pay what you like/pay what you can models 

• Free to enter museums  

• Role of donations  
• Revisiting movement between free to charging and vice versa 

• Free to enter museums with chargeable activities e.g. exhibition entry 

• Dynamic pricing 
• Impact on visitor demographics (i.e. whether different audiences access paid and free elements of the offer) 

• Willingness to pay.

The case study museums must include museums across the UK and researchers will need to demonstrate how they will ensure museums in Scotland and Wales in particular will be covered and included. 

The guidance should focus on a practical, actionable process or framework that museums of any size can use to make decisions on admissions and pricing. This should not be prescriptive but offer ways for museums to adapt the findings of the research including the benchmarking to their own circumstances. The research should include sector engagement with or user testing of draft guidance.  

Work of the contractor 

We are seeking contractors to undertake this research. We anticipate the consultant will have a sound understanding of research methodology and pricing strategies in the leisure and tourism sector. We are open to applications from outside the museum sector.  

The research should result in the following outputs: 

• A presentation or workshop on interim findings 
• A full research report with executive summary and brief literature review 

• Updated pricing benchmarking 
• A practical guide or toolkit for museums in how to set an admissions pricing strategy 
• Recommendations for follow-on research with indicative costs 
• A summary article for AIM Bulletin 
• An event presentation 

• A Hallmarks at Home online workshop – these are typically an hour to an hour and half with up to 15 participants. The workshop should be a combination of presentation of information and an opportunity for discussion and participation.

Budget 

The budget available for this work is £31,500 inclusive of VAT. We expect to appoint researchers in early October and hold a kick-off meeting shortly after, with the work taking 4-6 months and reporting in spring 2023 (if possible no later than end March 2023).  

Tendering for the research 

Proposals should include: 

• Brief credentials and evidence of relevant experience of your company and the names and experience of the people who will work on this project. 
• Your proposed methodology, including how you would identify museums to study and how you would test the draft guidance with prospective users 
• Indicative timeline 

• A breakdown of your costings 
• Two references.

Proposals will be scored on: 

• Understanding of the issues 15% 

• The extent to which the methodology will reach the objectives of the project and in particular the requirement for a practical output 45% 
• Sampling proposals and in particular how Scottish and Welsh museums will be incorporated 10% 
• Experience of researchers 20% 
• Cost 10%.

Proposals should be no longer than 12 pages and be sent to aimadmin@aim-museums.co.uk by 12noon on Monday 3 October 2022.