History organizations urged to complete national visitation survey
The American Association for State and Local History is again asking history organizations to complete its visitation survey which will be used in developing the 2020 National Visitation Report. The report will offer a broad overview of trends in visitation by budget size, institution type and region. History organizations are urged to go to the following to take the survey.
Based on data from more than 1,250 organizations, the association’s 2019 National Visitation Report revealed that visits to historic sites, museums and other history institutions rose nearly six percent between 2013 and 2018 with the strongest growth occurring at small history organizations. The report also raised many new questions, and responses to the 2020 survey can help answer them. For example, the 2019 report identified a small decline in visitation from 2017 to 2018. This year’s data will be essential for understanding whether that dip represents the beginning of a new downward trend. In addition, a larger number of survey responses will allow the association to dig deeper, offering more finely grained analysis of trends at every budget level and every institution type.
The association hopes to increase the number of responses to this year’s survey by 50 percent. More responses mean better data. And better data on national trends will help all institutions advance advocacy, fundraising, strategic planning and other work critical to the health of the field.