Caterers cash in as museum visits rise
Caterers at museums and galleries that scrapped their entry charges 12 months ago have reported increases in sales and customer numbers, although the amount each visitor spends has dropped.
At the National Railway Museum in York, Milburns Restaurants' sales rose by 24% to about £1.2m, while visitor numbers were up 36% to 750,000. At the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Milburns added a 160-seat outdoor garden restaurant in the summer and an 80-seat café at weekends to cater for visitor levels up by 111% to 2.36 million. The museum's Morris and Gamble tearooms may become a full-service restaurant.
However, Milburns operations director Nigel Hutson commented: "Since the public are free to come and go as they please, they can choose where they want to eat, whereas before we had a captive audience. We've had to work harder to convert the number of visitors to restaurant customers."
At the London Science Museum's 600-seat café, run by Digby Trout Restaurants, turnover has doubled to nearly £2m, mirroring a 100% increase in visitor numbers to 2.63 million. Chairman Digby Trout said that, although spend per visitor had dropped slightly, he had noted a trend for visitors to eat their lunches later, up until 4pm. The caterer has served as many as 14,000 visitors a day during the school holidays by opening temporary catering points and vending machines.
The current James Bond exhibition has its own café. It is the first time a catering facility has been set up in a temporary exhibition at the museum, Trout said.
by Ben Walker
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 9-15 January 2003