ARA Studies Tourism in the Upper Hudson Valley

ARA Studies Tourism in the Upper Hudson Valley

Assembly member Didi Barrett Announces Grant to Bolster Tourism in Hudson
September 21, 2015

Assembly member Didi Barrett (D-Columbia, Dutchess) announced a $60,000 economic development grant has been awarded to Hudson Opera House to help promote tourism in the region. The grant is part of Governor Cuomo’s $16.7 million in funding for projects that spur growth and opportunity statewide.

“The Hudson Opera House has been a leader in the revitalization of historic downtown Hudson, which has rippled across the region,” Assemblymember Didi Barrett said. “This funding will play a crucial role in drawing visitors to enjoy our historic treasures and cultural assets—one of the economic drivers in our community.”
The grant will be used to commission a Visitor Demand Study based on primary market research to assess the needs of the growing tourism in the Upper Hudson Valley. The study will be conducted by George Wachtel of Audience Research & Analysis, who specializes in working with arts, cultural tourism, not-for-profit organizations and retailers.

“We’re thrilled to receive this grant from Market NY and work together with Assemblymember Didi Barrett, the various attractions, businesses and cultural organizations in the area to assess the needs of our growing tourism market,” said Tambra Dillon, Co-Director of the Hudson Opera House. “As the City of Hudson and the Hudson Valley continue to attract new generations of artists and audiences, the creative economy spurring the region’s renaissance is emerging as not only the core driver, but also a highly transformative one with the ability to attract new businesses and visitors to the area.”

ARA Expands the Capability of its Multilingual Survey App

ARA Expands the Capability of its Multilingual Survey App

With many US museums and other other destinations attracting more international visitors than ever before, ARA developed a survey app for use on iPads, iPhones and Android devices that allows the interviewer to quickly change the language of the questionnaire from English to other languages and alphabets.  Expanding on its original capabilities in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese, ARA now offers on-the-fly translations into Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Dutch, Russian, Finnish, Dansih, Turkish, Pashto and Farsi.

Using this multilingual technology, ARA conducts annual visitor survey for the Alliance of Downtown New York.  Visitors are interviewd at about 20 attractions and locations including the 9/11 Memorial, Wall Street, Trinity Church, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, South Street Seaport and Statue of Liberty.  Other ARA clients now using our multilingual app include the Empire State Building Observatory and 9/11 Memorial Museum.

While ARA has conducted interviews in the past using paper questionnaires translated into different languages, the combination of the new technology and the ability to switch instantly to the respondents language will increase response rates and reduce bias.

Signature Theatre’s Continuing Success

Signature Theatre’s Continuing Success

A recent production from Signature Theatre NYC received accolades.

Click here→ Mysteries of Heaven and Earth.

ARA is proud to be the Signature’s market research company for ten years running.

Our Lady of Kibeho, at Signature Theatre

New NYC Cultural Affairs Commissioner

New NYC Cultural Affairs Commissioner

NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio has appointed Tom Finkelpearl as the city’s new Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, and a fine choice it is!  Tom is an artist, has been an arts administrator for years, is brilliant yet approachable, and brings a new perspective to the department having spent over two decades in the diverse borough of Queens, first at the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Museum (now part of MoMA), then at the Queens Museum, where he just oversaw a $60 million renovation that opened the museum more to its surrounding community.

As a population segment, African-Americans and people of Hispanic origin lag White-non-Hispanics and Asian-Americans in arts participation.  Under Tom’s leadership the Queens Museum offered courses in Spanish, Mandarin and Korean. Tom certainly has the qualifications and experience to meet this challenge.

ARA worked with Tom on visitor research at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Museum in Queens.  He is the only arts administrator I know to reside permanently and have a summer home – both in New York City (Lower Manhattan and The Rockaways).  We look forward to working with Mr. Finkelpearl in his new leadership capacity.

 

International Tourism Spending Up in 2014

International Tourism Spending Up in 2014

WASHINGTON -Spending by international visitors to the United States in January 2014 outpaced January 2013 levels by 10 percent (from 2012 to 2013 it climbed 11 percent), according to data recently released by the U.S. Department of Commerce. International visitors spent an estimated $15.48billion on travel to, and tourism-related activities within, the United States during the month.

Purchases of travel and tourism-related goods and services by international visitors traveling in the United States totaled $12.2 billion during January, an increase of nearly 8 percent when compared to last year. These goods and services include food, lodging, recreation, gifts, entertainment, local transportation in the United States, and other items incidental to foreign travel. Fares received by U.S. carriers (and U.S. vessel operators) from international visitors also increased by more than 4 percent to $3.6 billion for the month.

New Home for Theatre for a New Audience

New Home for Theatre for a New Audience

A Vagabond Troupe Gets Its First Home

I had the pleasure of attending the ribbon-cutting for the new permanent home for Theatre For a New Audience, the only American Shakespeare Company to be invited, and reinvited, by the Royal Shakespeare Company to perform in London. TFANA’s path to its glorious new theatre adjacent to the Brooklyn Academy of Music was many years in the coming.  New York City, under Mayor Bloomberg, contributed $34.5 million of the $70 total cost. 

ARA was there in the beginning to validate the feasibility of the company moving from Manhattan to Brooklyn.  In 2001, Jeffery Horowitz, TFANA’s Executive Director, retained ARA to measure potential loss in its current Manhattan audience against an increase from a rapidly developing new Brooklyn.  Based on hundreds of audience interviews and several focus groups, we concluded that the move would result in a net increase in total audience.

We recommended that TFANA build the new theatre as part of the BAM Cultural District which the City had targeted for economic development.  The research unearthed the additional benefit that the audience was very receptive to TFANA building a permanent home because theatre companies that moved frequently worried and annoyed them.  In contrast, companies that had a permanent base of operation allowed them to feel as if they belonged.

Theatre for a New Audience opens its new home with a new $2.4 million production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream directed by Julie Taymor, whose work the company goes back 30 years.  Opening night is November 2.

Lakeside, a $74 million Redevelopment Project in Prospect Park

Lakeside, a $74 million Redevelopment Project in Prospect Park

Restoring Brooklyn’s Pastoral Heart

As reported in today’s New York Times, two new skating rinks, one covered and one outdoor, are set to open in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, just before Christmas.  Before the first bulldozer or architectural renderings, the Prospect Park Alliance through the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation retained ARA to conduct a market study of demand for ice skating and other uses of rinks in the Park.  Starting with 602 interviews onsite at the Kate Wollman Memorial Rink (built in 1961), ARA determined that 24 Brooklyn zip codes accounted for 90 percent of the skaters.  ARA then conducted 657 telephone interviews with skaters and non-skaters in selected zip codes in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens.  The study found that there was strong demand for both an outdoor and indoor rink.  At least one member of 24 percent of households in the primary Brooklyn market had skated in the past five years.  In 41 percent of those households, both a parent and child skated while in 18 percent it was the child only.  Adult-only skaters skaters constituted the remaining 41 percent of skating households in Brooklyn.

Among skaters, 66 percent of adults skated once a month or less frequently.  Male teens were the most frequent skaters with 23 percent skating once or more a week, twice the rate of female teen skaters (13 percent). The vast majority of skaters participated in recreational ice skating.  One-fifth of male skaters in their teens played ice hockey.  Figure skating was more popular among females of all ages.

ARA congratulates the Prospect Park Alliance, along with the city and state, and Leon Levy Foundation, for its foresight and persistence in bringing to fruition this magnificent restoration of the heart of the Park.

 

 

Getting Your Message Out on Mobile Platforms

In the US, more internet users will access the internet through mobile devices than through PCs by 2015.  Already, 25% of web users rely solely on mobile for their web access.  Mobile accounts for 60%, 55% and 33% of 2011 traffic for Pandora, Twitter and Facebook, respectively, up from 5%, 0% and 1% in 2008.

Nearly 20% of US retailers created a mCommerce app in 2011.  Ten percent of e-commerce purchases made in October 2011 came through mobile devices, up from about three percent a year earlier.  Three-quarters (74%) of smartphone users have made a purchase on the device. Two in three (63%) tablet owners have made a purchase on their tablet.

So as the number of smartphones and tablets outpace the sales of PCs, marketers need to get their messages and e-commerce opportunities on mobile devices.

Sources: Mobile Marketing Association; IDC; GigOM/Pew; KPCP; IHS Screen Digest

The Boomers are Coming

Arts may marketers bemoan the aging of its audience, but in the short run, there is a larger market available for audience development populated with aging baby-boomers.

According to the 2010 census, the fastest growing population group was those ages 65 to 69, up by a third from 2000.  That group will expand even more rapidly in the decade to come, starting in 2011, as baby boomers begin to turn 65.  The Northeast had the largest percentage of people 65 and older, at 14 percent (compared to 13 percent nationally).  But the states with the top incremental increases were in the West: Alaska, Nevada, Idaho, Colorado and Arizona helped push the 65 to 69 age cohort up by 23 percent over the decade.

In total, there were 40.3 million people ages 65 and older as of April 2010, a rise of about 15 percent from 2ooo.  Seniors grew more rapidly than the 10 percent pace of the nation as a whole.  The only age group to experience a decline was that of the 75- to 79-year-olds, reflecting the low number of births during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

 

 

 

Madison Square Park

A pedestrian count study conducted by ARA revealed that 1.2 million people entered Madison Square Park in June 2011.  The total broke down as 1.0 million on weekdays and 200.000 on the weekends.  ARA counted pedestrians at all eight gates to the Park from approximately 8am to 8pm.   The Park, an oasis in the Flatiron District of New York City, hosts art exhibits, public programs and special events throughout the year.  ARA surveyed and counted family visitors at one such event, Kids Fest, on October 15, 2011.  A total of 8,248 family members (adults with children) entered the Park between 11am and 2pm.  The survey of 166 families revealed that more than 40 percent traveled from outside of Manhattan to attend the event.  ARA is proud to be associated with the Madison Square Park Conservancy which enlivens the neighborhood with thoughtful programming and careful maintenance of the green space.