Or Is This Business As Usual?
As construction workers
and exhibition managers put the finishing touches on the Stephen F.
Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum at Dulles Airport (VA), local
tourism officials appear to have been caught by surprise.
They’re scrambling now to integrate the museum with other
tourism attractions in historic Loudon County (VA).
Leesburg Today reports, with the grand opening of the museum
just over two weeks away, there appears to be no marketing strategy
involving local jurisdictions and area tourism agencies. It’s
not the museum’s grand opening being questioned –
rather, it’s a question of whether it’s been fully
integrated into one of the nation’s most popular tourist
regions.
The prime suspect here appears to be Loudon County (VA). The
county itself has reportedly done nothing to promote an
interlocking tourism strategy with the museum, beyond reaching an
agreement with national bus tour operators. That deal resolves
pricing issues, but does not address getting museum visitors to
other sites around the rest of the county. Isolation in these terms
could be bad for the museum – and for the rest of the
county.
Part of the problem appears to be Smithsonian policy. Normally,
you’d go to a museum and see a rack of brochures for nearby
tourist sites. But the Smithsonian prohibits that practice as a
matter of policy. And yet, Udvar-Hazy officials accepted a $200,000
donation from Loudon County as “partial funding in the first
year for visitor services operations within the facility for
fixtures, displays, visitor service enhancements and brochure
displays. Work with the LCVA to determine an appropriate location
for Loudoun brochures.”
Instead of funding the publication of brochures and a display
area inside the Smithsonian, the money is being used to fund an
information kiosk, where volunteers will be able to help visitors
find information about nearby attractions, in part, by going
online.
Apparently, however, nobody told the Loudon County Convention
and Visitor Bureau. When the museum opens on December 15th, there
won’t be any brochures and, unless somebody acts fast, there
won’t be any volunteers to man the kiosk. “We
didn’t even know until last week that they would accept the
kiosk idea,” says Bureau President Cheryl Kilday.
The museum has asked Loudon County for another $200,000 in FY
2004 to fund the kiosk. Loudon responded with a grant of
$35,000.
As county and tourism leaders scramble to address the apparent
lack of integration, the simplest solution may come from the museum
itself. Officials say the Smithsonian will run a free shuttle
service between downtown Washington (DC) and the facility at Dulles
International. “We hope people will realize they can do other
things ... This can be a hub to bring people out here,” said
Donald Lopez, Deputy Director of the National Air and Space
Museum.