[BCMA] New way to connect local museums and encourage local tourism

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv.]

Hello Everyone,

My name is Elizabeth Peterson and I’m the Museum Curator for the Vancouver
Police Museum and Archives. I’m reaching out to the wider BCMA community
with the hope to receive feedback on an idea that I’ve been working on to
help connect our museums with each other, our communities, and to encourage
local tourism in BC.



Since re-opening our doors to the public last month, two of the most
frequently asked questions that we are receiving are: “What other local
museums are open that I can go to?”, and “What else can I do with my kids
that is educational?” To help answer these questions and support our museum
community, I’ve built a free cross promotional website called My Local
Museums. This is a simple website that contains information about local
museums in the area, along with a link to their websites.



The idea is that each participating museum would display a poster for My
Local Museums somewhere in their entry space. This poster would contain
information about the website (see attached poster) and act as a one stop
shop for visitors to see the different museums and heritage locations near
them. By having the poster up in your space, we can make finding each
others’ museums easier for visitors, without having the clutterersome card
racks. Plus, this option is 100% touch-free.



The only cost to each individual organization would be the printing of the
My Local Museums poster, which could be printed in-house on regular letter
sized paper. The website management would be very minimal (it’s designed so
that it should be a one time upload unless individual organizations change
their website’s domain or want to update the photo on the site).



I would also suggest potentially adding a special 10% discount code for
admission tickets for the non-free Museums to help us individually and
collectively track whether this type of promotion works in bringing in new
visitors to our museums.



And that is it. Very simple, free, and easy to use!



I would greatly appreciate any feedback about this idea. The example
website can be accessed here: https://mylocalmuseums.com/    *password:*
*ebert*. The poster is attached to this email as well. As of right now the
website is designed so that people can scroll through the different museums
on one page, but if this becomes too long of a scroll (due to lots of
participation), I would redesign it to group each museum/heritage site by
city/region for ease of use. There is also a map with the museums’
locations at the bottom of the page.



If you like the idea and are interested in joining My Local Museums, reply
to this email and let me know. I’ll be putting together a founders group
where we can discuss and decide on some of the finer details.

Thank you for your time, and stay safe!

Best,

Elizabeth


-- 
Elizabeth Peterson, Ph.D.
Museum Curator
Vancouver Police Museum
curator at vancouverpolicemuseum.ca
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