(Originally published in TOURISM)
In a bold move, the Vancouver Art Gallery is offering a major exhibition of works by modern masters from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art this summer. “From Monet to Dali” is the largest showing of historical European art ever presented at the gallery, with works by Picasso, Gauguin, Cézanne and Manet, among others. It will run until September and is the major revenue earner of 2007 for the institution which has tapped heavily into the travel trade to ensure the endeavour’s success, according to director of marketing and communications Dana Sullivant.
“It is extremely important for us not only to attract our local audience within BC’s Lower Mainland, but we also have a wonderful opportunity to bring visitors to the city as well. It has been shown time and time again, on both sides of the border, that a major exhibition with impressionist works by the European masters has the potential to bring tourists. We have probably for the first time ever for the gallery developed a larger campaign where we are working with our local DMOs. We are actually spending dollars in other markets to invite visitors to enjoy everything that Vancouver has to offer.”
Sullivant says the initiative started about 2 years ago when the gallery approached Tourism Vancouver and Tourism BC, which has led to a compelling outdoor campaign inspired by images from the exhibition. In addition, the gallery has promoted its project through the travel trade at Rendez‑vous Canada and Canada’s West Marketplace.
“At all of our major shows, we featured Monet to Dali with tour operators, with consumers and travel agents," Sullivant says. "We have individual packages and group packages available. We have covered all our bases.”
But this didn’t happen overnight, explains Sullivant: “Before 2005, the Vancouver Art Gallery never had a dedicated tourism program. Its efforts were focused mainly on the local market and on taking whatever tourists happened to wander around and come into the building. We now have ticket partnerships with the Vancouver Trolley Company, Grey Line and with a number of entities around town. So we really started two summers ago with ground level tourism initiatives that are now yielding results.”
The gallery saw a virtually untapped potential in its visitation numbers. Survey results indicate 44% of the gallery visitors are from the Greater Vancouver area, 23% are from elsewhere within Canada, 20% from the US and 13% from countries other than the US. A total of 33% of our gallery visitors according to those figures are from outside Canada.
A few factors work in the gallery’s favour: It is located in a heritage building in the heart of downtown, and there has been a major shift in the gallery’s attitude to tourism and revenue diversification, according to Sullivant, brought about at the board level through the leadership of director Kathleen Bartels, who came to the gallery from the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.
“There is now recognition that tourism is a virtually untapped gold mine for the Vancouver Art Gallery,” confirms Sullivant. “Our visitation has been climbing incrementally ever since Kathleen got here in 2001; there is no reason why Vancouver shouldn’t be one of the top cultural destinations in North America. As time goes on and we spend more of our resources singing the praises of this beautiful city and its artistic riches, this will surely come to fruition."
In a bold move, the Vancouver Art Gallery is offering a major exhibition of works by modern masters from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art this summer. “From Monet to Dali” is the largest showing of historical European art ever presented at the gallery, with works by Picasso, Gauguin, Cézanne and Manet, among others. It will run until September and is the major revenue earner of 2007 for the institution which has tapped heavily into the travel trade to ensure the endeavour’s success, according to director of marketing and communications Dana Sullivant.
“It is extremely important for us not only to attract our local audience within BC’s Lower Mainland, but we also have a wonderful opportunity to bring visitors to the city as well. It has been shown time and time again, on both sides of the border, that a major exhibition with impressionist works by the European masters has the potential to bring tourists. We have probably for the first time ever for the gallery developed a larger campaign where we are working with our local DMOs. We are actually spending dollars in other markets to invite visitors to enjoy everything that Vancouver has to offer.”
Sullivant says the initiative started about 2 years ago when the gallery approached Tourism Vancouver and Tourism BC, which has led to a compelling outdoor campaign inspired by images from the exhibition. In addition, the gallery has promoted its project through the travel trade at Rendez‑vous Canada and Canada’s West Marketplace.
“At all of our major shows, we featured Monet to Dali with tour operators, with consumers and travel agents," Sullivant says. "We have individual packages and group packages available. We have covered all our bases.”
But this didn’t happen overnight, explains Sullivant: “Before 2005, the Vancouver Art Gallery never had a dedicated tourism program. Its efforts were focused mainly on the local market and on taking whatever tourists happened to wander around and come into the building. We now have ticket partnerships with the Vancouver Trolley Company, Grey Line and with a number of entities around town. So we really started two summers ago with ground level tourism initiatives that are now yielding results.”
The gallery saw a virtually untapped potential in its visitation numbers. Survey results indicate 44% of the gallery visitors are from the Greater Vancouver area, 23% are from elsewhere within Canada, 20% from the US and 13% from countries other than the US. A total of 33% of our gallery visitors according to those figures are from outside Canada.
A few factors work in the gallery’s favour: It is located in a heritage building in the heart of downtown, and there has been a major shift in the gallery’s attitude to tourism and revenue diversification, according to Sullivant, brought about at the board level through the leadership of director Kathleen Bartels, who came to the gallery from the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.
“There is now recognition that tourism is a virtually untapped gold mine for the Vancouver Art Gallery,” confirms Sullivant. “Our visitation has been climbing incrementally ever since Kathleen got here in 2001; there is no reason why Vancouver shouldn’t be one of the top cultural destinations in North America. As time goes on and we spend more of our resources singing the praises of this beautiful city and its artistic riches, this will surely come to fruition."
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