Barry Thomas

The Economics of Museums: A Research Perspective

This paper examines the contribution economic analysis can make to the study of museums as productive organisations, and considers some related policy issues. The paper also suggests areas where research by economists might prove most fruitful.

The demand for local authority museums: Management issues and hard evidence

Local authority museums have experienced a rapidly changing competitive environment. Shifts in cultural policy at national and local level have led to more emphasis on plural funding, customer orientation and management for efficiency and effectiveness. This paper shows how knowledge of visitor demand can be of value in facing this challenge. The estimated demand equation is shown to yield useful information and insights on some key management issues, most notably the relationship between pricing policy and the achievement of objectives relating to visitor numbers and to revenue.

Beamish museum - modelling visitor flows.

Abstract An econometric model of visitor flows to a single tourist attraction — Beamish Museum — has been developed by Adrian Darnell, Peter Johnson and Barry Thomas of the University of Durham, UK. The study complements the work on aggregate studies of tourism demand. The single equation model is subject to various limitations, which are discussed, but it nevertheless provides some robust results which are of interest both as a test of economic theory and as a potentially useful management tool.

New Trends in the Growth of Tourism Employment in the UK in the 1990s

New evidence on tourism employment in the UK in the 1990s shows major departures from patterns of change of the 1980s and from other sectors in the 1990s. In the 1990s the tourism sector no longer seemed to exhibit the exceptionally rapid growth that had been almost an article of faith for those who build economic development strategies around tourism. The growth in the number of tourism-related employees became little different from the growth of employment in general, but there was significant redistribution across types of work and sub-regions. Tourism still has the highest proportion of part-time workers but, in marked contrast to many other sectors, it has now tended to move away from part-time employment. There is, however, heavy differentiation of experience across areas, and London, which dominates in absolute terms, departs radically from the general tourism pattern: it has high growth and a marked move towards part-timers. These surprising findings have implications for debates on the quality of jobs in tourism and on the role of tourism in economic development.

The development of Beamish: An assessment

Abstract It is the purpose of this paper to trace and assess the development of Beamish from its beginnings to the late 1980s. Section I provides a brief outline of the Museums history. Section II gives a preliminary assessment of the Museum; it identifies factors that have played a key role in the development of the Museum and assesses the latters success on various criteria. Section III concludes the study, and suggests some tentative generalizations that might be made from the Museums development

Capital investment in the UK arts, sport and heritage sectors: an evaluation of statistics.

This paper critically evaluates currently available statistics on UK capital investment in the arts, sport and heritage. The paper first examines some important questions that need good capital investment statistics if they are to be answered. Particular attention is focused on how far existing data might provide an adequate benchmark for evaluating the effects of the National Lottery on capital investment. The strengths and limitations of these data are then assessed. The paper concludes with some recommendations for improvement. An Appendix presents nearly fifty measures of capital investment in the three sectors.