Te Papa’s Chief Executive, Cheryll Sotheran, announced today that over one million people have visited the Museum in just under five months of operation. Te Papa officially opened on 14 February 1998.
'There was scepticism in some quarters before we opened that we would even reach the Ernst & Young estimate of 723,000 visitors for our first year of operation and yet we passed that figure in just three months. To have reached the magic million figure so soon is a tremendous achievement and all New Zealanders can be proud of this,' said Ms Sotheran.
To mark the occasion, this Sunday Te Papa will be providing entertainment, spot prizes, and a special Air New Zealand mystery weekend draw at Te Papa.
Results from Te Papa’s regular visitor surveys indicate that visitors are fairly evenly split between male and female, which is a radical departure from traditional museum visitation patterns which are heavily weighted in favour of women visitors. Approximately 55 per cent of surveyed visitors are under 40 years of age with 66 per cent of all visitors identified as Pākehā and 10 per cent as Māori.
Over a third of visitors surveyed were on repeat visits to Te Papa and over 97 per cent said they would recommend Te Papa to others.
To date, 45 per cent of visitors have been from the Wellington area, 35 per cent from the rest of New Zealand and 18 per cent from overseas. Overseas visitor figures are seasonally related. In February for instance, 24 per cent of visitors were from overseas.
Over 45,000 people have participated in guided tours, school visits, Te Papa birthday parties, and holiday activities.
The average length of visits is approximately two hours with the longest recorded visit being over ten hours on one of the late-night Thursdays.
'The challenge for Te Papa is to build on this world class result and continue to attract new and repeat visitors through changing exhibitions and events and to ensure that the Te Papa experience continues to be a high quality one,' said Ms Sotheran.