Booz Allen Assists World-Renowned National Air and Space Museum in Achieving its Mission

Analysis provides recommendations to enhance attendance at the Smithsonian’s Washington, D.C. museum and Virginia exhibit center.

Booz Allen Hamilton principal Joe Suarez is always looking for opportunities to leverage the firm’s greatest asset: Intellectual capital. So when he heard that the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum was grappling with the challenges of maintaining its cultural institution while increasing market share, he suggested Booz Allen senior vice president Marty Bollinger contact National Air and Space Museum board member Ken Gazzola, Bollinger’s friend and former client.

“The National Air and Space Museum is the world’s premier aviation and space museum and research facility—bar none—and Booz Allen is a world-class consulting firm,” Bollinger says. “The challenges it faced are the kinds of problems Booz Allen solves for clients and governments every day. So establishing a partnership to assist this internationally recognized organization was a natural fit.”

In February 2007, Bollinger, principal Erich Fischer, and their team completed a six-week pro bono engagement to provide the National Air and Space Museum with analysis to help realign the vision and mission of its main building on the Mall (NMB) and improve attendance at its Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, located in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Claire Brown is director of communications at the museum. “Booz Allen has provided an extremely valuable public service,” she says. “The museum is one of the world’s most visited and, in a changing world, we are experiencing new challenges in identifying and reaching the communities we serve in relevant ways. An objective, informed view is most helpful. The work Booz Allen did will directly affect our ability to better serve the public and achieve the museum’s mission.”

The effort initially focused on marketing and communications support for the Udvar-Hazy Center, but the objective broadened as larger strategic issues were identified.

Says senior associate Stephen Ganote, who led the effort, “The museum assumed attendance issues were related to marketing and communications. But our research showed that there were more fundamental issues at both locations that had to be addressed before a marcom plan could be designed.”

“The Booz Allen team conducted the project with skill, insight, and enthusiasm,” says museum director General J.R. “Jack” Dailey. “Their efforts inspired us to broaden our strategic planning process to give full consideration to their findings and suggestions.”

A Creative Approach to Collecting Information

With its unique space, the Udvar-Hazy Center has attracted more than one million visitors each year since it opened in 2003. But recent attendance has not met initial projections.

At the same time, despite the National Air and Space Museum’s unparalleled collection of aerospace artifacts—including the Apollo space capsule and the Spirit of St. Louis—attendance at this popular Smithsonian attraction has declined.

To determine the causes of the problems at the National Air and Space Museum and the Udvar-Hazy Center, Booz Allen’s project team developed a creative approach to data gathering. “We designed our own surveys, interviewing approximately 150 visitors to both museums, Washington, D.C. tourists, and local residents who were visiting a Virginia shopping center,” Ganote says. “We designed an interactivity ranking to compare the museum’s visitor experience to that of other attractions. We worked with the museum to understand revenue sources and how revenue was allocated. We then distilled this information into a simplified format to assist Smithsonian leaders and board members in their decision making.”

At the Udvar-Hazy Center, the team focused on four primary challenges:

Identifying the Udvar-Hazy Center’s target market
Understanding the quality of the visitor’s experience
Clarifying revenue sources
Determining how visitor access—e.g., its location off the Mall, its parking fees—affects attendance

The analysis showed that the Udvar-Hazy Center has surprisingly low membership and relatively high annual parking fees and may be hamstrung by its long, confusing name. In addition, most of its exhibits are oriented towards adults, and particularly toward aerospace enthusiasts.

They also discovered that the National Air and Space Museum’s two core missions, preservation and education, appear to conflict.

Says Brown, “The Booz Allen study enabled us to put our primary concern—increasing attendance at the Udvar-Hazy Center—into a larger perspective and look at issues, such as the visitor experience and the challenges of operating two different museum locations with extremely limited resources.”

“The National Air and Space Museum chose Booz Allen’s aerospace and defense services because of our depth of industry knowledge and our strategic planning capabilities that have supported major commercial and federal clients,” Ganote says.

A Strategic Focus on Marketing—and on the Visitor Experience

The Booz Allen team presented a comprehensive plan to National Air and Space Museum leaders with action steps and “quick hits” created for the Udvar-Hazy Center which, if implemented, could expand attendance there by thousands of visits per year. Suggestions included:

Enhancing the visitor experience with interactive children’s tours and other initiatives
Enhancing the Udvar-Hazy Center’s brand by focusing on marketing and re-branding
Lowering access barriers involving parking fees

To substantially increase overall National Air and Space Museum attendance, the team recommended taking steps that included:

Prioritizing attendance by establishing the National Air and Space Museum as the nation’s leading technology education museum
Enhancing the visitor experience by adding more frequent rotating exhibits and other initiatives
Enhancing marketing

Booz Allen’s recommendations also suggested aligning the vision and mission for both the Udvar-Hazy Center and the National Air and Space Museum by undertaking several initiatives, including:

Revisiting the National Air and Space Museum’s preservation mission
Improving the Udvar-Hazy Center’s ability to attract visitors by concentrating on exhibits and marketing
Reviewing the National Air and Space Museum facility’s financial plans

“With this project, the firm was able to help make a long-term impact on the National Air and Space Museum’s success,” says Suarez, who used to work at the Smithsonian, and whose Booz Allen Community Relations department helped fund the project.

“The most important issue we discovered is that we need to focus on the visitor experience and marketing in strategic ways,” Brown says. “The study’s recommendations inspired us to take a more comprehensive approach to strategic planning.

“We’re now putting together our 2008 to 2012 plan,” she adds. “As we work through the process of strategic planning, we will ask Booz Allen to provide insights and feedback.” The firm is prepared to provide further support as needed.

story posted June 25, 2007