|
APPENDIX TO THE REPORT
THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT - A REVISED FRAMEWORK
FOR THE PROPOSED SUMMER OPENING PROGRAMME
Preamble
Following the outcome of the House of Commons debate
in May and subsequent discussions on the proposals to re-open
the Line of Route to the general public, the evolving plans have
been scaled down, adopting a simpler, less costly operation.
It is now proposed that the summer opening should:
- Extend for 7 weeks during August and September
2000, opening between the hours of 9.30 and 17.30 daily, six days
per week, excluding Sundays and the summer Bank Holiday - a total
of 41 days;
- Be co-ordinated through a new Visitors Office
located within the Palace of Westminster;
- Require all visitors to be in groups and escorted
by a guide of a standard at least equal to that of a Blue Badge
Guide with a Houses of Parliament endorsement;
- Allow for non-English speaking and special interest
groups to be guided through the provision of suitably qualified
guides;
- Adopt an advance booking system with timed tickets
to control visitor numbers and facilitate the pre-booking of guides;
- Restrict the effective cost of admission to a
flat rate group booking/administration fee and guide charge, equivalent
to between £2.50 and £3.00 per visitor;
- Generate a contribution towards operating costs
through merchandising and the sale of guidebooks.
The public opening should not:
- Involve an admission charge per se;
- Require a ticketing structure to be built within
Victoria Tower Garden;
- Require the procurement of audio guides as an
alternative to the traditional guided tour;
- Interrupt the existing pattern of Members' access
to the Line of Route or the established Education Unit schools
programme.
Thus the revised framework assumes
that for a seven week period during the summer recess of 2000,
individuals and groups would be able to book in advance for a
unique guided visit to the Houses of Parliament. The estimated
cost per visitor, based on the proposals set out in this paper,
would be broadly in line with the likely level of charges for
guided groups on the Line of Route in 2000, although the latter
do not attract booking/administration fees or VAT.
The booking arrangements, guide procurement
and administration and merchandising functions would be contracted
out to organisations which are able to demonstrate a proven record
of success and, in the case of the guiding requirement, are capable
of providing sufficient numbers of officially endorsed guides.
The Houses of Parliament would retain
responsibility for the security of the building and its occupants
and would establish a Visitors Office (staffed by a Manager and
an assistant) responsible for overall co-ordination and ensuring
the smooth operation of the summer opening programme.
The table at Appendix A, which compares
the costs and revenues associated with the earlier plan and the
revised proposals, highlights the principal areas of cost saving
embodied in the revised framework. An indicative operating statement,
setting out the financial implications of the revised plans, is
set out at Appendix B, indicating a subsidy of some £2.80
per visitor to cover the operational costs of the summer opening
programme.
The key operational issues are summarised
below:
1. Summer Opening
The summer opening in
2000 would commence on Monday 31st July and continue
through until Saturday 16th September. It would run
from 9.30am to 5.30pm, daily, with last admissions being at 4.30pm.
The programme would not operate on Sundays, or Monday 28th
August, the summer Bank Holiday, resulting in a total of 41 operational
days.
In order to preserve the current arrangements for Members and
Education Unit groups at certain times during the Summer Recess,
it is proposed that during the seven-week period Wednesday and
Thursday mornings would continue to be reserved for pre-booked
Members' groups during August, as would Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday mornings in September. In addition specific timed slots
would be reserved for the Education Unit's schools programme.
The public opening would therefore result in a normal daily admission
'window' of 7¼ hours. However, on those days when admissions
are reduced to 'half' days - admissions would be from 1.00pm with
last admission remaining as 4.30pm - a resultant admission 'window'
of 3¼ hours.
2. Visitor Potential
Taking the capacity of
the visitor route as a function of both the pace at which people
can be pulsed onto the route by way of the security screening
process and the holding capacity of the route itself, it has been
estimated that the hourly capacity is 400 visitors. This is equivalent
to 2,900 visitors a day, based on a 7¼-hour admission day
and 1,300 for the afternoon sessions on those days when mornings
are reserved for Members and/or Education Groups. The resultant
visitor capacity and illustrative visitor throughputs at 75% and
85% of capacity are indicated in the table below:
Total Incremental Visitors to
the Public Opening
Summer 2000 (Monday 31st
July to Saturday 16 September)
| Week | Mon
| Tues | Wed
| Thurs | Fri
| Sat | Total Capacity | 75% Capacity | 85% Capacity |
| am | pm | am
| pm | am | pm | am
| pm | am | pm | am
| pm | | | |
| 1 | yes | yes
| yes | yes | no
| yes | no | yes
| yes | yes | yes
| yes | 14,200 | 10,650
| 12,070 |
| 2 | yes | yes
| yes | yes | no
| yes | no | yes
| yes | yes | yes
| yes | 14,200 | 10,650
| 12,070 |
| 3 | yes | yes
| yes | yes | no
| yes | no | yes
| yes | yes | yes
| yes | 14,200 | 10,650
| 12,070 |
| 4 | yes | yes
| yes | yes | no
| yes | no | yes
| yes | yes | yes
| yes | 14,200 | 10,650
| 12,070 |
| 5 | no | no
| yes | yes | no
| yes | no | yes
| yes | yes | yes
| yes | 11,300 | 8,475
| 9,605 |
| 6 | yes | yes
| no | yes | no
| yes | no | yes
| yes | yes | yes
| yes | 12,600 | 9,450
| 10,710 |
| 7 | yes | yes
| no | yes | no
| yes | no | yes
| yes | yes | yes
| yes | 12,600 | 9,450
| 10,710 |
| Public Opening 2000, 7- Week Total Visitors | 93,300 | 69,975 | 79,305 |
By dividing the operational day into a series of admission slots
of, say, 15 minutes each and limiting the numbers admitted to
each slot visitors can be spread evenly over the day and controlled
within predetermined capacity limits. It has been assumed that
the group size would be increased from 16 - 21[1] and that 5 groups could be admitted every 15 minutes. It must
be stressed, however, that these are theoretical capacities and
in reality the take-up is likely to be of the order of 75% to
85% of capacity, particularly in the start up year and, more significantly,
given the need to pre-book.The indicative operating statement
at Appendix B illustrates the resultant trading position achieved
with a 75% take-up on available visitor slots. Having considered
the options, the proposed level of take-up, which relates to a
reduced throughput of 300 visitors per hour, enables the Education
Unit programme to continue and recognises the impact of operating
without a public ticket office facility in Victoria Tower Garden.A
further factor influencing the performance of the summer opening
programme will be the forthcoming Millennium Exhibition, to be
staged in Westminster Hall, with free access to the general public
being granted via the St Stephen's entrance. The Millennium Exhibition,
which starts at Easter 2000, will continue through to the end
of the summer opening programme. Whilst there are no operational
difficulties expected with the overlap of the two initiatives
the exhibition's presence in Westminster Hall would be an added
attraction for those participating in the summer opening programme
and would generate additional customers for the summer opening
programme's merchandising activity in Westminster Hall.3. Visitor
ManagementThe success of the summer opening programme would be
largely dependent upon the design and implementation of a reliable
system of visitor management. The proposal to accommodate many
tens of thousands of visitors during an intensive programme over
a 7-week period demands that a robust visitor management system
be established to ensure that:
- a positive impression of Parliament is created for all visitors;
- the work of Parliament (and of
the Parliamentary Works Directorate) can continue unimpeded;
- visitor flows are controlled
in order to avoid undue peaks and troughs in visitor throughputs
whilst optimising the number of incremental visitors who can be
accommodated;
- visitors are adequately supervised
and managed from a security and safety standpoint;
- the impact of wear and tear on
the fabric of the buildings and their contents is minimised.
The success of the proposal to pulse
visitors in groups along the route is contingent upon an efficient
advance or pre-booking ticket facility. Thus in a similar fashion
to the summer opening arrangements adopted for Buckingham Palace
and Althorp, visitors wishing to visit the Houses of Parliament
during the summer 2000 opening would be required to book timed
tickets and, in the case of the Houses of Parliament, a guide
in advance of their visit.
It is assumed that a company would
be appointed to manage the booking process in addition to procuring
and allocating guides selected from the daily pool[2].
The procedure is considered sufficiently flexible to ensure that
special interest and foreign language groups can be accommodated.
4. Booking and Administration
Charges
The admissions strategy as outlined
assumes a guided-group system administered by an external company.
Whilst there would be no direct admission charges per se,
charges would be made for the booking of tickets and the provision
of guides. Such charges would be paid directly by visitors (or
more probably group organisers) to the booking/guide management
contractor. In this way the Houses of Parliament would not be
involved in the billing or payment processes with visitors.
Based on discussions with an established
London-based guiding company, it is forecast that the costs of
providing a booking and guiding service for the summer opening
in 2000 would be as follows:
| Charges | Cost Per English Language Group (£) | Cost Per Foreign Language Group (£) |
| Booking and administration fees | 9.50 | 9.50 |
| Guide costs assuming a full day's hire | 33.00 | 39.25 |
| Sub-total | £42.50 | £48.75 |
| VAT | 7.44 | 8.53 |
| Total | £49.94 | £57.28 |
| Resultant cost/visitor (Assuming groups of 20) | £2.50 | £2.86 |
Assumptions:
- Guides would be booked for the day and are charged at £125.00
or £150.00 for English language and foreign language groups
respectively.
- Guides will be able to complete 4 tours per day.
- Special interest tours would be available, but the 'standard'
tour would not exceed 75 minutes and that the broad content would
follow a pre-determined script.
- VAT would apply to all charges.
5. Security
A manpower plan for providing acceptable
security cover with personnel positioned at strategic points along
the tour route has been developed in conjunction with senior officers
from the Metropolitan Police (SO17).
The approach adopted assumes that
the security deployment is strategic with a degree of responsibility
being placed on guides to ensure that groups stay together and
that any problems are reported immediately to a Police or Security
Officer. The resultant cost of providing an acceptable level of
security cover for the seven week period of the summer 2000 opening,
as described, has been calculated as £128,809. This is the
incremental cost, over and above that which would be incurred
regardless of the summer opening programme.
Proposed Security Costs
| Month | Weekly Costs (£) | No | Total Costs (£) |
| August | 19,727 | 5 | 98,635 |
| September | 15,087 | 2 | 30,174 |
| Total | | 7 | £128,809 |
Notes
- Since estimating these costs SO17 officers have been awarded
an inflation-related pay increase.
6. Visitor Office
It is proposed that a Visitor Manager
and assistant be recruited from within the visitor attraction/historic
property industry on short-term appointments to take responsibility
for the implementation of and subsequent running of the summer
2000 opening programme.
A budget of £54,000 has been
estimated as being suitable to cover salary and office costs and
assumes a 9-month appointment for the manager and 7-months for
the deputy.
7. Merchandising & Guide Book Sales
The importance of retail or merchandising activity
within historic properties is widely acknowledged and it is proposed
that a contract for the merchandising opportunity presented by
the summer 2000 opening should be let to an established operation,
either from within the House or externally to a third party. Subject
to detailed negotiations yet to take place, the Houses of Parliament
could reasonably expect to receive a commission at least equivalent
to, say, 10 % of sales.
To be successful in merchandising within an historic
site the retail operation needs to:
- offer merchandise that is attractive to visitors,
at competitive prices;
- provide, through its branding, a unique souvenir
of the visit;
- be unmissable so that all visitors have the opportunity
to buy and are encouraged to do so.
It is proposed that a new range of merchandise should
be developed for the summer 2000 opening programme, with the preferred
retail contractor being made responsible for the development,
procurement and operation of the Westminster Hall retail outlet.
The rationale for introducing a new merchandise range, rather
than assume the sale of merchandise from the existing ranges offered
by the two Refreshment Departments, is to help maintain the value
and prestige of the latter.
It is the case that gearing up for a seven week opening
is an expensive element of the proposals resulting perhaps in
a limited appeal amongst many potential operators. However, the
opportunity to offer the new merchandise range to the Millennium
Exhibition visitors would undoubtedly help.
Guidebooks are essential not only because they are
a valuable source of information, but also because they are an
important source of revenue. Due to the time available to prepare
for the public opening, it would not be feasible to produce a
new official guide book, but it is proposed that the existing
editions would be sold through the Westminster Hall retail outlet.
Experience suggests that the visitor take-up would be 1 in 10.
8. Visitor literature
A range of new visitor information literature will
need to be created to replace or supplement the range that is
currently in use. It is envisaged that this will either be produced
'internally' within the Houses of Parliament or by the contractor
providing the ticketing service. Where possible it is recommended
that an agreement be reached whereby any new leaflets are written
and designed in-house through close liaison between the Visitor
Manager, the Education Unit and the Information Offices of the
two Houses.
9. Portable Lavatory Hire
In order to accommodate the large
numbers of visitors projected to visit the Houses of Parliament
during the summer recess 2000 the proposals assume the hire of
temporary lavatory facilities for the duration of the summer opening.
Provisional discussions with possible contractors have indicated
a likely budget of £18,000 to cover all costs associated
with providing and servicing the facilities.
10. Advertising
It is not proposed to advertise the
summer opening programme other than through selected press and
trade advertising to announce the opening and explain the booking
arrangements. Beyond that it is planned to restrict advertising
for 2000 to be to the Parliamentary Web site, the All Party Whip,
mailings to the travel trade and promotional leaflets that will
be issued through the normal channels.
A budget of £25k is proposed
for the launch of the summer 2000 opening programme to cover the
paid press and trade advertising referred to above. Additional
advertising funds are not thought necessary given the undoubted
media interest in the summer opening programme and the free media
coverage that it will attract.
11. Contingency provision
The anticipation of all operating
costs at this stage in the project's evolution is extremely difficult.
Although all the principal costs have been anticipated it is inevitable
that some extra costs may be incurred or that certain of the estimates
provided may prove to be inadequate. To accommodate these possibilities
a contingency provision of £25k is provided for unforeseen
or underestimated operating costs.
Jonathan N Rounce
Grant Leisure Group Limited
16th November 1999
APPENDIX A
A Comparison of Costs and Revenues Associated with the Summer
Opening Proposals
| Previous Proposals | Revised Framework |
| Development costs: | | |
| Victoria Tower Garden (VTG) ticket office facility
| yes | no
|
| VTG enabling works | yes
| no |
| VTG signage | yes
| no |
| Black Rod Garden police box | yes
| no |
| Guidebook stall in Victoria Tower | yes
| no |
| Protective works on visitor route | yes
| yes |
| Consultancy and professional fees | yes
| no |
| Computer systems/enhancement (Contractor) |
no | yes
|
| Operating revenues: |
| |
| Admissions | yes
| no |
| Booking fees[3] | no | no
|
| Guide books | yes
| yes |
| Merchandising[4] | yes | yes
|
| Operating costs: | |
|
| Visitor Office staff | yes
| yes |
| Security | yes
| yes |
| Advance booking/ticketing contract | yes
| no |
| Royal Parks licence fee re VTG | yes
| no |
| VTG ticket office contract | yes
| no |
| VTG ticket office hire | yes
| no |
| Marshalls/ushers | yes
| no |
| Guides | yes
| no |
| Guidebook stall staffing | yes
| no |
| Staff uniforms | yes
| no |
| Portable lavatory hire | yes
| yes |
| Walkie talkie hire | yes
| no |
| Promotional print | yes
| yes |
| Advertising | yes
| yes |
| Utilities | yes
| no |
| Wear & tear | yes
| no |
| Contingency | yes
| yes |
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, SUMMER OPENING, 2000
Indicative Operating Statement (based on 'free admission') | Appendix B
18.11.99 |
| CORE REVENUE & COST ASSUMPTIONS | Year 2000/01 | Year 2000/01 |
| Base Case | Pessimistic Case |
| Maximum visitor capacity: |
| Hourly throughput (assuming standard group size of 20) | 400
| 400 |
| Full day throughput (assumes a 7.25-hour admission 'window') | 2,900 | 2,900 |
| Half day throughput | 1,300 | 1,300 |
| Total throughput capacity (assuming 41 operational days) | 93,300 | 93,300 |
| Assumed take-up of capacity | 75% | 60% |
| Resultant actual visitor throughput | 69,975 | 55,980 |
| Millennium Exhibition - Incremental Visitors | | Assuming 1,500 Visitors/day (41 Days) | 61,500 | 61,500 |
| Revenues: | (£'000s) | (£'000s) |
| Admissions (based on free admission) | - | - |
| Guidebooks (based on a take-up of 1 in 10 visitors) | 17 | 14 |
| Merchandise - net contribution @ 10% assuming £5/hd spend | 35 | 28 |
| Merchandise - Millennium Exhib @ 10% assuming £3.00/hd spend | 18 | 18 |
| Total Revenues | 71 | 60 |
| Cost of Sales: |
| Guidebooks @ 48% | 8 | 7 |
| Total Cost of Sales | 8 | 7 |
| Gross Operating Profit | 63 | 54 |
| Operating Costs: |
| Management - assuming 1 Manager on a 9-month contract and an assistant on a 7-month contract | 54 | 54 |
| Security - August (weekly cost @ £19,727) | 99 | 99 |
| Security - September (weekly cost @ £15,087) | 30 | 30 |
| Portable lavatory hire | 18 | 18 |
| Advertising | 25 | 25 |
| Development costs | 10 | 10 |
| Contingency provision | 25 | 50 |
| Total Operating Costs | 261 | 286 |
| Net Annual Operating Surplus/(Deficit) | £(198) | £(232) |
Source: Grant Leisure Group
1 Current groups comprise 16
visitors including 1 guide, the summer 2000 opening programme
is proposing to increase groups to 21 including a guide. Back
2 The booking company would
be required to provide a pool of sufficiently qualified guides
throughout the summer 2000 opening. Back
3 Any booking fee would be
collected by the appointed company. Back
4 Whilst the merchandising would be outsourced, the Houses of Parliament would receive a commission equivalent to, say, 10% of sales value. Back
|
