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August 16, 2024 3 mins

Te Papa is going to start charging a $35 entry fee for international tourists starting next month.

The national museum says it's because rising energy costs, insurance and paying staff is all becoming too expensive.

The move's expected to bring in an additional $5-$10 million per year.

Te Papa spokesperson Kate Camp told Heather du Plessis-Allan it will be good value for visitors.

 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now to PAPA is going to start charging a thirty
five dollars entry fee for international tourists starting next month.
The National Museum says it's because rising energy costs and
insurance and staff costs all becoming a little bit expensive
and they think this will bring in an additional five
to ten million dollars per year. To PAPA spokesperson there's
Kate campaign cap he curly Heather, Kate, why is it

(00:20):
taking you so long?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, it's something we've thought about over the years quite
a few times, and I think maybe it's just an idea.
Thats time has come. You know, I think, like a
lot of places in New Zealand, we're facing rising costs
and we are probably really lucky in that we have
this option that we can take, which we think is
going to work for our international visitors, because we know
the first thing most of them ask when they rock

(00:43):
up to the door is where do I pay?

Speaker 1 (00:45):
How did you decide on thirty five bucks?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
We benchmarked around different places. You know, you've got forty
two to go at the sky Tower, it's thirty two
at all from museum. It's twenty six to go into
the Zeelandia Sanctuary. Here in Wellington, So we looked around
at those benss and we took to our friends and
tourism industry and wanted to set it. It's something that
reflects the value that people get when they visit to Papa.
Our international visitors spend on average two hours at to Papa,

(01:10):
so you know they're investing a bit of time there,
and yeah, we think it'll be good value for money
for them.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
I'm a little bit worried about your honesty box system
that you're running here. Are you sure that you should
be leaving it up to them to self identify as
tourists and then go buy a ticket.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, I mean our biggest priority was, you know, to
Papa's free for New Zealanders, always has been, always will be.
And our number one priority was to make this easy
for New Zealanders. So we wanted them to not have
any barriers when they arrived. So that was what drove
that decision. Of course, it's going to be a little
bit of an experiment and we'll see how that works.
But I think that you know, most people who travel

(01:47):
to New Zealand, they've come a long way, They've invested
a lot of time and money to get here and
most of them are looking for where they pay when
they arrived. So I'm sure a few backpackers will claim
their firm jobs of Ville where it's next through.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
But listen to it. Have you ever been to Auckland Museum.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, yep, it was there just the other day.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Right, and they do this right. They've got the thing
where it's very clearly free for Auckland, a's donation from
anybody else in the country. And then the international guys
charge and they have a little ticketing booth, don't they.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know the last time you're
at to Papa where. Of course, our building is quite unique.
We've got high volumes of people coming through that ground
level and then we've got you know, it's quite a
small area, and then we've got stairs in a lift
leading up to that upstairs. So for us, it's a
combination of making it easy for the Kiwi visitors but
also the practicalities of our building. And look, if we

(02:38):
find it's not working, we can tweak it. You know.
Obviously we've never done it before, but this is where
we wanted to start off. Anyway.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Sometimes you guys have got some exhibitions where everybody has
to pay. Are you going to make the tour? So
if I have to go and see Monet and pay
twenty bucks, are you going to make them pay thirty
five bucks plus twenty bucks.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah. So the entry charge for internationals is for entry
to the New and then there's other things they might
add on top of that. They might add a tour,
they might add a special exhibition, what have you. I
mean again, our international visitors when they're in New Zealand,
they usually hear for a good few weeks and they're
really pushing the boat out in a lot of cases.
So the advice we've had from other friends in the

(03:17):
sector is that international visitors are often looking to do more,
to spend more, to have that once in the lifetime experience.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Kate, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Kate camp
to Papa spokesperson. Up for more from Hither Duplessyellen Drive,
Listen live to news talks they'd be from four pm weekdays,
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