We do. We do contract out our dining and catering service to one firm. For museums, unlike many cultural institutions or office facilities where there are multiple lists, we have a single contract for the dining and catering services, in large 301 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. part because of the delicacy of having events near works of art. So we do go through an extensive training period with a contractor. At present, we have a contract with Restaurant Associates, which is owned by Compass, one of the largest food service companies in -- actually based out of Great Britain and one of the largest in the country. It also provides dining services for other area cultural institutions in the City, but in most cities throughout the U.S., such as the Kennedy Center in Washington or at the Metropolitan Museum in New York or sports events, some of the stadium events. We review that contract every few years, and obviously our goal is to get not only the best service, dining services, but to look at participation rates in all of our contracts as well.
Isn't it so that they actually use Philadelphia residents, do they not, for the actual 302 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. serving and like?
I believe they do, but I'd have to get back to you on the specifics of that.
Okay. All right, then. So that was my only observation, the number reflecting women compared to the success you've enjoyed around disadvantaged firms of color. So I clearly understand now why. I can get to you information with Geri Swift and what she's doing.
Because her agency is specifically about helping women get better at accessing those types of opportunities.
Well, you can imagine that Anne d'Harnoncourt and I very much share your goal.
Thank you very, very much. Thank you. 303 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. MR. McPHERSON: Councilman Green.
Thank you. Before I go on, I was wondering if you could give clearly the best pupil from the class a grade for his questions and performance. How did Councilman Jones do?
You still have a lot of work to do, Councilwoman. So I was very interested in the discussion about the visitors that come in from out of town versus come in from the region, and I think you said that -- but the overnight guests may include regional guests that are just staying overnight for the weekend, et cetera. Do you know how many are outside the region, how many of your visitors, on a percentage basis?
I think outside 304 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. the region is about 30 percent, and what we have found, for every exhibition over the last ten years, we have been conducting visitor surveys. So we have extensive information on where our visitors are coming from, and we've been particularly pleased to see on a consistent basis over the last few years, for example, that visitors from literally every state in the United States have come to our exhibitions as well as visitors from overseas. Of course, the percentages vary from exhibition to exhibition, and when you have an exhibition such as Frida Kahlo, which is the only East Coast venue for this superb exhibition, the number of visitors from New York and Washington grow. When you have an exhibition such as the Renoir Landscapes we mounted in the fall, it was the only U.S. venue for that exhibition, and, again, you'll see a great percentage. So on average, we have 21 305 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. percent coming from the City, 38 percent coming from within one hour, 36 from beyond one hour, and five percent from outside of the United States. We've also noticed a trend in these visitor surveys, which is very encouraging for the City and adds tremendously to our ability to generate economic activity in the City, and, that is, that visitors -- and I'll speak in general terms, but visitors ten years ago would come for a day only, and now in part through these collaborations with other cultural institutions, we see that they not only come to see the Frida Kahlo show, but they'll spend an extra day or two or three to visit other great organizations and institutions in the region.
I think most of us are familiar with the benefit of just one extra day's stay in Philadelphia in terms of what it means to the economy of Philadelphia. I think average tourist 306 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. visits are 1.8 days a year. If we could extend that by one day, it would -- I can't remember the number, but mean like $60 million a year in taxes.
Exactly. I think we can get that for you, but we've been -- roughly we've seen it go from one day --
But when I go to New York on a convention, which I do occasionally as an attorney to go learn about securities law or something, it's usually a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and then my wife will join me Friday and we'll spend the weekend in the city. And I'm wondering to what extent you're working with the Convention Center to encourage that activity as part of their marketing efforts, because they're reaching out all over the country and 307 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. letting conventioneers know what's happening. Their website might have details about the convention who is coming, but is there a cross-pollination or a cross-marketing of our cultural institutions by that organization?
We should have mentioned earlier in our partnerships that we have a very good collaboration and partnership with the Convention Center and the PCVB. In fact, we have jointly approached tour operators not only outside the region but outside the country for exhibitions such as the Renoir Landscapes. They have targeted certain tour operators in certain European countries, and when our exhibitions seem particularly appropriate, we are partnering in our marketing effort very early on for visitors and for specific conventions.
And outside of the sort of specific transaction-based situations where it's this exhibit or 308 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. that exhibit, to what extent is it part of the culture of these marketing arms for the State or for the City to promote you in general or promote our arts and cultural institutions -- and I ask earlier the question of the parks -- to promote the parks as part of getting people to stay that weekend when they're here for a convention, et cetera? When it has nothing to do with a specific exhibit, is there -- you asked for help in marketing efforts, so I'm asking some questions.
Well, I think it's, again, an excellent question, and there's always room for improvement. I think what we've been encouraged by in these partnerships with the PCVB or the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation is just that, an encouragement to have visitors to the City for a convention stay for the weekend. As you mention it, I think 309 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. there's no question that we can look to ways to further improve that general approach, because I think what we find again and again is that visitors to the Museum and to the City are surprised by the depth of the cultural attractions throughout the City and the beauty of the parks and the -- I think we can all do a better job working together to cross-promote.
I think Gail is absolutely right. I think we have seen a huge amount of potential, and the potential is, again, is readier and easier to realize if you're talking about exhibitions, things with time sensitivity. But, in fact, Philadelphia's potential as a tourist destination because there are so many institutions and such a beautiful environment and it's such -- there's so much variety in what people can see and do, that just getting that information out there on a regular basis, it means 310 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. all of our websites working together, it means there's a lot of future potential, and I think -- my guess is, it will have something to do also with the budget for the Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Convention Center to be able to reach beyond the sort of -- but we can say for the specific to a more broader picture, we can say that when there's a convention of dentists or a convention of psychiatrists in town or many numbers of conventions, the Museum's numbers go up no matter whether there's an exhibition on or not, and that tells you something right there. So we think that there's plenty of room to grow that kind of collaboration.
Great. The thing that I wanted to talk about specifically was international -- well, two things, I guess. More people go to Williamsburg than come here, and they make it all up. We've got the real deal here in Philadelphia. 311 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. And so I do want to find a way to coordinate these marketing and economic development efforts so that it's all-encompassing. No matter what's happening or who is coming, we can do that. For example, I went to a convention in Seattle and I got e-mails from the people providing the convention. I guess they were paid something for it, to send it to everybody attending, but the e-mails were what I could do there on the weekend if I stayed, gave me restaurant reviews, gave me different hotels to stay at in this place or that place, a special pass for the museums for the weekend and what that cost. And it doesn't seem to me we're quite at that kind of organized level yet in terms of getting our economic development and marketing agencies and our cultural institutions, which really are economic development engines of the City as well, working completely together. And if you 312 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. have thoughts about how we can try to facilitate that or specific funding requests for trial efforts or other things, if you could provide them to the Chair, I'd be very interested in seeing what your thoughts are.
We'd be delighted to. This is something that I think particularly in international visitorship means an enormous amount to us. We discover -- I think the records show that, for example, the French visitors as a whole, that Philadelphia is an enormously attractive place because of all the art, because of the landscape, because of the layout of the City and the amount of history, and, of course, the French had a lot to do. There's Lafayette. There's a few other, and there was Benjamin Franklin going to France. And what we can say --
That's it. 313 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. That's it. But we think that there is a lot of hay to be made in the international, particularly right now since the dollar, et cetera.
That's exactly where I was going. This summer, right now everybody is making plans in Asia and in Europe, they're making plans for where to come to the United States, and we should be advertising all over Europe and Asia what is available in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, and hopefully we can do it through the state, because our resources are more limited here in Philly, but I just wondered your thoughts about international. It sounds like we're --
I'd like to give you a couple of low-cost ideas. One is, do you have any cooperative efforts with other major museums in the United States where they send what you've got to 314 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. their mailing list and vice versa, e-mail list?
Well, there are a number of cooperative programs, one of which is at a certain level of membership. Your membership in the Philadelphia Museum of Art admits you to a whole flock of other institutions and vice versa. There's an International Council of Museums, which does somewhat the same thing on a different level, does it internationally, but it's not really marketed yet in the way that it might be. But we work very collaboratively. We work, I would say, particularly in this region with the Brandywine or the Delaware Art Museum or institutions, small and large, in the greater Philadelphia area, the tristate area. We do a lot of programming together and cross-exhibition planning. I mean, there's a Frida Photography exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum right now that -- 315 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.
I'm speaking more nationally and internationally. It just seems to me that it doesn't hurt the Louvre at all to e-mail their list about what's going on in Philadelphia or a series of major institutions like that and the Philadelphia Art Museum to help each other, let their real art connoisseurs and consumers know who is doing what where in terms of trying to get us more exposure internationally and people talking about us. Have you seen this? It's a Paris Museum pass. It also allows you onto any bus or subway. And so you can get around Paris with using public transportation with this pass. It's got a map of where all the institutions are. I'd just like to know your thoughts about whether or not you'd cooperate in an effort to have something like this for Philadelphia.
I think it looks like a great idea. I mean, it's 316 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. interesting, in Paris, also Amsterdam, there are a number of big international cities in Europe that have been working out -- it helps if the French government is behind you, which in that case is probably the case, because a lot of those museums are state-supported museums and so are the subways and the buses, or else it's either City of Paris. But it's the kind of thing that really needs to come to Philadelphia in one way or another. I think just a user-friendly map particularly focused on cultural amenities, parks, et cetera, could be -- I mean, there are a number of maps available, but they're often less -- they're more generic and less targeted to specific. I think there's room to make advances in all of these fields.
Great. I look forward to working with you on this, and thank you very much for coming in and your testimony and great work you guys are doing at the Philadelphia Museum of 317 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. Art. Thank you.
Thank you. I just wanted to caution you that you gave my colleague an A plus and he has nothing to work towards. I think he's still at like a B minus. We're working on him. But I did want to thank you on the record, because one of the themes that I find myself having in this Council is around diversity, and I want to thank you and congratulate you both on Tesoros and Frida Kahlo, because you have globalized some of these themes. And while they're Latino based or Latino themed, they have done great to highlight our image across the country and across the world. So I want to thank you, because you've proven that it could be profitable and that we can generate new 318 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. partnerships of it, and I would hope that people would be open to more diversity as we really become a global city. I wanted to ask for a point of clarification. I was trying to get that, but my colleague, Blondell, didn't see me. One of the things that you talked about in your minority contracting is that you only contract with two entities. So this $38 million is contracted out with two just entities. Who are they?
These are two different contracts with our construction contract with L.F. Driscoll. So we were instructed by the Finance Department to call them two different entities even though it's one company, two contracts.
So our contracting at the Art Museum at 38 million is just really one company?
One company. Okay. I wanted that 319 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. clarification. You spoke about your request for an increase, because we currently pay 37 percent of your operating and you'd like to see us at 50 percent. Can you tell me what your overall budget is and how much you raise of that independently?
Yes, I think we can. Our budget is, for this year, I think is 45. I was going to say 44, 45, looking to my right here, $45 million, and we do an enormous amount of annual fundraising. We are striving to increase our endowment, which the income of which helps the budget very substantially, and that's grown over the last years, although it's still -- the endowment is still more healthy than it was, but it's still only half of that, for example, at some our colleagues, whether the Art Institute of Chicago or the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which are museums of similar scale and similar fixed obligations to their collections 320 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. and their public. We also have wonderful revenue that comes in from every earned income activity that we can think of that is appropriate to an art museum, whether the store, whether the restaurant, whether the -- of course, the membership is a wonderful income provider. But it's the City's piece, which is, in some ways you could say, modest in the -- certainly now you might say is modest in relation to the total cost of the maintenance and security. If the City were able, over the coming years, to year by year incremental increases to where it could get to fully fund the maintenance and security, that would be an enormous boost for the Museum, because it would be a base off of which we can continue to fundraise and to grow the Museum and grow and diversify our audience, which is really our -- and our service and particularly our education service. 321 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc.
I wanted just to make my point that at the end of the day, three million out of a $45 million budget is not as much. I had a question. How much money do we get from the state? One of the things that I think we don't recognize is even though you're called the Philadelphia Museum of Art, you're such a regional treasure. How much money, if any, do we get from the state or any of the other governments? I mean, I was pleased to see folks from Wilmington, Delaware. One of the perks of this job is, my husband gets to go to these exhibit openings, the only perk of the job, but I am very pleased to see folks coming from different sectors. So my question is, is the state giving us money? What percentage of the budget do they continuously give you for operating, so that as we begin to talk to our county partners with this new Administration, we begin to sell you as a 322 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. regional institution?
That's a very good question. The state support for the operating budget comes through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts has been -- there really is a need perceived by all the cultural institutions, not only in Philadelphia, but across Pennsylvania to increase that support relative to the per capita richness of the state in cultural institutions, which contributes -- cultural and historic, which contributes so much to the state economy. The funding is very modest. I'm going to say it's about 450,000 a year, maybe a little bit more, but I don't think so. And they actually had to reduce it slightly last year. And we, as you can imagine, we and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh and the Philadelphia Orchestra, we're at the top and there are lots -- but it's very important that they also give to smaller. 323 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. But there's no question that that state government and we've had -- we've been very encouraged in working with our state legislators and with others to help increase that. But we do get capital monies from the state at intervals, not by any means as long a history as we have with the City of Philadelphia, which built our landmark building 80 years ago, and that's important. But I think we're very focused also on working with our colleagues across -- we think that Mayor Nutter's challenge at the Chamber of Commerce lunch to the regional commissioners and counties to help envision a way to fund -- to do more collaboration and to do more funding, regional funding for the arts, would make an enormous difference, and that currently does not, as you know, does not exist in a formal way, including Philadelphia.
Thank 324 4/1/08 - WHOLE - BILL 080022, etc. you. Thank you for your staff, Cheryl, Bill, Deanna, everyone for working with us.
Thank you very much. We are very impressed by the freshman class.
Are there any further questions from members of the Committee? (No response.)
Seeing no one, this Committee will stand in recess until tomorrow, Wednesday, April 2nd at 10:00 a.m. Thank you all very much. (Committee of the Whole adjourned at 3:25 p.m.) - - - 325 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on April 1, 2008, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)