We will continue to innovate and expand opportunities for communities across the country and the world to engage with Australia’s maritime story – past, present and future.

As custodian of the National Maritime Collection we will continue to care for it, maintain its relevance and use new methods to maximise access for audiences and researchers.

We will create an Encounters 2020 program that meaningfully reaches audiences whatever their background and wherever they are located.

Performance criterion
The key performance measure of sharing the national maritime story is:

Engagement

• Total visitor engagement (onsite, including programs; travelling; online; education; Encounters 2020)
• Total number of annual offsite visitors to the organisation
• Total number of annual online visits
• Total number of students participating in educational programs (onsite, offsite and online)

Encounters 2020

• Number of participants in and visitors and viewers to the Encounters 2020 program offsite by 2023

Collection digitisation and online accessibility

• Percentage of the total collection available to the public online by 2022
• Percentage of the total collection digitised.

Criterion source
2019–20 Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS), pp 144–145
2019–23 Corporate Plan, p 7

Engagement

Results

Total visitation

Student participation

Online participation

Methodology

Total engagement

Total visitor engagement is the aggregate of the key engagement elements of total visitation, student participation (onsite, offsite and online), online visitation, social media engagement and engagement with the museum’s Encounters 2020 initiatives, including mainstream media reporting. The method of calculation of each element is set out below.

Note that for the purpose of measuring total engagement only, the student participation figure excludes engagement with learning products on the museum’s website, including The Voyage Game, Cook’s Voyages and teacher resources. This is to ensure that these are not double counted, as they are counted as part of online visitation.

Total visitation

Total visitation is calculated by aggregating onsite visitation to the museum and visitation to the museum’s offsite exhibitions and programs, including voyaging. Onsite and offsite visitation are separately reported. The framework for onsite visitation is at Annex A.

Offsite visitation

Offsite visitation is determined through aggregation of actual attendance data provided by various borrowing institutions. It also includes attendees to talks given by the museum’s Speaker’s Group, as well as visitors to Endeavour while at port in New Zealand for the Tuia 250 program.

Onsite visitation

Onsite visitation is determined by aggregating actual ticket sales and membership visitation recorded at front of house (collected through the AXPOS system), actual venue client data (collected in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and Events Perfect catering system), manual counting of actual visitors to Wharf 7 exhibits, an estimate of museum footprint visitation (based on a standard formula derived from onsite counting camera data over a week of sampling) and, for rooftop projections, an estimate of viewers on the Pyrmont Bridge (based on a formula which has regard to data provided by Property NSW and the results of sampling using camera counting and manual counting). The museum introduced use of mobile phone tracking data, compiled by an external company, to measure visitation for outdoor temporary exhibitions from December 2018, taking a conservative approach (that is, reducing numbers) to ensure staff were not inadvertently counted. Onsite visitation excludes people only using the museum’s store, coffee kiosk, restaurant or facilities. Consistent with past years, it includes participants in public programs onsite but excludes participants in organised school programs onsite.

Student participation

Total participation in organised school programs is the aggregate of onsite, offsite and online participation by students and teachers. However, for the purpose of the calculation of total engagement, online student participation excludes education material on the museum’s website (this is counted as online visitation).

Onsite participation in school programs is determined by aggregating data regarding actual numbers collected by front of house from the museum educators. As the data is also used to compile invoices for payment for school visits, there is an additional check involved. Offsite participation is the sum of all who participate in museum education programs that are held beyond our site, calculated by collating data from delivery staff and school bookings. Total online participation in school programs includes museum learning content on other websites (eg ABC Education) and user sessions on the following pages of the museum’s website: all pages that include curriculum-linked resources; The Voyage Game; Cook’s Voyages; and Virtual Endeavour. Total online participation in school programs is calculated using a range of methods (ABC Learning provides data on visitation to museum content on its website; schools advise on the number of students participating in video-conferencing; participants in web-streaming are estimated using classroom views calculated by the Digital and Remote Technology System of the NSW Department of Education or equivalent).

Online visitation

Online visitation is the number of visits to the museum’s website (www.sea.museum), calculated by using the sessions metric in Google Analytics. This is calculated retrospectively by looking at the data for the financial year for all digital properties and adding them together. As the website receives more than 500,000 visits per financial year, the numbers are subject to Google Analytics data sampling. In order to avoid double counting for total engagement purposes, the museum tracks participation in online education programs, virtual excursions, as well as The Voyage Game and Cook’s Voyages as a separate line, and these are included in total online visitation. Online visitation does not include visitors to the museum’s social media pages, downloads of the museum app or visits by museum staff. Note that visits to museum educational or other content on other organisation’s websites (such as the ABC) are not included in the total (these are counted under the student participation category).

Social media engagements are calculated by consolidating the data provided directly from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram analytics. An engagement is counted when someone likes, comments, shares or interacts with a post made on the museum’s social channels.

Encounters 2020

While an element of total engagement, the methodology for calculation of participation in Encounters 2020 is separately reported below.

Note 1: The data in this Annual Performance Statement is compiled by the relevant business unit applying the data definitions in the National Cultural Institutions Key Performance Indicator Framework compiled by the former Department of Communications and the Arts (now Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications with refinements where appropriate.

Note 2: Data for performance past years is sourced from the relevant Annual Report and adjustments made in the 2018–19 report have been carried forward.

Note 3: All supporting data for the analysis is actuals collected at the operational level.

Analysis

Total engagement in 2019–20 was 7.56M this year, with 3.44M attributable to mainstream media mentions of the Encounters 2020 program. The Encounters 2020 result is discussed separately below.

Excluding Encounters 2020, the museum engaged with 4.1M people in 2019–20, which was ahead of target. This is a strong result given that the major contributor to the engagement figures, total visitation, was heavily affected by the closure of the museum and partnering institutions for much of the fourth quarter due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Very strong onsite visitation figures in the third quarter effectively carried the performance for the year in this area. Also, the very pleasing results in the online space and with social media helped the museum to stay connected with the public during the closure and meet the total engagement target.

The target for people engaging with the Encounters 2020 program was exceeded by 1.5M due to media mentions of the program and despite the Endeavour replica not circumnavigating as planned. The results on this aspect are discussed separately below.

Total visitation

Total visitation for the year was 1.85M, which was 7% below target.

Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on total visitation, this was still a strong year for visitation and the results exceeded total visitation for every previous year except 2017–18 (1.87M) and 2018–19 (2.1M).

The contribution of offsite visitation is analysed below and onsite visitation is analysed under Priority 2 – Compelling experiences .

Offsite visitation

There were 936K offsite visitors this year, which was 16% behind target.

Offsite visitation contributed more than 50% to the museum’s total visitation this year, demonstrating that the challenge of sharing the national maritime story is being met.

Touring exhibitions

In 2019–20 there were 910,947 visitors to the museum’s travelling exhibitions in Australia and overseas. This is behind target due to the fact that most venues in Australia and overseas were closed from the middle of March onwards due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Information about the museum’s touring exhibitions is included in the annual report (see Touring exhibitions). This year the museum toured 16 exhibitions in total. Ten of these exhibitions were displayed at 17 international venues and 11 exhibitions were displayed at 64 venues throughout Australia, with distribution set out in the following table:

From 12 September to 12 December 2019, the museum’s Endeavour replica voyaged to New Zealand to participate in that country’s Tuia 250 program. A total of 19,427 people visited the vessel at six ports in New Zealand and this contributed to offsite visitation.

This year the museum’s Speakers Bureau delivered 123 talks to a total audience of 6,321. While this number was down on last year due to the impact of COVID-19, it should be noted that in Q4 the speakers were able to deliver 10 talks to 503 people via online methods, indicating that the program will move forward next year even if distancing requirements make physical talks impossible.

Student participation

Almost 380K students participated in onsite, offsite and online learning programs this year, which was 120% ahead of target. 25K students participated in onsite and offsite learning programs and the remainder participated online (through either the museum’s website or by engaging with the museum’s learning products on external websites).

While participation in onsite and offsite learning programs was down due to COVID-19, online student participation was extraordinarily strong.

The development of a key partnership with ABC Education has led to a significant online footprint that has increased the exposure of the museum’s resources and allowed for the collaborative development of new materials designed specifically for student audiences reaching 45K this year. Particularly successful over the past 12 months have been the ABC digibooks (Journey along Australia’s East Australian Current and The HMB Endeavour’s voyage of exploration).

Over 300K students and teachers used the resources on the museum’s website this year. This included all pages that include teacher resources, The Voyage Game, Cook’s Voyages game and the museum’s Virtual Endeavour VR (virtual reality) tour.

Online visitation

There were 1.7M online visitors and 487K social media engagements this year. Online visitation was 24% ahead of target. This result was due to several major initiatives – the online learning games (The Voyage Game and Cook’s Voyages), strong public relations and online marketing of the museum’s exhibitions and programs, as well as the online collection and a concerted effort to drive online engagement after the museum’s closure on March 24.

Encounters 2020

Results

Methodology

The Encounters 2020 program, scheduled over the 2019–20 and 2020–21 financial years, has many elements, including onsite and offsite exhibitions and educational programs, as well as the circumnavigation of Australia by the Endeavour replica, a film, an art fair commission and a digital game (Cook’s Voyages).

To avoid double counting for visitation and student participation etc, this measure is confined to people engaged in voyaging (ship and shore), viewers of sail-by, viewers of the broadcast of the funded film, visitors to the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair and readers of print media referring to the program. It is acknowledged that achievement of the targets regarding viewers of the documentary film, visitors to Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (and also the viewers of ABC Online educational videos) and mainstream media are outside the primary control of the museum.

Audience data for the film and art fair are to be sourced from the broadcaster and event organiser respectively. Data for readers of media articles related to the Encounters 2020 program are sourced from an external media monitoring company, with only articles referring to ‘Encounters 2020’ counted towards the target. As the voyage did not proceed this year, no data were collected related to ship or shore voyaging and related activities.

Analysis

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum did not proceed with the circumnavigation of Australia by the Endeavour replica this year. As a result, there were no visitor engagements for voyaging or associated onshore activities. Also, as neither the film nor the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair was programmed for this year there was, as expected, no audience engagement from these sources. The Cook’s Voyages educational game was launched on 29 April 2020 and 8,538 people played 13,590 games this year (note these players are counted towards the student participation targets).

Mainstream media reporting of the Encounters 2020 program generated significant publicity for the museum and the anniversary of Cook’s charting of the east coast – reaching audiences of 3,439,730 for 83 articles with mentions of ‘Encounters 2020’. This was the tip of the iceberg in terms of media profile for this project (for example, 3.5M people read articles about the 29 April anniversary, some of which did not mention ‘Encounters 2020’, and, as mentioned below, 2.25M people read articles referring to ‘the view from the ship and the view from the shore’).

The museum acknowledged the 250th anniversary of Cook’s first Pacific voyage with the opening of the Under Southern Skies gallery and three temporary exhibitions (Ship and Shore, Cook and the Pacific and HERE: Kupe to Cook), as well as an extensive digital offering including the Cook’s Voyages game and a new rooftop projection called Strange big canoe. We are also the principal funder of a new film, Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky, to be screened later in the year, and are proceeding with acquisitions from the Cairns Indigenous Arts Fair.

There were 105 media mentions of ‘view from the ship and view from the shore’ this year – a phrase coined by the museum about five years ago to refer to the bicultural perspectives of Cook’s encounter with Australia’s Indigenous peoples. The museum was referred to in 82 of these mentions. A total of 2.25M people were exposed to the phrase ‘ship and shore’, with an advertising value of $2.1M.

Collection digitisation and online accessibility

Methodology

All data pertaining to collection item management is recorded in or derived from the museum’s collection management system (TMS). The percentage of collection objects digitised is based on the percentage of objects in the collection for which there is at least one digital image as at 30 June.

Analysis

In November 2016, the museum officially launched the ‘Unlocking the Collection’ initiative, which provides the public with access to digital images and information about objects in the collection. As at 30 June 2020, there were 105,114 objects available online. There were 83,636 visits to the online collection this year (up from 72,905 last year).

In 2019–2020, 712 objects were digitised. As at 30 June 2020, 61.65% of the objects in the National Maritime Collection had been digitised. This result was on target. The priorities of digitisation are determined by the museum’s digitisation strategy. All high-value items and new acquisitions have been digitised.