HJ Visitation in March

Initial reports from the Park Service indicate that 25,396 visitors came to Historic Jamestowne in the month of March. Naturally this is considerably fewer than visited in the anniversary year of 2007. March 2008 was 34% below the numbers for March 2007. However, it was 10% higher than the number for March 2006. It matched almost exactly the five year average for March from 2003 through 2007. Easter fell in March this year, which only happens every few years. Easter was last in March in 2005 and the number for that year was 7% higher than 2008. All of these numbers are just for a sense of comparison. It is going to be very interesting to watch the visitation numbers for Historic Jamestowne this year. We could not budget for this year based on 2007 so this year will not only prove important for operations this year, it will set the budget levels for operations next year and influence that decision beyond. It will also be difficult to determine the impact of higher gasoline prices as we do not have "typical" numbers from a recent period to compare. But, it will be interesting to watch!