Texas museums, heritage sites, parks, and protected places responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

Keywords: COVID-19, Pandemic, Parks, Protected Places, Heritage Sites, Museums, Disasters
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 67

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted routine business operations and forced entities to adapt quickly to the emerging threat as cases increased and as federal, state, and local governments issued public health guidelines. In March 2020, many museums, heritage sites, parks, and protected places rushed to accommodate shutdowns and stay-at-home orders through increased online programming while contending with interruptions to employee availability and flagging revenue. Yet, the pandemic’s impacts on these entities were uneven. In many cases, the visitorship of parks and protected places increased, whereas museum visitors decreased. The purpose of this research is to understand the impacts and recovery strategies of museums, heritage sites, parks, and protected places during the first year of the pandemic and as officials relaxed guidelines and businesses began to reopen during summer 2021. Specifically, we focus on the experiences of Texas entities. At the behest of its governor, Texas was one of the first states to reopen for business. In March 2021, we surveyed managers, senior personnel, and owners of museums, heritage sites, parks, and protected places to examine the economic, staff, and visitor impacts of the pandemic on operations. We analyzed survey responses via descriptive statistics, logistic regression, and content analysis. Preliminary results indicate varied responses to the pandemic across entities. Significant differences occurred between entities with outdoor programming versus those with primarily indoor programming. Content analysis of open-ended questions suggests entities reached visitors through virtual programming, including classes and workshops, and via remote access to their content.