Team:
I had an opportunity to stroll the decks last week and see first hand some of the wonderful work you are doing. It is humbling to see the improvements that we make on a weekly basis due to your commitment and work.
I am excited to see what the team has in store with the upcoming gunnery tour planned. This will be the first in a series of new concepts that we hope will define the future of the museum. These tours were written into our master plan for the National Museum concept and they will remain mainstays well into the future.
We were informed last week that we will be receiving an education grant for our daytime program from a long-time supporter. I am not mentioning them in this email, to give them an opportunity to publicly announce in the coming weeks. We will see some great additions in the coming months in our education programs, thanks in large part to this support!
Veterans Day is coming up and we will be hosting a film festival on board ship for this day. This is always a busy day aboard ship and we hope you will join in. We will also be extending our brand into Downtown LA this year with our support of the LA County Veterans Day LA. We are one of the key partners in this program with Supervisor Janice Hahn and LA County Military and Veterans Affairs. A shout out to Janice Bowman for her work on this program that is coming together nicely!
Our board(s) are working on setting up committees and focused on the plan for the future. David and the IT team are working with the board on implementing an early donor program for the National Museum with a planned release in early 2020. This will be an exciting addition to our outreach efforts! A shout out to crew member Larry Olson on his work with the board(s) and implementation of the portal. This will help streamline our future communications (along with our new webcasting programs).
We continue to focus on marketing adjustments to generate traffic for our programs. This past week our ticket revenue (POS and Online) year over year was up 29% and attendance was up 25%. With that being said, anything can drive that change – but we are happy to see it! Appreciation to our overnight and events team for their work continuing to push on outreach – it is showing! I encourage you to see the impact of your work on TripAdvisor or Google MyBusiness. You will consistently read positive messages that highlight the experience you provide to our guests daily!
Some of our near term day-to-day priorities continue to remain focused on revenue generation, expense reduction, and focused efforts. We have a initiatives planned in the coming months in all departments to better the organization has a whole! We truly appreciate your support and look forward to being a stronger organization in the future!
We wish you a safe and successful week!
Jonathan Williams, President & CEO
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-williams-46a3663a/
Instagram: jonathanwilliamsbb61