Maintaining success is a challenge for any organization or business, and often requires fresh thoughts and approaches.
The Columbus Visitors Center talking with the Indianapolis Museum of Art about adding Christmas season tours of the Miller House is just that type of fresh idea.
Tours of the the Eero Saarinen-designed Miller House — once lived in by industrialist J.I. Miller and his wife Xenia — are one of the biggest visitor attractions for Columbus, which is rated as the sixth-most architecturally significant city.
The designation provides Columbus with a great calling card, and has helped attract thousands of visitors. When they arrive, they have a variety of tour options:
Architectural bus
Miller House and Garden
Guided walking
Cellphone
Self-guided map
However, tour numbers have been leveling off. While the number of tours conducted by the visitors center is up 1.7 percent from this time last year, the number of people taking tours is down 3.5 percent.
The visitors center’s new executive director, Karen Niverson, has been looking for new ideas to provide more reasons to bring guests to Columbus, and seems to have found one that likely would be a hit. The idea is to offer tours of the Miller House complete with holiday décor starting next year.
That would offer a fresh view of a popular attraction at a fun time of year — and probably draw a lot of interested people.
We hope all the details can be worked out to make this tour idea a reality, and in the process bring a few more visitors to town.
