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http://www.chicagotribune.com/

New Entrants Open Cultural-Pass Battle

By Kathy Bergen

February 15, 2005 – The pitched battle for the tourist dollar will grow all the more feverish in Chicago this spring as two new cultural-pass programs roll into town, challenging an existing museum-pass offering.

The "Go Chicago Card" will debut in May, offering visitors fixed-rate passes to 20-plus attractions, from the Adler Planetarium and trolley tours to river cruises and architectural walking tours, said Smart Destinations Inc., the Boston-based company that will offer the cards.

And "Power Pass Chicago," a flat-fee pass to an estimated 40 entertainment and cultural venues, will be unveiled in several weeks, said Deb Axtell, a vice president with Power Pass, a unit of Travel Fun Card Inc. in Armonk, N.Y.

These two "smart-card" passes will take on the Chicago edition of "CityPass," a ticket booklet sold by CityPass Inc. of Victor, Idaho. The booklet includes half-price tickets to the city's five major museums and the Hancock observatory.
The entries represent a migration toward a concept that has long been popular in Europe.

All three tout their products as offering visitors choice, flexibility, the possibility for deep discounts and the chance, in some cases, to skip waiting in lines, a combination that should resonate with tourists in Chicago, say local observers.

"People are as price sensitive as they ever have been," noted Dorothy Coyle, director of the Chicago Office of Tourism.

Can all three survive, even in a city that draws 30 million visitors a year?

"That depends on their business model," Coyle said. "Not if they are doing the exact same thing. They need to differentiate themselves in some way."

And with the competitive heat intensifying, all three are trying to do that.
CityPass, the established offering that debuted in May 2000, prides itself on giving people nine days to see the Hancock Observatory, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, the Adler Planetarium and the Museum of Science and Industry. Adult tickets are $49, youth tickets are $39, and they can be purchased at any of the sites.

"Our goal is to get everyone to use every ticket," said Susan Wilson, a spokeswoman for the company, which operates programs in nine North American cities. With the rival smart cards, "there are tons of things and only one, two or three days, so obviously they do not plan for people to do everything," she said.

Still, rising competition is leading the firm to make some changes. Starting April 1 the Boston CityPass will be good for a full year, and this might be extended to other cities, she said.
As well, the company is toying with the idea of devising separate summer and winter programs for Chicago, making adjustments to match the weather.

With the Go Chicago Card, "we want to provide more than six choices," said Cecilia Dahl, president of Smart Destinations, which launched its first two programs in Boston and San Francisco in the past year.

"We want to provide the customer with an entire destination experience," she said. "If they want to go cruise, it's there; if they want to go to the Hancock, it's there; a small historic home, it's there; a museum, it's there."

A one-day pass costs $39 for adults, $19 for kids. The per-day cost goes down for longer passes, the longest being a seven-day pass, costing $129 for an adult and $79 for a child.

A sample one-day itinerary, including a trolley pass, a visit to the planetarium, an architectural cruise and a visit to the Hancock, would cost a visitor $74.45 if he bought the tickets at retail prices from individual venues, the company noted.

Power Pass, which recently launched its first offerings in Las Vegas and New Orleans, plans a Chicago rollout this spring, with about 40 offerings. The attractions it hopes to include range from the planetarium and the Museum of Contemporary Art to architectural tours and lake cruises.

Chicago prices are not set yet, but are likely to be similar to those in Las Vegas, where a one-day adult pass is $50. Again, the per-day rate will be less on longer passes.

The firms running these programs reimburse local institutions, at negotiated rates, for the visits made by their customers.

"You do take a discount," said Margaret Marek, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Adler Planetarium. "But the benefit, in the long-run, is the potential to attract people who might not have visited, or who only have so much money to spend."

For visitors contemplating purchase of such passes the key is to plan what you actually think you'll go see before making the purchase, said Eileen Ogintz, an author and columnist on family travel issues.

"If these are places you think you'll really go ... it does represent a savings," she said. "If you're not sure what you're going to do, and you think you maybe will go to one thing, it's really not worth it, because it is not cheap."

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