Anastasia Biller's one of the heads of Public Relations and Services here at the Vatican Museum, thank you. You're welcome. Well, your role is managing the content interaction with the customers, between twenty-five and thirty thousand visitors per day, six million visitors per year and you deal with ticketing flows. Can you describe, first of all, the role of your office and then, what is the challenge of being in that role in a particular context like this, with such a massive flow of visitors? Yes, of course. Well I'm the Head of the Back Office of the Public Relations Service Department. Obviously, up until 2008 the online ticket system did not exist. In 2008 the Public Relations Service Office was created and that brought about a reorganization of all offices dealing with services that are available for the public. Therefore, all different areas were brought together, which now create the Public Relations Office. The back office obviously is made up of departments that deal with guided tours, an area that deals with the online ticket system. Another area which deals with private tours, which are available after closing time. And then obviously an area, since we are the Vatican Museums, an area that deals with the guests of the Secretariat of State and of the management of the Vatican Museums. As I mentioned before, up until 2008, tickets could not be bought online. If you wanted a ticket, you had to buy them at the entrance to the museums. Thanks to the online ticket system, tickets could be finally bought online. Obviously there are still those that prefer to queue up outside, but if we are talking about 25,000 people a day, they probably make up 20% of visitors that visit us every day. So perhaps we have the Koreans, the Korean tourists, that prefer to book via tour operators. Obviously they are traveling to Europe, the tour operator obviously is managing their tour throughout Europe and therefore they decide perhaps to save on the 4 Euros to skip the line outside. So they're still waiting in the queue. But obviously the ticket office has evolved obviously over the last years. So there's a number of different services that can be bought online so as to meet the demands of the growing tourism industry via internet. So if beforehand you could only book an admission ticket online, now obviously you can book guided tours and other services. You can combine an admission ticket with a breakfast, a lunch, a happy hour or even an audio guide. 23% of the individuals that booked online last year decided to add an audio guide to their admission ticket. Just to let you understand, in 2008 when the online ticket system was developed, in the autumn of that year 8,000 tickets were bought online by individuals. That grew to 270,000 in 2009. Last year 1.8 million visitors decided to book an admission ticket via the internet. So obviously the fact of being able to book a ticket, choose the day and the time, has obviously brought about an increase in the number of visitors to the Vatican Museums. Another point I would like to mention, is that tour operators up until 2008, if they wanted to book tickets, they needed to send a fax. And then queue up on the day of the visit to collect their tickets. Along with development of the online ticket system, tour operators could open a deposit account with the Vatican Museums, which means that they were managing their own bookings by themselves. So tour operators can book two months in advance. This means that they can move a higher volume of visitors. The over 300 tour operators which have a deposit account inside the Vatican Museums, they booked over 2.8 million tickets last year for their visitors. So the tour operator has a sort of account inside the Vatican Museums and they buy and purchase the single ticket, the group ticket based on this account. That's right. They can buy tickets, but obviously they can also buy the other services which we offer. The online ticket system enables the Vatican Museums to monitor and manage all admission tickets bought by tour operators, groups, pilgrimages, schools, universities, individuals because they all have a dedicated time slot, okay? Obviously the creation of the online ticket system and the reorganization of our office means as well that our staff can focus on the daily challenges. As you can imagine, 25,000 people per day is a lot to make sure is running correctly. So I can probably say that thanks to the online ticket office and our consequent reorganization, I can probably say that the public perception and the visitor experience has changed for the best. Regarding what you mentioned before about the fact that you are able to monitor the amount of tickets and the category of the visit of the ticket buyer online, You mentioned the example of one ticketer, for example the Koreans, so the fact that they typically, looking at the data collected, they don't buy online. And they prefer that to be queue and got the ticket. But in order to make this reading of the data effective, so you have this information and do you implement some tools in order to change the behavior of the visitors or not? Of course, of course, beforehand services such as breakfast, lunches and happy hours which can be bought online, beforehand they did not exist. It was thanks to our collaboration with tour operators that we realized the necessity to offer services that the general public actually wants. And therefore and now online, visitors can combine their ticket to a breakfast, a lunch, or even a happy hour. And these services are growing, continuing to grow in time. The number of visitors that take part in these tours every year is continuing to increase. The last point I would like to talk with you is regarding the flow. So, 25,000, we have of course a moment inside the day that there are part of this 6 kilometer itinerary that is more crowded than the other, talking about the Sistine Chapel, the corridors, and so on. So do you implement some technique in terms of preventing the visitor to enter, diversify the entrance or stop for a while this never ending flow of visitors? Of course, because of the online system we can manage the time-slots however we wish to. Obviously, the Vatican Museums, as you mentioned, are one of the most visited museums in the world. We registered last year over 6 million visitors. That ranks the Vatican Museums as the fourth most visited museum in the world after the Louvre in Paris, after the British Museum, and after the Metropolitan in New York. The Vatican Museums differ in key aspects from other leading institutions. And as you mentioned, Vatican Museums were not custom built. They are accommodating what was originally a papal residence. Therefore this causes logistic challenges, which we need to face considering the huge numbers of visitors that are continuing to visit us every year. Another ideological aspect of the Museums of the Pope is that nobody should be turned away. This obviously does not help the congestion inside the Museums. That is why the ticket office is fundamental. It means we can program the visits during the month, during the day. We know just to take an example, in the month of October we have large groups of Pilgrims from Germany. That means that we can program for that period a certain amount of guided tours to cater for the German Pilgrims that will be visiting, okay? Obviously as I mentioned before, as you mentioned, there are logistical problems to do with the layout of the museums. To deal with this we therefore created a series of different itineraries, which direct visitors to lesser well-known areas of the museum, so as to take the pressure off the main route, which leads to the Sistine Chapel. We have over, let's say 25 different types of tours to cater for this problem. Another initiative, which was inaugurated a few years ago, were the Friday night evening openings during the summer period which lasts from May to October. This obviously allows visitors to visit during the evening at their ease, but also means that the bookings are spread out during the day. Obviously to be able to manage such a huge number of visitors, if we are talking about 25,000, 30,000 during the peak season, the Office for Public Relations needs to work on a daily basis alongside the Security Department of the Vatican Museums. I can say, the successful management of these museums is due to the fact that the main areas of the museums are working together to deliver on the main aims of the institution with the objective of high quality standards. Regarding setting a pricing policy, all the prices of course are communicated online and also online, it's possible to book special visits for particular category of visitors. Can you talk about that? Yes, of course. One needs to remember that the Vatican Museums are an entity within the Vatican itself. And therefore, they have an unusual governance structure, being answerable to the Governorate of the Vatican itself. Therefore all decisions, even the decisions regarding the costs of different services offered by the Vatican Museums, have to be authorized by the Governatorate. As I mentioned before, the Vatican Museums have a wide range of experiences, all varying in costs. To be able to manage such a huge number of visitors everyday, the Vatican Museums need to understand the motivations and needs behind the visitors wanting to visit the Vatican Museums, whilst considering as well the financial capacities of each visitor wishing to visit. This is the fourth consecutive year the Vatican Museums has decided not to increase the cost of the admission ticket. As I said before, visitors are able to decide between a wide range of different experiences. Schools, universities, pilgrimages, they all have the right to a reduced price ticket. Obviously visitors who are wanting to experience something a little bit more exclusive can book a tour after the closing time. Obviously here the costs are not the same, they are a little bit more exclusive obviously. To a private tour you can add a dinner or even aperitif if you wish, to make something a little bit more exclusive. So you can imagine having a dinner in such an area is absolutely a once in a lifetime experience. Another tour which was made available last year, that now you can book online, was achieved thanks to the extraordinary activation of the Vatican Castel Gandolfo Railway. Which enables visitors to leave by train from inside the Vatican, which leads them right up to the Pontifical Villa of Castel Gandolfo. To enable families to take part in this tour, the Vatican Museums decided to create a family ticket, which means that families with two or more children would have the right to free tickets. To be able to study our ticketing policy and to compare what other institutions are doing, the Vatican Museums participate at different international travel markets. Thanks to our participation at the World Travel Market in London a few years ago and the opportunity to meet experts in disabled accessible tourism, the Vatican Museums realized the necessity to offer services for the disabled. The Vatican Museums now have a series of tours, all free of charge, for the disabled. So we have tours in sign language for the deaf. We have tactile tours for the blind. The participation at such fairs enables us to come into contact with the tour operators and to study the different markets and therefore develop new services which will then of coursel be available online. Anastasia Biller, one of the Heads of Public Relations and Services, thank you very much. You're welcome.
