When does this kind of data become actionable?Annual visitation to the Museum of the Confederacy has dropped from 92,000 to 51,500 since the early 1990s.
And American Civil War Center [in Richmond] isn’t close to their projected 60,000 annual visitors nine months into their opening, and officials would not say how many visitors had come so far.
Remember just a few weeks ago when West Virginians were expecting "millions" of visitors to visit a Civil War monument they sought funding for? Needless to say, a monument can hardly compete with ACW museums in Richmond (no less).
There's going to be a funding backlash against the persistently irresponsible tourism projections of state officials that could eventually hurt Civil War sites. The reaction will probably set in early during the Sesquicentennial, when the projected visitor streams bump against reality.
