The initial rush of visitors is over at the Otago Museum's Tropical Forest attraction, but organisers say its finances remain sound as a planned review of its future draws near.
Figures released by the museum last week show the paid-entry facility, which is home to about 1000 brightly-coloured tropical butterflies, generated a better-than-budgeted surplus of about $43,000 over the first half of the latest financial year.
The forest attraction opened in late 2007 and has proven highly popular.
Visitor attendance at the museum's Discovery World science centre, which includes the forest, was down 21% for the first five months of the financial year.
But the centre and forest had still attracted 40,528 visitors, figures released earlier showed.
Figures for the six months ending December 31 last year showed the forest had produced a $65,145 surplus, which is better than the $22,070 year-to-date budget but $40,328 less than at the comparable stage in the previous year.
Although admissions income, at $225,459, was below budget by $49,543, salary and wage costs, at $19,640, were well below the $77,478 budget for the period, and other costs were $31,777 below the $92,524 budget.
Museum chief executive Shimrath Paul told the Otago Museum Trust Board last week the forest had been envisaged as a three-year project, and its future would, accordingly, be reviewed this year.
As had been predicted, the honeymoon period of most intense initial visitor interest was over, but it was encouraging that the forest was still producing a surplus, he said.
In a later interview, Clare Wilson, the museum director of exhibitions, development and planning, said a review would be undertaken about May.
The facility received no funding from council rates and had to stand on its own feet financially.
Costs had been reduced to match somewhat lower activity levels but no redundancies had resulted, she said.
