The royals got the blockbuster tourist season they needed. Phew.
The Royal Collection Trust desperately needed a lot of tourists last year to staunch its accounts' red ink. Luckily, it got a coronation.
Note: Last week, I came home from a short holiday, and immediately tested positive for COVID. For the first time. Sigh. Luckily my symptoms were relatively mild except for finding it tiring to look at a screen for any length of time. For that reason, I skipped last week’s edition. As always, I’ll make up that missing post in the weeks ahead.
There was a lot riding on the 2023-24 tourist season. Last year, I wrote about how the pandemic had ruined the balance sheet of the Royal Collection Trust. It desperately needed a good year to get back on the path to financial health. Well, there’s nothing like a once-in-a-lifetime coronation exhibit to bring in visitors.
Recently, the Royal Collection Trust published its annual review for 2023-24, revealing it did indeed get the needed blockbuster season at Buckingham Palace:
“The 2023 summer opening was a record year, with an average of over 9,000 visitors per day – the highest daily average in the 30 years since Buckingham Palace first opened in 1993.”
For those wondering what the Royal Collection Trust is and how it’s different from the Royal Collection — go to the bottom of this post for a primer.
Currently, there are six occupied royal residences and art galleries run by the Royal Collection Trust (RCT):
Windsor Castle (Windsor)
Buckingham Palace (London)
Queen’s Gallery (Buckingham Palace, renamed the King’s Gallery)
Royal Mews (London)
Palace of Holyroodhouse (Edinburgh)
Queen’s Gallery (Palace of Holyroodhouse, renamed the King’s Gallery)
WHY THEY NEEDED A HIT TOURIST SEASON
Like many charities, the Royal Collection Trust (RCT) was blindsided by the pandemic. Revenues evaporated as royal residences were closed to tourists for large chunks of 2020 and 2021. As a result, its financial statements are dripping in red ink. It suffered net deficit of 21.3 million pounds or CAD$36.6 million, its financial statement stated. It reorganized and reduced its activities, but still posted a net deficit of £15 million or CAD$26 million in 2021-22.
RCT took out a loan to help bridge the financial chasm and got a lot of help from the royal household, which dramatically reduced its “facilities management charge” — a fee for using the palaces to carry out RCT activities, including the summer tourist opening. But the trust needed revenues to soar in 2023-24. Luckily, tourists flocked to the U.K. for the coronation, with many buying tickets to royal residences.
HOW GOOD WAS THE 2023-24 SEASON?
The huge increase in visitors meant that numbers returned to more than 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels. In total, 2.7 million visitors snapped up entry tickets and contributed to 27 million pounds in onsite and online retail sales — yup, those plates, mugs, key chains, and other tchotchkes marking every imaginable royal event are very, very popular — to give the RCT an income of 84 million pounds in income (CAD$150 million).
The top destination is Windsor Castle, which is open year round and got 1.4 million visitors, followed by Buckingham Palace (530,000), which is open full-time during the summer as well as for selected tours during the rest of the year.
Officially, the RCT”s annual profit was 12.2 million pounds. And that good news meant that the RCT could dramatically cut its “deficit on free reserves” from 30.2 million pounds in March 2022 to just five million pounds two years later. In addition, the loan it took out to survive during the pandemic has been slashed.
IMPACT OF THAT FINANCIAL GOOD NEWS
That surge in income meant that the Royal Collection Trust could “broaden public access,” including offering free or reduced-price tickets to eligible groups. It is also developing a plans for a new storage facility at Windsor.
Then there is the nuts and bolts of preserving and showcasing a priceless collection. In addition to conserving more than 4,800 items — including 18th-century baby bonnets of the infant Princess Charlotte (1796-1817) and 39 paintings including The Field of Cloth of Gold from the 16th century — it also digitized more than 4,500 photographs.
People don’t need to go to palaces and castles to see items in the Royal Collection. Often, those items come to them in the form of loans. In addition to 11,000 long-term loans, the RCT sent 163 items to be displayed in 39 exhibitions on four continents in 2023-24, including 13 First Nations birch bark baskets sent to the Peterborough Museum and Archives in Ontario for the exhibition “To Honour and Respect: Gifts from the Michi Saagiig Women to the Prince of Wales, 1860.” As the annual report stated: “Upon arrival, the baskets were welcomed in Anishinaabemowin, the language of the Michi Saagiig Anishnaabeg community, and smudged — a purifying process — by Hiawatha First Nation Chief Carr. The loan was the first time the baskets had been seen and handled by their source community since their presentation to the Crown in 1860.”
Some of that conservation work can be seen by visitors who snagged tickets for the new East Wing tour of Buckingham Palace. In addition to overhauling essential services in that wing, the emptying of its treasures during the massive "reservicing programme” (the royal version of a complete reno) allowed conservators to examine, restore, and treat clocks, silver-gilded furniture, and other items.
WILL THE GOOD NEWS CONTINUE?
We’ll know in a year, but the signs are looking good. The inaugural East Wing tour sold out in a few hours; Buckingham Palace has increased its hours and is open seven days a week this summer, only reducing to five days a week in September; and there’s a lot of small tours on offer, as well as talks and private viewings (they are much more expensive: the evening guided tour of Buckingham Palace is 95 pounds per person, compared to a regular adult price of 35 pounds).
BACKGROUND ON THE ROYAL COLLECTION AND THE TRUST
Welcome to the convoluted world of royalty. I’ll try to make this as clear as possible.
The Royal Collection: All those Vermeers, Rembrandts, and other works of art in Buckingham Palace and other royal residences are part of the Royal Collection, which is “held in trust by the Sovereign for his successors and the nation, and is not owned by The King as a private individual.” The collection has been built by generations of royals and includes everything from clocks, chandeliers, and furniture to glassware and gifts — yup, all those tchotchkes given by governments are carefully catalogued and put on display when a leader comes to visit.
Everything is cared for by the Royal Collection Trust (RCT). I’m going to use its own definition as its nature isn’t obvious:
Royal Collection Trust, a department of the Royal Household, is responsible for the care of the Royal Collection and manages the public opening of the official residences of The King. Income generated from admissions and from associated commercial activities contributes directly to The Royal Collection Trust, a registered charity. The aims of The Trust are the care and conservation of the Royal Collection, and the promotion of access and enjoyment through exhibitions, publications, loans and educational programmes.
Though a high-profile charity, the RCT receives “no funding from the government,” explains the most recent report of the Sovereign Grant, which support the official duties of the monarch and maintain what are known as “the occupied royal palaces.” (The unoccupied palaces, such as the Tower of London, fall under the purview of another non-profit, Historic Royal Palaces).
As the RCT gets no funding from the government, its finances depend on visitors coming to Britain and spending a lot of money in its palaces, castles, shops and restaurants. It’s not like the RCT can sell a Van Dyke or a Rubens to pay off its loan.
Note: Because of COVID, I did the segment remotely.
My latest Royal Roundup segment on The Morning Show on Global Television (August 12, 2024)
If you are't travelling to Britain, the Royal Collection online shop has some unique items at a variety of price points, and they ship around the world.