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Operating revenues for Canada's heritage institutions, excluding nature parks and archives, reached $1.23 billion in 2009. Operating revenues for heritage institutions consist of government and private contributions, admission receipts, membership dues and sales, and miscellaneous sources.

Total operating revenues in 2009 increased by 3.1% over the previous year. Not-for-profit institutions contributed the bulk of total operating revenues (91.3%).

The three most populous provinces accounted for most of the industry's revenues: Ontario (41.9%), Quebec (26.3%), and British Columbia (13.4%).

History and science museums, exposition centres, planetariums and observatories together generated 49.7% of the industry's total revenues.

Non-commercial art galleries and museums generated 22.8% of total revenues for the industry, followed by botanical gardens, winter gardens, aquariums and zoos (20.6%). The remaining revenues came from historic and heritage sites.

Total industry operating costs rose by 2.5% over the previous year. Salaries, wages and benefits for all heritage institutions increased by 5.0% in 2009. These represent 45.5% of the industry's operating costs, a slight increase of 1.1% compared to 2008 (44.4%). The data on salaries and benefits do not include services rendered by volunteers.

Heritage institutions posted an increase in their profit margin, which rose from 1.9% in 2008 to 2.4% in 2009.

Unless otherwise indicated, the data provided in the rest of this release deal with the not-for-profit institutions covered by the survey.

The number of visitors to zoos, museums, historic sites and art galleries declined by 1.6% in 2009, with 27.0 million visitors going through the turnstiles compared to 27.4 million in 2007.

Revenues generated by admission receipts represented 14.1% of total revenues generated by not-for-profit institutions in 2009. This percentage is up from the 12.9% observed in 2007.

Subsidies, fundraising campaigns and donations from various public and private sector sources constituted 63.3% of total revenues, down from the 63.8% posted two years earlier.

The average admission charge for an adult for all not-for-profit heritage establishments surveyed rose from $4.89 in 2007 to $5.29 in 2009, an increase of 8.3% before inflation.