The Museum's potential audience is vast. People from every ethnic and minority group in the nation who are part of this story — in other words, everyone — would flock to the Museum to see how their story is told and to learn the stories of all the other groups. The Museum has the potential to become a national pilgrimage destination.
Foreign visitors would also naturally incorporate a visit to this Museum to try to better understand this unusual nation and to learn the stories about the natives of their own countries who emigrated here and how they contributed to our story. Like the Holocaust Museum, which has welcomed more than 96 heads of state and more than 3,500 foreign officials from 132 countries, the Museum of the American People also has the potential to become an official stop for visiting dignitaries.
The story told by the Museum could be incorporated into the core curricula of schools throughout the nation and would pave the way for school groups to visit the Museum on their annual trips to Washington, DC. A visit to the Museum would be compelling for these students. As any visitor to Washington knows, the streets of the city are jammed with school buses from March through early June and again in the fall. Visiting school groups are ubiquitous throughout the nation's capital during these periods as are family groups throughout the summer.
A 2015 count of visitors to the Smithsonian Institution's many museums through November found that 23 million visited. A 2005 survey found that 10 percent came from foreign countries and two-thirds lived outside of the Washington metropolitan area.
Among the most visited museums in Washington in 2015 were the National Air and Space Museum — 7 million annually; National Museum of Natural History — 7 million; National Gallery of Art — 6 million; National Museum of American History — 4 million; and U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum — 1 million.
Expected annual visitorship to the NMAP could be in the 3-5 million range. Full capacity must await a detailed study and experience. But even the lower number would make it one of the most visited museums in the nation. Additional millions could experience the Museum through its educational and curriculum materials, traveling exhibitions and web site.