A Montgomery County tourist attraction with grand visions of operating every day of the week is poised for visitation growth thanks in part to a new platform integrated by the county’s tourism agency.

The Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board has launched ticket booking engine OnceThere, which acts as an aggregate for multiple point-of-sales systems, writes Kenneth Hilario in the Philadelphia Business Journal.

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Most non-assigned seating online ticket systems are compatible with OnceThere, and — in a particular boon — organizations without a point-of-sale system can opt-in to the program and offer that capability on their own websites.

Oaks-based American Treasure Tour is among those that opted into OnceThere. The 100,000-square-foot attraction houses one of the world’s largest collection of automated music machines like nickelodeons, an 18-foot Gumby figure, and dolls and dollhouses, among others.

The tourist attraction opened in 2010, and it only began offering general admission a year ago after previously only offering group tours made in advance.

“It was very complex. OnceThere really makes it simple for the average Joe to come in,” said Isaac Brooks, community relations manager at American Treasure Tour. “You had to have two people to even book a tour, and at that point it was a custom VIP tour. We opened the facility just for them. It wasn’t cost effective for either party.”

American Treasure Tour has four full-time employees and a handful of part-time workers, and organizing group tours and general admissions took up a lot of resources, particularly since “the system we’ve been using is a little dated and didn’t allow for a way that makes sense for our consumer,” Brooks said.

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