Short Visit to the World of Museums

As a part of my Passions of Tourism course I was offered the opportunity to visit the Groninger Museum with my group and attend the lecture of its curator about the role tourism plays in the life of the museum and history of museums in general. Since I have never been to the museum of Groningen (studies do not leave free time for anything including such small museum trips), I decided to seize this opportunity. Although it does not fit to my subject of the religious tourism, I still find it worth writing about my experience of the museum and, what’s more important, knowledge I acquired from the curator’s lecture.

To begin with, before entering the museum I found its exterior rather unusual (in spite of the fact that it is an art museum), possibly because of my conventional image of a museum being an old-looking building with traditional architecture.

Groninger Museum. Source: Wikipedia

Interior Design. Pay attention to side lamps.
Source:www.designtripper.com

However, my opinion immediately changed as soon as I entered. As we were waiting for the curator, I had some little time to look around. The style of the interior was amazing, completely new and a bit odd for me (my thoughts were later confirmed by the curator: ‘Groninger Museum is one those places that are better from the inside’, ‘…Our main aim was to make the interior thought-provoking, so that it would encourage discussions among visitors’).

From his lecture I understood that museums always struggle not only increase the number of their visitors but also increase the number of visits by the same visitors regardless whether they are tourists or locals. He also mentioned at least three most important factors that greatly affect the attractiveness of the museum:

·         Location. As curator said, both for tourists and locals location matters a lot which is confirmed by the case of Groninger Museum. Prior to construction there was an appealing alternative to build the museum in picturesque outskirts of the city. Fortunately, municipality decided to build it near train station which proved to be extremely successful later.

·         Relevancy. Relevancy of events, exhibitions, etc. Timing is essential. Museum’s actions must align to current events of the world of art and culture. Recent ‘David Bowie’ programme of the Museum made a great impact considering current events revolving around the singer's death.

·         Pricing. Museums never charge a uniform entry fee. To attract youth discounts are introduced while maintaining higher fees for older visitors to break-even.

Our discussion after curator's lecture.
Guess who is pretending to be a part of the discussion
Source:www.facebook.com/researchtoren/