Transforming Museums in the Twenty-first Century

Graham Black

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136515774
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Industria dell'ospitalità e del turismo
• Index: Business

In his book, Graham Black argues that museums must transform themselves if they are to remain relevant to 21st century audiences – and this root and branch change would be necessary whether or not museums faced a funding crisis. It is the result of the impact of new technologies and the rapid societal developments that we are all a part of, and applies not just to museums but to all arts bodies and to other agents of mass communication.

Through comment, practical examples and truly inspirational case studies, this book allows the reader to build a picture of the transformed 21st century museum in practice. Such a museum is focused on developing its audiences as regular users. It is committed to participation and collaboration. It brings together on-site, online and mobile provision and, through social media, builds meaningful relationships with its users. It is not restricted by its walls or opening hours, but reaches outwards in partnership with its communities and with other agencies, including schools. It is a haven for families learning together. And at its heart lies prolonged user engagement with collections, and the conversations and dialogues that these inspire.

The book is filled to the brim with practical examples. It features:

• 
  
  

• an introduction that focuses on the challenges that face museums in the 21st century

• 
  
  

• an analysis of population trends and their likely impact on museums

• 
  
  

• boxes showing ideas, models and planning suggestions to guide development

• 
  
  

• examples and case studies illustrating practice in both large and small museums

• 
  
  

• an up-to-date bibliography of landmark research, including numerous websites

Sitting alongside Graham Black's previous book, The Engaging Museum, we now have a clear vision of a museum of the future that engages, stimulates and inspires the publics it serves, and plays an active role in promoting tolerance and understanding within and between communities.

Section 1 From Visitor to User

The value of museums begins and ends with the relationship with our visitors. It’s a contract that is renewed each and every time they engage with us, and if we don’t live up to it, we will be usurped.

Falk (2010)

The ambition for the twenty-first century museum should be to change the mind-set of museum audiences, converting them from one-off visitors into regular users who see themselves as active partners in the work of the museum. For this to happen, we must begin by learning much more about current and potential users and responding to what this reveals. But museums must also transform themselves in both attitude and practice. This cannot wait. Apart from the continuing growth in cultural tourism, museums are currently haemorrhaging traditional audiences while not replacing them with new ones.

In the last 20 years, the argument within the museum profession that the twenty-first century museum should be people-centred has largely been won. Yet over the same timespang the audiences for museums, and for cultural institutions more generally, have remained largely white, have been in decline and are getting older, while the nature of many of the local communities within which museums are located has changed dramatically. If we want our museums not only to survive but flourish during the demographic transformation that will continue to take place over the next 20 years, it is imperative that we develop a much fuller understanding of existing visitors and of the current and future communities we want to serve, and work to transform our relationship with them.

This section of the book examines the basic issues of knowing our users better, stimulating visits and both caring for and supporting users on-site. The first step on the road to transforming visitors into users is to increase our understanding of actual, potential and future audiences, their demographics, the dynamics of new generations, their changing motivations and the choices they all have in the use of their leisure time. The second is to begin the process of building relationships for the long term – winning hearts and minds, stimulating visits both on-site and online, converting visitors into users. Much will depend on the images museums project and how successfully they create an atmosphere of belonging.

Getting to Know Our Users Better

Graham Black

DOI: 10.4324/9780203150061-3

All our traditional arts organisations were developed in very different times, for audiences very different from those we address now. If we are to adapt at the speed set by the fast-changing world around us, then audience insight is the catalyst we need to help us match that pace of change.

Morris and McIntyre (undated: 2)

Introduction: From Visitor to User

This book is not primarily about visitor studies, but about visitor engagement. However, as the Introduction discussed, the changing nature and demands of museum users and potential users are a primary reason why museums must transform themselves or die. Unless museum change can keep pace with the needs and expectations of their publics, they are lost. And the issue is made more complex by the fact that users are now engaging with museums across three spheres – physical, online and mobile (Kelly 2011).

The starting point is a much greater understanding of users and non-users. Morris and McIntyre define the two tools that will enable us to achieve this challenge:

• Intelligence: an awareness of the changing world around us that looks way beyond our own database, and
• Insight: an understanding of the needs, attitudes and motivations of our existing and potential audiences.

Morris and McIntyre (undated: 2)

This chapter seeks to provide a brief overview, beginning with basic visitor surveys, before focusing on profiling by motivation and key issues around longer term visitor trends. It is completed by an examination of that continuing success story for museums, the growth of cultural tourism. The bulk of the chapter examines on-site users. While there is a growing understanding of those who are engaging with museums online and via social media, the situation is changing so rapidly that it is difficult to give definitive information. I will return to this theme later in the chapter.

Beyond the continuing success of major tourist draws, on-site museum audiences are in a state of flux. Traditional visitors are coming less often. Emerging new generations have different demands. Museums, on the whole, have failed to engage adequately with new communities. Until recent years, visitor research in museums, if it occurred at all, was driven by marketing departments and focused on market segments.

Such research tells us, for example, that:

• the ‘traditional’ on-site visitor to a Western museum is white, professional class and well educated
• for most of our users, a visit to a museum represents an occasional leisure-led event
• the family group is frequently the largest audience, characteristically making up from 40 per cent to 55 per cent of total visitor numbers
• slightly more adult females than males visit, except to military and industrial museums
• ethnic and racial minority groups, young people and families with children under 5 years old are under-represented among museum visitors, and
• there are clear peaks and troughs in visitation through the week and year, with different segments also coming at different times.

This sort of data is easily quantifiable and provides a core understanding of existing visitors and an essential underpinning for business plans. However, it tells us little about the motivations behind museum visits or the strategies that audiences use during their visit. Today it is increasingly supported by more focused research into why people come (or do not come), their expectations of the experience the museum will provide and the impact this has on the way they seek to personalise their visits.

For longer term planning, museums must also look at future population and leisure trends. Our users in the future will make different demands on museums. Given that many of the long term exhibitions that museums are developing now will still be in place in 10 to 20 years’ time, we must immerse ourselves in these trends to ensure we plan for the future, not to continue to meet the needs of past audiences.

Audience Segmentation

No introduction to visitor studies can begin without an understanding of market segmentation. Segmentation is a market research method for breaking down audiences into groups that behave in similar ways or have similar needs. Most visitor surveys provide basic quantitative data on audiences, using established market segmentation techniques to provide audience breakdowns. Classic market segmentation breaks down ‘traditional’ heritage audiences in terms of:

1. Demographics:
   • age
   • gender
   • educational level attained
2. Family status is heavily used in segmentation, as it can be such a major predictor of behaviour (dependant; pre-family; family at different stages; late life-cycle, including empty nesters). In the past, ethnic or racial origin has been a rare factor in visitor surveys, but this has changed as museums seek to respond to the needs of changing local communities and broaden their audience base. There is substantial evidence that the higher the educational level attained, the more often people will visit museums.
3. Geography:
   • resident/local
   • day tripper
   • tourist: – VFR (visitor staying with friends or relatives)
     • national
     • international
4. Class/occupation:
   There is ongoing controversy over the concept of social class and its relationship to income, education and occupation but here is not the place to discuss it. Social class and occupation, however, continue to be used as key market segments. Although the British government introduced a new National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification in 2000, the Social Class based on Occupation classification is still the most ...