Managing Heritage Volunteers: An Exploratory Study of Volunteer Programmes in Art Museums Worldwide

This study addresses the paucity of research on volunteer management in art museums and heritage attractions. Based on the results of surveys and interviews with volunteers and managers from international art museums, it identifies three sets of promising practices that appear to increase the performance of volunteer programmes: (1) building a community of volunteers; (2) enhancing volunteers' learning experiences; and (3) fostering the self-management of volunteers. Taken together, these practices offer evidence for the value of the ‘serious leisure’ concept in the theory and practice of volunteer management.     

Tourists as Story-Builders: Narrative Construction at a Heritage Museum

Although tourism scholarship supports the idea that the appreciation of a tourism experience depends on the availability and communication of stories, attention has been paid almost exclusively on marketers and tourism organizers as the main designers and promoters of narratives, ignoring the role of tourists themselves in this process. Using heritage museums as an empirical context, this research suggests that the success of a narrative presentation in tourism destinations also depends on the tourists' involvement, willingness, and ability to actively participate in the storytelling experience. In this sense, tourists act as story-builders whose main task is to construct a historical narrative based on the selection and integration of the available sources. The findings show that museum visitors go through a three-stage process during their effort to complete a heritage narrative and make sense of their tourism experience. This work sheds light on the coconstruction of tourism experiences and provides marketing direction for the successful narrative staging of museums and tourism places in general.     

Where are the enslaved?: TripAdvisor and the narrative landscapes of southern plantation museums

ABSTRACT

This study examines two southern Louisiana plantation museums: Laura and Oak Alley, using a framework that stresses the narrative power and politics of these heritage sites. Located a mile from each other along the Mississippi River, they present two similar yet different narratives of the antebellum American South. Laura places more emphasis on the enslaved who inhabited the plantation than does Oak Alley, whose narrative centers upon the opulence of the plantation home – that is, ‘the big house'. This study explores what visitors take away from their plantation tours. Specifically, it examines their thoughts about how the enslaved are represented at these two museums. The study's data come from visitors’ comments posted on the travel website TripAdvisor. The object of the study is to gain a greater understanding of what visitors learn about the history of the enslaved on these tours and how they participate, along with site managers, in the narrative construction of the plantation and negotiating the divide between tourism as amusement and tourism as memorial.     

Visitor perceptions of European Holocaust Heritage: A social media analysis

This study presents a netnographic discourse analysis of social media content generated around three high profile European Holocaust heritage sites: Ann Frank's House in Amsterdam, The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland, and the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany. It identifies four salient discourses under the headings of Holocaust heritage as social memory, reactions to Holocaust heritage, obligation and ritual, and transgressive visitor behaviour which frame the values, existential anxieties, emotions, priorities and expectations of visitors. The findings will be of interest to stakeholders involved in the planning and management of Holocaust heritage since they provide unique access to a synthesis of unmediated visitor feedback on European Holocaust heritage experiences.     

Craft museum visitors’ interactive experiences,benefits and behavioural intentions: perspectives of Chinese parents

ABSTRACT

Family visitors are important audiences for museums. This paper develops a model that examines the influence of Chinese family visitors’ leisure experiences in museums on their behavioural intentions (BI) with their perceived benefits (mindful benefits and non-mindful benefits, MB and NMB) as the mediating variables. Based on the theoretical framework of an interactive experience model, parents’ experiences in museums were divided into experience of existential authenticity (interaction with the exhibits) (EA) and experience of parents-children interaction (PCI). A total of 375 local family visitors at a cluster of craft museums in Hangzhou, China participated in the survey. The PLS-SEM analysis indicates that both EA and PCI have positive effects on perceived benefits. EA, which emphasises the personal interactions between visitors and exhibited objects as well as their intangible meanings, is found to be more powerful than PCI in shaping visitors’ BI. MB and NMB differ in their influence on visitors’ behaviours. Only MB is linked with visitors’ BI. Further, MB partially mediates the relationship between EA and BI, and fully mediates the relationship between PCI and BI. Implications are offered to enhance family visitors’ experiences through appropriate service management strategies.     

People with disabilities visit art museums: an exploratory study of obstacles and difficulties

Visits to art museums are a major component of culture and heritage tourism. This study focuses on the obstacles that Israelis with disabilities – 30 people who use wheelchairs or crutches and 15 visually impaired people – face while visiting art museums. The in-depth interviews revealed that people with disabilities are not able to experience the museum as they wish, despite museum efforts toward becoming accessible to all. Participants emphasize the non-physical elements of the museum environment (e.g. staff attitudes and interaction with other visitors), as being major difficulties in achieving a full museum experience. The study shows that visitors often turn the barriers they confront into a difficulty, nevertheless the struggle itself has a negative effect on the visit experience.     

The theory of planned behaviour in the context of cultural heritage tourism

An emerging body of literature addresses multiple aspects of cultural heritage tourism in multiple environments worldwide. This study seeks to contribute to current knowledge, studying visitors to a heritage building in the UK through the lens of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). A questionnaire based on the various predictors associated with the TPB was designed to gather participants' motivations to visit the heritage building, including visitation to sightsee, attend events, and experience gastronomy at the building's restaurant. The findings confirm the validity and impact of attitude towards the behaviour, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control on behavioural intention, in this case, to become involved in heritage building visitation. In addition, it was noticed that respondents' level of agreement suggests their preparedness to invest in terms of travel, time, and financially spending when visiting heritage buildings. Implications of the findings will be discussed and future research avenues suggested.     

Warfare tourism experiences and national identity: The case of Airborne Museum ‘Hartenstein’ in Oosterbeek,the Netherlands

This paper examines through an analysis of Dutch warfare tourism whether there is a relationship between the subjective perceived salience of Dutch identity and heritage tourists' motives, emotions and overall satisfaction. Using a social identity theory framework, this study provides a view of motives for Dutch warfare heritage tourism and the ways in which this specific variant of heritage tourism evokes different emotions and satisfaction evaluations in visitors. Specifically, we found that visitors who identified strongly as ‘being Dutch’ (the ‘in-group’) have stronger self-enhancement motives compared to those who identify less strongly, and that edutainment features strongly in the museum experience. Visitors seeking initiative/recognition express feelings of disappointment suggesting that the museum's symbolic function as a place of national in-group identity could be more highlighted. We demonstrate that an affirmative and engaged experience can manifest at nationally symbolic sites through positive historical narratives and entertainment, and through ‘in-group’ self-enhancement activities.     

Chinese and international visitor perceptions of interpretation at Beijing built heritage sites

Research exploring visitor perceptions of heritage sites indicates that a site may hold different meanings for visitors depending on their cultural backgrounds. Little research has, however, identified visitor cultural preferences and so informed the development, delivery and management of on-site heritage interpretive experiences. This paper addresses this need by identifying cultural differences and similarities between Chinese and international visitors in relation to their interpretive motives, preferences and perceptions. Questionnaires were completed by 277 domestic Chinese visitors and 94 international visitors at five key Beijing built heritage sites. Differences between Chinese and international visitors’ conceptions of heritage; ratings of importance of facilities, services and interpretive content; and perceptions of the visitor experience are identified. Amongst many findings, Chinese respondents were more likely than international respondents to state that heritage sites should be an important part of the country's national heritage, convey the country's power and be famous. They sought built heritage sites visited by someone famous and that feature in well-known Chinese paintings and poetry. International visitors were more likely than Chinese visitors to state that heritage sites should have authentically old buildings and be relevant to contemporary life. Implications for interpretive and management practice at Chinese heritage sites are discussed.     

Does it pay off for museums to foster creativity? The complementary effect of innovative visitor experiences

This paper aims to explore the link between creativity orientation, investment in visitors’ experience and operating and funding performance in tourist attractions, taking museums as a case study. The empirical work is based on an analysis of the information provided by a sample of Spanish, French, German, British and American museums. The findings highlight the positive impact of creativity orientation on museums’ operating performance, but show a curvilinear effect on funding performance. The use of new technologies and adaptation to the audience proves positive when seeking to attract visitors.     

“The only place where people don't judge other people's body”: Obese people's museum experience

This exploratory study was designed to examine obese people's perception of factors affecting their museum-visiting experience. To best capture the experiential aspect, a qualitative research approach was adopted, and 24 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted. Findings yielded that the museum experience was hardly affected by the physical appearance and the presence of other patrons, this is contrast to previous studies in tourism related arenas. This is partly due to the realization that museum visitors tend to concentrate on the exhibits, and pay less attention to fellow visitors. Participants related to the “code of behavior” in museums that discourages gazing or explicitly staring at people. However, participants noted constraints and difficulties arising from the interaction between their body size and the physical environment. The study concludes that museums provide obese people with a safescape – a protective zone.     

A construal level view of contemporary heritage tourism

Psychological distance is “a subjective experience that something is close or far away from the self, here, and now” (Trope & Liberman 2010, p. 440). This research investigates heritage tourism from the perspective of Construal Level theory, which postulates that individuals mentally represent objects and events by adopting either low or high construal levels. We show that heritage tourism leads tourists to adopt a higher psychological distance and therefore a higher construal level. In turn, this higher construal negatively affects destination loyalty and perceived uniqueness. However, authenticity and engagement moderate the heritage–construal relationship, counterbalancing the higher psychological distance induced by heritage. We explore these relationships in two studies focusing on contemporary heritage sites. This further allows to compare visitors’ mental representations of the experience, based on their memory type. The paper concludes by addressing implications for theory and practice.     

The view from inside the 'simulacrum‘: visitors’ tales from the set of Coronation Street

The social significance of visits to television and film locations has been little studied. This article concentrates on Granada Studios Tour (GST) - home of the external set of Coronation Street - and uses as its main source interviews with visitors to GST, conducted on site and in visitors' homes, to explore the complex significance of this site. Although sites such as GST have tended to be dismissed because of their ‘fictive’ status, a detailed examination of visitors’ experiences - in particular, their reactions to the Street set's status as an actual place of filming - suggests a more interesting picture. Visiting the Street set connects viewers to the ‘world of television’, a connection examined from a number of different perspectives: ‘aura’ (in Walter Benjamin's sense), social memory and symbolic reversals, pilgrimage and ritual place. The analysis of GST and the Street set as ‘ritual places’ draws in particular on the work of the anthropologist Jonathan Smith. It develops from the way the set connects two places and two worlds organized in a symbolic hierarchy: the ‘ordinary world’ of viewers and the ‘media world’. Such worlds are, largely, social constructions, but they are the basis of GST's particular ‘power of place’. The conclusion connects this analysis to Lash and Urry's recent (1994) analysis of the ‘resubjectivization of space’ in contemporary travel and reflexivity.     

Heritage tourism and New Western history: a narrative analysis of six Colorado museums

Museums are important in heritage tourism, often presenting interconnected national, regional, and local histories. This article explores how six Colorado museums present state and regional identities. I ask how these museums have attempted to incorporate insights from ‘New Western’ History into their exhibits. New Western historians have called attention to the ‘legacies of conquest’ – the peoples displaced, the cultures destroyed, and the environments damaged by Anglo-American colonization of western lands – and offered critical and dissonant ‘counter-narratives’ of the region’s past. However, the region’s heritage tourism – a significant and growing industry – has emphasized more conventional narratives of settlement and economic progress. This study applies narrative theory to analyze how these critical histories are presented to tourists in Colorado museums and historic sites. Narrative theory examines how objects, texts, and media are shaped into stories, in this case stories linking popular readings of heritage to critical understandings of past events. Six case studies indicate that critical histories are presented in some sites, but are rarely the central focus of these attractions. However, the spatial juxtaposition of narratives and counter-narratives in these museums offers insight into how critical and dissonant history is beginning to be incorporated into heritage tourism in the American West.     

Charleston,South Carolina Tourism and the Presentation of Urban Slavery in an Historic Southern City

ABSTRACT

Heritage tourism's depiction of slavery makes for an interesting study. Several years ago, David Butler published an article in this journal that was highly critical of the depiction of slavery by Southern US plantations during tours offered to visitors, indicating that these attractions “whitewashed” this aspect of their history. The current study, intended as an extension of Butler's work, focused upon urban slavery versus plantation slavery and the handling of the issue by historic antebellum houses now opened as heritage tourist attractions in Charleston, SC. Encouragingly, it was learned that these historic homes are doing a much fairer job of exposing their guests to the issue than had been noted by Butler's plantation tours.     

Can craft beverages shape a destination’s image? A cognitive intervention to measure pisco-related resources on conative image

Assessing potential tourists' perceptions is vital to build a destination image and brand capable to attract new and repeated visitors. The increasing popularity of craft beverage tourism in recent years is incentivizing destinations to (re)design their offerings and (re)brand their image based on their craft beverages. This study investigated how the image of an emerging craft beverage tourism destination (Ica, Peru) is formed among potential tourists by inducing cognitive image (knowledge presented through picture-text dyads) of Ica's iconic resources, staple craft beverage (pisco), and resources associated with its production. Additionally, it measured the impact of local resources' characteristics, affective image, and personal characteristics on conative image (interest to visit and willingness to recommend) at different intervention stages. Results indicate that pisco-related resources are powerful enough to motivate travel, and that the characteristics of a mix of resources should be combined with beverage-specific information when developing branding strategies for craft beverage tourism destinations.     

Negotiating authenticity: Cathar heritage tourism

This paper explores the negotiation of authenticity with the case of Cathar heritage tourism in southern France. Also known as the Albigensians, the Cathars were a medieval sect practicing in the Languedoc Region of southern France from the tenth to the fourteenth century. Cathar heritage tourism is based upon various museums, heritage centers, castles, and seasonal trading fairs or markets supplemented by the activities of Cathar re-enactment or ‘living history’ societies. This interest in Cathar heritage has led to a highly saturated calendar of events. In 2010, for example, the total number of all varieties of these events in France was 36, with over 4000 people actively participating and the events attracting upwards of about 3 million visitors annually.

Based on a case-study approach, the geographical breadth of Cathar heritage tourism in France is outlined, giving brief case studies of each of the main types of tourist experiences. This is followed with a discussion on how notions of authenticity and commodification are constructed by key participants through the staging of particular types of Cathar heritage tourism.     

Visitors' use of interpretive media at heritage sites

Although heritage interpretation is a central component of the modern heritage industry there has been relatively little concern with how visitors to heritage sites make use of interpretive media. This paper reports a study of visitors' use of three interpretive media — exhibitions, outdoor panels, and stereo-audio tours — commonly employed at one type of heritage site, namely ancient monuments. Interpretation is an important component of the visit for many people, although visitors differ in the interest and attention they display to the interpretive media. This is greatest for audio media and less for visual media. This was attributed both to qualities of the interpretive media themselves (e.g. subject matter, readability), and also to characteristics of visitors, particularly their motive for visiting. This supports the notion that the ‘effectiveness’ of interpretation is the result of an interaction between visitor and interpretive medium, rather than depending solely on the interpretive medium.     

The multiple roles of battlefield war museums: a study at Fromelles and Passchendaele

Today’s war museums are large institutions that cater to a broad range of people and provide a number of functions. In recent years, activities and displays relating to the notion of ‘edutainment’ have been incorporated into their offerings. On the Great War battlefields of Europe, the war museums tend to address specific battles that were fought in the immediate area, and traditionally they attracted visitors with a familial or national connection to the site. An on-site survey at two battlefield war museums found that remembrance remains a primary function, but overall, visitors did not support the museums as places for leisure experiences. Personal connections, both familial and national, were important, and while a broader European connection was strongly supported, it was not unique to any particular group. Peace and anti-war appeared to be seen as distinct elements. The study reinforces previous work in the field that argues personal connection provides the initial motivation for visitation.