Museum experience in 21st century. The competitiveness of Vienna, Budapest and Prague according to museum visitors’ reviews

Abstract

THE AIM OF THE PAPER

The aim of this study is to enrich the comparative touristic analysis of Vienna, Budapest and Prague with a new aspect. Museums are important attractions and branding factors of city tourism. They play a significant role in quality tourism. Museums help sustainability through presenting local culture and lengthening season by their exhibitions, but they also have to face overtourism. A paradigm change is going on since the end of the 20 ^th century connected with the traditional cultural transmitting role of museal institutions During this process museums have been defined as scenes of informal lifelong learning, global wellbeeing or public space for generating dialogues and supporting equality in society.

METHODOLOGY

From touristic perspective the experience promise attracts tourist to museums, which is a complex phenomenon and an important interdisciplinary research topic nowadays. This paper examines the attractiveness of Budapest’s and its regional competitors’ museums and the visitors’ expectations towards them based upon a content analysis of TripAdvisor reviews.

MOST IMPORTANT RESULTS

The best reviewed museums only in the case of Vienna are mostly classical cultural brands with international attractivity. To Budapest and Prague is more typical the presence of relatively young, service-oriented institutions based on special topics and operated by a company or foundation. Critical reviews focus on the insufficiencies of visitor management mainly connected to the classical type of museums, while on small size and/or poor quality of the exhibition related to the new one. The most mentioned concept type is the labelling of experience in which personal service and interaction play a significant role.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Findings can help positioning museums in the tourism market. The recognition of the main visitor segments’ and source markets’ demands needs further research which can support museums as service provider cultural institutions from several aspects (tailor-made interpretation, quality and visitor management, discovering and reaching new, potential markets).