Who Visits Museums

In Romania, 62% of inhabitants have never stepped into a museum, and only 33% go in once or several times a year, according to the 2019 Cultural Consumption Barometer. Since that time, before the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic, polls on museum attendance have not been run, but no radical change seems to be in sight. However, experts believe these are worrying figures, but that they should not scare us. We asked sociologist Dan Petre to explain:

“We definitely should not panic. What I believe is constructive for geting out of this situation is to put pressure on museums to become more attractive and interesting. I mean, I would have a more capitalist approach, so to say, as follows: consumers have no obligation to visit museums, they have no obligation to expand their general knowledge. It is the museums who have the duty to make the experience they offer more attractive, so that they can get on the agenda for spare time for people, for consumers. This seems to me to be the main thing that you have to bear in mind, we have to abandon this mentality according to which it is the people's duty to get culture, and to turn it on its head.”

This upside down means a reversal of attitude for museums, with the goal to go from passively waiting for visitors to the initiative of attracting them with unusual offers. For this, there is a need to discover who these visitors are, what expectations they have, and what museums can do to become more interesting. All these topics were approached in a recent paper called Museum Explorer, under the aegis of the Bucharest Municipal Museum, with the participation of several experts, coordinated by Alexandra Zbuchea, dean of the School of Management with the SNSPA political studies university, who told us why this exploration was needed:

“There is a need to understand visitors in order for museums to offer them what they want, help them develop personally, but at the same time give them an opportunity to spend some very pleasant time in a museum. In other words, development does not occur only at the cultural level, intellectually, they need to have a good time. Otherwise, we are stuck in this situation we see now, where interest towards museums is totally marginal, and limited to a pretty well defined group of people. Statistics are fairly worrying. I only point out at the fact that this 62% figure appears in the last barometer, before the pandemic. However, some polls have suggested an even higher number, upwards of 70 to 80%. This figure does not mean that 7 out of 10 Romanians have never stepped in a museum. In other words, interest is very low, but somehow people still go there.”

We asked Alexandra Zbuchea who and why still goes into museums, and here is what she said:

“In terms of the profile of museum visitors, things are clear and simple. We notice that, generally speaking, the museum visitor is young, which may be surprising for many. Young people, high school and university students, people in their early careers, generally people with higher studies who live in cities, go to museums. The other categories of the public don't go to museums. One of the reasons may be the lack of opportunity, because, unfortunately, many localities, including small towns, have no museums, or some that are not too attractive. What we also know about museum visitors is that they are interested in Romanian heritage, but at the same time they are not very satisfied by the experience they have. They would like their visit to museums to be more interesting, to have a more pleasant and interactive experience, which is on offer from some museums, but not all museums.”

However, the sociological perspective adds nuance to this opinion, which puts optimism in the evaluation of museum goers. For instance, sociologist Dan Petre believes that creating a model profile of an average museum goer is forced, because there are many types of consumer. People go there for many reasons, and museums are therefore in competition with all providers of experiences, such as malls, as Dan Petre told us:

“For instance, during the School a Different Way week, the number of children going to museums goes up spectacularly, or on Museum Night. Access is free, but this is not the main reason, because we noticed that the price is not a barrier. What motivates them more is the experience. For instance, on Museum Night, when access is free, it's not so much that it is free, as the fact that they provide an experience, or a number of experiences. There are people who do a museum crawl the entire night. I will make a comparison that will put me into a disfavored category. They go from museum to museum just like people do when they go out on a Saturday night and go from club to club or from bar to bar. On that night, there are people who who go from one museum to the next in order to have a comparative cultural experience. So, as far as I'm concerned, the main thing to remember here is that you have to create for yourself and experience that is interesting, strong, and that brings satisfaction. This is the first thing I would work on.”

As a result, among the conclusions of the Museum Explorer paper are: getting to know better the desires of visitors, more attention paid to marketing, and especially an investment in interactivity, which would make visitors turn from passive admirers of exhibits into active participants in the museum experience.