THE MUSEUM EXPERIENCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY - THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE POTENTIAL AUDIENCE AND THE EXPERIENCES DESIGNED BY MUSEUM PROFESSIONALS: THE CASE OF THE BOIJMANS VAN BEUNINGEN DEPOT

Museums in the 21st century dramatically are changing from the traditional museums of the past. They are becoming more open and are expanding their roles that embrace conservation, education, research, entertainment and engagement of the society. Museums nowadays are more audience centred and customer oriented, manifesting the need to attract wide and differentiated targets of audience to accomplish their mission and survive in the competitive leisure industries. Essential to do so, is providing memorable and positive experiences for visitors that satisfy their expectations and preferences. Falk & Dierking at this purpose provided a model, the contextual model of learning to understand and address the museum experience, saying that it is a circular process among the personal, socio-cultural and physical context of real and potential visitors. The personal context is of particular interest for this thesis, since it comprehends the background, preferences, motivations and expectations of visitors towards the museum experience. By investigating the personal context of potential visitors, it is possible for museum professionals to understand their targets and provide attractive and satisfactory experiences able to attract and retain those visitors. Since this Master thesis originates from a commissioned research on the potential audience of the Depot from the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam, all these concepts have been applied to the specific case of the Boijmans Van Beuningen Depot. By 2020 it will become the first public depository in the world and the new tourist attraction of Rotterdam. This qualitative research is aimed at researching how the expectations of cultural tourists, one of the main audience targets of the Depot, match the Depot dreamed experience designed by the museum professionals. In order to answer to this question, a qualitative research with semi structured in depth interviews with cultural tourists has been conducted. From the analysis of the data collected, some important findings emerged. Cultural tourists have different personal contexts and identities that influence their expectations and preferences for the museum experience in the 21st century. They perceived Depot more as a museum of the future and most of the experiences designed by the museum staff match the expectations of cultural tourists interviewed. Yet, a gap has been found, since they perceived the Depot as confusing and expressed negative feelings about the wayfinding and exhibition design. This result in particular could be considered by the Boijmans Van Beuningen staff as a starting point to improve the design of positive experiences for future cultural tourists that will visit the Depot.