Heritage and culture tourism
Museums Aotearoa: 2009 Museums Barometer. The annual MA research programme focused on ‘collections’ this time. An online survey ran for three weeks and 102 museums completed the survey. The report was sent to MA on 1 April 2009.
Abstract:
This reflective paper examines how heritage and tourists engage, hypothesizing about a necessary re-conceptualisation that goes beyond interpretation as the transfer of information/significance/knowledge grounded in learning theory, towards an interpretation praxis that embraces two dimensions of the visitor experience: an embodied experience and an experience where vision and visuality is privileged. Both these dimensions are at the forefront of the ways digital media is reconfiguring the relationship between heritage places and visitors.
In early 2007, NZTRI conducted a web-based survey for Museums Aotearoa (MA) to gauge interest in the development of a Web-based ‘barometer’ to provide MA and others with timely information about the New Zealand museum sector. The findings indicated a positive interest in the ongoing survey, and MA subsequently approached NZTRI to develop the survey into an annual barometer for the museum sector.
A major study examining use of the Internet by New Zealand museums has uncovered both encouraging and disappointing trends emerging within the cultural sector.
The study, now into its second stage – where museums and galleries are being interviewed by the research team – is being conducted by the Tourism Research Institute with Victoria University academics David Mason, Simon Milne, and Jarrod Coburn, and uses a 52-point model to survey every museum and gallery web site in New Zealand.
