Destination competitiveness and museum marketing strategies: an emerging issue in the Italian context

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to inform the development of effective marketing strategies for provincial Italian museums. Being long-standing organisations, the characteristics of museums are deeply rooted within the context where they are located. As such, they must reflect an awareness of the location in which they are situated. With this in mind, we investigated the multifaceted nature of major Italian museums, located in a range of different provinces that had different degrees of competitiveness. We explain these variations in competitiveness by means of a descriptive analysis, in which we report on the most popular Italian museums and the levels of competitiveness in the province in which each museum is located.

It is possible to categorise the most popular Italian museums in terms of those that are extreme outliers and those that fall into clusters. The differences in the number of visitors and the levels of competitiveness in the Italian provinces where the museums are located indicate that specific marketing strategies are warranted for the museums investigated, as determined by whether they are extreme outliers or part of a cluster.

Marketing strategies for museums that are based on an analysis of the number of visitors and the degree of competitiveness of the province concerned have not been previously investigated. By using a novel approach of this kind, we present a preliminary attempt to develop strategies that are appropriate to the Italian context.

Keywords:

• destination competitiveness
• Italian museums
• museum marketing strategies
• museum management

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the Editor-in-Chief and the reviewers for their suggestions and great effort in improving the quality of the manuscript.

Although the views and ideas expressed in this paper are those of Alfonso Siano, Lynne Eagle, Maria Giovanna Confetto and Mario Siglioccolo, the Section ‘Introduction’ is attributed to Maria Giovanna Confetto, the Sections ‘Research design’, ‘Research limitations’ and ‘Conclusions and further research’ are attributed to Mario Siglioccolo, the Section ‘Findings’ is attributed to Lynne Eagle and the Section ‘Practical implications: museum marketing strategies for the museums surveyed’ is attributed to Alfonso Siano.

Notes

1. Currently 43 properties are inscribed to Italy. The whole list is available online at the following URL: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list

2. Further information, including the full study are available for downloading at the following URL: http://www.countrybrandindex.com

3. Italian provinces are geographic areas, and administrative divisions, of intermediate level between city and region.

4. The survey carried out by Il Sole 24 Ore is the result of processing Italian official statistics, collected from the Tagliacarne Institute, Legambiente, Centro Studi Sintesi, the Italian Ministry of Interior, the Istat and the Siae.

5. The Old Bailey Proceedings Online is a not-for-profit project whose sole objective is to make the Proceedings of the Old Bailey available to all Internet users free of charge. The Old Bailey Proceedings Online makes available a fully searchable, digitised collection of all surviving editions of the Old Bailey Proceedings from 1674 to 1913, and of the Ordinary of Newgate's Accounts, 1679–1772. In addition to the text, this website provides digital images of all 190,000 original pages of the Proceedings, 4000 pages of the Ordinary's Accounts, advice on methods for searching this resource, information on the historical and legal background to the Old Bailey court and its Proceedings, and descriptions of published and manuscript materials relating to the trials covered.

6. For further information see: http://www.scavidipompei.it

7. Decreto Ministeriale 27 novembre 2001, n. 491, ‘Regolamento recante disposizioni concernenti la costituzione e la partecipazione a fondazioni da parte del Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, a norma dell'articolo 10 del decreto legislativo 20 ottobre 1998, n. 368, e successive modificazioni’.