'Constructive chillers': a new market for museums

There are very few texts on museum marketing. Those that exist are now dated and have failed to take a global perspective with an international list of contributors. The editors of Marketing Museums invited individuals who already had publications in this field to put together a proposal for inclusion in this publication.

Slater’s chapter puts forward a new argument that museum visitors are changing due to wider societal influences and that increasing pressure on leisure time of the traditional museum visitor is a threat to museums in the medium term. The chapter is the pinnacle of a long personal interest in visitor studies and audience development. The argument builds on existing academic literature, social trends and the researcher’s practical experience of undertaking visitor studies in museums.

The findings from one study of audiences in a London based national museum in 2003/4 were published in a separate paper in the International Journal of Non-Profit & Voluntary Sector Marketing (2006). The researcher also co-authored a paper ‘Managing Leisure’ (2002) on audience development that proposed that arts organisations should focus on traditional audiences, as well as new audiences. The chapter in Marketing Museums concludes that museum marketers and educators must better understand their audiences and re-evaluate their selling proposition to continue to attract existing, and new visitors if they are to survive. This is an important issue for museums, for although audience development is important to broaden access, they also need to focus on their core audience who may well be visitors and donors.