Visits to Local Museums in Serbia - The Average Model and Programmed Exception

Abstract

Political changes that stirred the Balkans at the end of the 19th century coincided chronologically with other unrelated processes. One of them is the expansion of new forms of tourism in which museums restructured according to the principles of new museology take important place. The development of new museology, being another separate process, gives a significant role to smaller, local and regional museums. In addition to the role of heritage protection and development of general knowledge they are gaining more and more importance for the preservation of the local community identity. On the other hand, unique specificity of each local community is an attraction that draws modern tourists and permanent museum exhibitions represent places where they can find out themselves about the characteristics of the environment which they are visiting. Acceptance of these new tasks by the museums in the Balkans is much more complex because they firstly had to give up their roles of established local guardians of communist ideology in order to get into the overall reform process. Only then could they embark on making permanent museum exhibitions interesting and understandable to both visitors from the region and tourists, along with the tasks of heritage conservation. Among other classifications, museum exhibits can be complex, thematic and open-air. Analysis of visits made to local museums in Serbia showed that their permanent exhibitions are sparsely attended, with large disparity according to their type. Complex exhibitions are least visited, while thematic ones are much more so, whereas the most visited are the open-air ones. The cause of this relationship, which is observed in other countries as well, is directly related to the degree of attractiveness. However, such a relationship can be changed. A case study of the National Museum of Valjevo which has three permanent exhibitions of various kinds at three locations indicates programming of comprehensive marketing activities, which are an important instrument of change. At the beginning of the process of reorganization a huge disproportion in their visitor figures which corresponded to the above described pattern was noticed. Continuous application of designed marketing efforts led not only to a general increase in visits, but also to a significant reduction in discrepancy of visits various types of exhibitions.

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