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The purpose of this paper is to identify the structural dimensions of a new museal offer, museoparks, which use edutainment and more generally re‐enchantment strategies.

To bring out the symbolic dimensions specific to these cultural sites, the methodology used is based on the analysis of photographic media.

The analysis reveals four main symbolic dimensions structuring these hybrid cultural offers: spectacularization, immersive character, ritualized character, and very intense merchandizing of the experience.

This analysis allows us to update a hybrid, complex and re‐sized form of cultural experience that goes beyond the classic combination identified in the analysis of edutainment strategies (educational and fun dimensions).

From a managerial action perspective, this research provides keys to understanding the strategies proposed by the hybrid offers of museoparks; strategies that might inspire many museum managers eager to imitate them.

This research provides keys for understanding the logic underlying the structuring of the experience offered by cultural institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the current role of competition as one of the neglected aspects of museum marketing management. It also aims to discover whether museum professionals consider museums to be market immune and to find out what they think about the role of competition in creating and managing their existing and new services.

The theoretical part of the paper is based on a review of the literature from the multidisciplinary field of arts and museum marketing management. The exploratory qualitative research included 17 museum professionals and was carried out in 17 museums in one EU emerging market country.

Museum professionals are not aware of the competition, or they tend to ignore its existence. They consider the preservation of objects (exhibits) to be equally or even more important than providing services. However, additional services become important. Although some museum professionals try to engage visitors in the active creation of museum experience, most are still conservative in such terms.

The primary research limitations are related to intentional, convenience sample and the perspective of one employee (marketing manager or museums’ director).

Research findings provide valuable insights for both marketing academics and professionals engaged in the museum marketing management field. The contribution of the paper is also contextual as it helps to bridge the gap existing in museum marketing management research in the context of the emerging markets.

El objetivo de este trabajo es explorar el papel actual de la competencia, como uno de los aspectos que ha recibido escasa atención en la gestión del marketing de museos. Además, busca descubrir si los profesionales de museos consideran los museos inmunes al mercado, y conocer cómo reflexionan sobre el papel de la competencia en la creación y la gestión de los servicios existentes y los nuevos.

La parte teórica del trabajo se basa en la revisión de la literatura del campo multidisciplinario de la gestión de las artes y del marketing de museos. La investigación cualitativa exploratoria ha incluido 17 profesionales de museos y se ha realizado en 17 museos, en un país emergente de la Unión Europea.

Los profesionales de museos no son conscientes de la competencia, o tienden a ignorar su existencia. Consideran la conservación de objetos (exposiciones) igual o incluso más importante que la prestación de servicios. Sin embargo, los servicios adicionales están ganando en importancia. Si bien algunos profesionales de museos tratan de involucrar a los visitantes en la creación activa de la experiencia del museo, la mayoría de ellos todavía son conservadores con respecto a esta idea.

Las limitaciones principales de la investigación serefieren a la muestra intencional de conveniencia y el punto de vista de solo un empleado (gerente de marketing o director de museo).

Los resultados de este estudio proporcionan información valiosa tanto para los académicos de marketing como para los profesionales que trabajan en el campo de la gestión de marketing de museos. Además, la contribución de este trabajo es contextual puesto que ayuda a llenar el vacio existente en la investigación de la gestión de marketing de museos en el contexto de los mercados emergentes.

The purpose of this study is to examine the use of visual research methods in the area of recent marketing and consumer research.

Content analysis was used to investigate visual method in articles from Journal of Consumer Research; Journal of Marketing; Journal of Marketing Research; Journal of Marketing Management; Consumption, Markets, and Culture and Qualitative Market Research. Abstract, key words and methodology sections of all articles published in these six journals from 2002 to 2012 were scanned to identify which of them applied visual methods in their studies. The selected articles were then closely analyzed to discover how visual research methods were used and in what manner did they contribute to the marketing and consumer behavior discipline.

This study found that a growing number of marketing and consumer researchers utilized visual methods to achieve their research goals in various approaches such as cultural inventories, projective techniques and social artifacts. Visual method is useful when research deals with children who are not fully developed and able to comprehend text messages and also advantageous when investigating informants’ metaphorical thoughts about a subject or the content of their mind.

This paper examined how visual methods have assisted marketing and consumer researchers in achieving their goals and suggests when and how researchers can utilize the visual methods for future research.

Given the growing importance of religious tourism, the purpose of this paper is to present a review of the literature around the area.

All papers with the term “religious tourism” have been searched via Emerald Insight from January 2006 to December 2017. The search was run in June 2017 for the last time and all early cite papers falling under the criteria were also included. This has ensured that key literature produced after the seminal work by Timothy and Olsen (Eds) (2006) has been reviewed. Certain exclusions apply which have been listed in the paper.

Key themes from the literature on religious tourism along with new developments and overlaps with other tourism sectors have been highlighted.

This paper reviews literature spanning more than a decade on religious tourism.

Hybrid structures are emerging in the leisure sector that are neither museums nor amusement parks, but which borrow elements from both. Dedicated to the exploration of a cultural theme (cultural heritage, ecosystems and historic events), they use experiential marketing levers to entertain large publics while at the same time pursuing the cultural integrity of heritage. This study aims to examine how visitors perceive and experience the offer proposed by these hybrid museums and how they manage the dual (cognitive and sensorial) stimulation. The authors then consider the extent to which the experiential levers used to dramatize these venues help to deliver a unique experience.

The authors developed a qualitative approach based on a case study methodology. The authors first selected the case studies (the Cité du Vin – a wine museum in Bordeaux, France and the Cité de l’Océan – a museum dedicated to the ocean at Biarritz, France) and analysed them from two angles. The authors began by examining the managerial perspective from secondary data to identify the experiential levers used by providers and the promises made to visitors in terms of experience. The authors then analysed the visitors’ experiences through a netnographic approach. The data were drawn from visitor reviews of their experience as posted on Tripadvisor.

The authors show that hybrid museums manage to provide visitors with edutainment value, but the promise made by managers for a memorable experience by way of an immersive journey is not kept. The authors demonstrate that a hybrid museum environment contains certain elements that prevent visitors from enjoying immersion. More specifically, the authors note issues regarding the way the theme is expressed through spectacular buildings, the way visitors are free to choose their visit and the scenarization presented through digital devices. The authors also show that hybrid museums are perceived largely as traditional museums and so are subject to culturally-established preconceptions.

This contribution concerns a topic that has drawn little attention in the marketing literature, namely, hybrid museums. The authors adopted a qualitative methodology from the perspective of both the provider and the consumer to gain a global understanding of the hybrid museum. The data were analysed using a manual thematic analysis, completed with a QDAS to support the findings.

The purpose of this paper is to propose both a retrospective and a prospective look at one of the most powerful concepts in marketing research: consumption experience.

A historical review of the development of the concept of consumption experience is conducted from its introduction 35 years ago by Holbrook and Hirschman’s (1982) seminal paper to the most recent advances, including the articles selected for this special issue.

First, the authors show that the introduction of the concept of consumer experience was a major (r)evolution on the theoretical, methodological and managerial levels. Second, the authors examine the theoretical risks associated with a biased conceptualization of the consumption experience. Third, the authors highlight future avenues for research on the consumption experience from both macro- (“zoom-out”) and micro-analytic (“zoom-in”) perspectives.

This paper offers a comprehensive view on one of the most disruptive concepts in marketing theory.

This paper aims to contribute to understandings of the dynamics of marketplace exclusion and explore the benefits of a performative approach to knowledge production.

Interactive documentary theatre is used to explore the pressing issue of marketplace exclusion in a deprived UK city. The authors present a series of three vignettes taken from the performance to explore the embodied and dialogical nature of performative knowledge production.

The performative mode of knowledge production has a series of advantages over the more traditional research approaches used in marketing. It is arguably more authentic, embodied and collaborative. However, this mode of research also has its challenges particularly in the interpretation and presentation of the data.

The paper highlights the implications of performative knowledge production for critical consumer learning. It also explores how the hitherto neglected concept of marketplace exclusion might bring together insights into the mechanics and outcomes of exclusion.

While theatrical and performative metaphors have been widely used to theorise interactions in the marketplace, as yet the possibility of using theatre as a form of inquiry within marketing has been largely neglected. Documentary theatre is revealing of the ways in which marketplace cultures can perpetuate social inequality. Involving local communities in the co-production of knowledge in this way gives them a voice in the policy arena not hitherto fully addressed in the marketing field. Similarly, marketplace exclusion as a concept has been sidelined in favour of marketplace discrimination and consumer vulnerability – the authors think it has the potential to bring these fields together in exploring the range of dynamics involved.

This paper aims to examine brand-naming decisions, along with other management decisions that affect tourist experiences, such as visitor tours and souvenir appropriation, in the context of a microbrewery located on a Greek island that remains heavily dependent upon tourism.

Data were gathered from in-depth interviews with the microbrewery’s owner and senior management team to offer rich insights into the issues under investigation.

Findings stress the importance of the meanings that can be conveyed through brand names, including those that indicate authenticity of the brand’s origin, filling previously identified gaps in the literature on country of origin (COO) with regard to fast-consuming goods and low-involvement products such as beer, and exploring the issue of experiential consumption of beer as part of the tourists’ vacation experience.

Data were gathered from only a single company, and although highlighting important managerial decisions regarding brand naming, further research could be widened to other companies and other industries, and could explore these issues from the tourists own perspective rather than solely from a managerial perspective.

Results may offer insights for local producers, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, whose markets serve both domestic and tourist consumers.

This research furthers knowledge into gaps on a range of issues arising in the literature that have hitherto not been previously linked, specifically: product COO/brand origin, cultural consumption of beverages and sense of place, issues of authenticity, souvenirs and experiential consumption.