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Purpose: In the experience economy, the main challenge for museums is not only to attract visitors but also to preserve artworks. Given this circumstance, this chapter aims to offer an overview of how these cultural organisations have emerged as labs of the future culture, where all kind of technological experiments are tested so as to fulfil their mission.

Design/methodology/approach: This chapter is based on extensive literature review on issues related to robots, artificial intelligence and service automation (RAISA) in the museum sector. Examples illustrate the role of technology in the experience design and preservation of cultural resources.

Findings: 1) A chronological framework of museums’ orientations is established to understand the evolution toward the technology-driven present period. 2) Robots, artificial intelligence and service automation have a meaningful contribution to make in guaranteeing visitor arrivals. 3) This technological phase requires a tourism workforce with new skills.

Research limitations/implications: Few academic studies concerning to the use of robots, artificial intelligence and service automation in the museum sector were found. Hence, more empirical studies are required to completely corroborate the chapter’s suggestions.

Practical implications: An enlightening path for the service design of multisensory and participatory is proposed, as a useful guide for heritage managers, marketing practitioners and tourism planners.

Originality/value: Museum management has been always receiving the attention of managers, policymakers, scholars, among others. Insights of how technology enhances heritage preservation and the improvement of museum services throughout numerous examples can direct them to increase knowledge and adopt these practices.

This chapter focuses on growing professionally and encouraging peers' skills. The author opens by relating her experience in initiating and implementing museum-integrated instruction as a curricular program at all grade levels. She discusses the steps involved in creating one of the nation's first Museum Magnet Schools, from introducing the idea to her school and district to managing all the logistics needed to support it: funding, partnerships, professional development, curriculum writing, and partnerships. Strategically working with teachers, administrators, and organizations builds upon foundations in pedagogy and curriculum and reduces barriers to implementation. The chapter outlines effective strategies for building a dedicated team of faculty and administrators within your school, using professional development and encouragement to gain “buy-in” for projects such as school and student exhibitions. Such activities change the school culture in positive ways, with teachers becoming “ambassadors” to parents, professional learning communities, and other education stakeholders. Harnessing the power of connections to grow as a professional and growing communities of expertise cultivates performance pedagogy and brings history alive for students. By networking with experts from museums and historic sites, educators can tap into museum techniques such as exhibition design and object-based inquiry, which can be powerful tools for experiential learning. The chapter also contains outreach strategies for effectively presenting such initiatives at professional conferences and employing the power of social media through blogging and Twitter. As the author notes based on a decade of experience, the potential for student engagement from museum-related strategies is a persuasive argument for educators and administrators to collaborate in adapting them.

Purpose: In March 2020, due to the global emergency ensuing from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Italian government closed all national museums, institutes and places of culture heritage and landscape. The shutdown highlighted the need to develop and implement digital solutions, especially through ICTs, to enhance the cultural heritage worldwide by allowing people to go on admiring it, albeit remotely. Numerous initiatives were promoted, such as virtual experiential tours, online collections and ad hoc social and digital programs, all of which contributed to the rich dialogue between people and culture. Although digital initiatives for using and enjoying the cultural heritage have been successfully developed and implemented, in Italy the process of digitalisation of cultural heritage and the services provided are still far from being completed. This chapter investigates the development and implementation of digital technologies in the museums located in the Campania Region in Southern Italy throughout the COVID-19 outbreak to identify and analyse the experiential strategies and initiatives developed through information communication technologies (ICTs) to face the emergency.

Design/Methodology/Approach: By adopting a qualitative methodology, using primary and secondary data sources through a manual content analysis, experiential strategies and initiatives employed by the Campania regional museums when using digital solutions have been identified and categorised.

Findings: Despite the effectiveness of digital initiatives, and the experiences investigated appear both significant and interesting, there is still a need to develop and implement new experiential strategies in this field.

Research Limitations: This study presents several limitations, mostly related to its qualitative explorative nature, but also because its results cannot be generalised.

Practical Implications: These first results outline the need to further develop innovative strategies and initiatives within the museums. The process of digitalisation of cultural heritage and the services provided are still far from completion, potentially providing wide margins of further evolution by means of further investments in technology innovation, to rethink and redesign the traditional management models for enhancing the cultural heritage through digital technology.

Originality: This study provides a portrait of museum experiences supported by digital technologies in a country which plays a crucial role in the field of international cultural heritage. The analysis can also usefully contribute to the existing literature due to the qualitative technique employed for carrying out the multiple case study.

Purpose – The chapter explores the development and impact of the Museums Victoria’s exhibition World War I: Love & Sorrow, which aimed to present an honest, graphic and challenging account of the experience and effect of World War I on Australian society. The paper describes the exhibition content and uses a range of methodological approaches to study its emotional and other impacts.

Methodology/Approach – A range of evaluation methodologies are used: visitor observation and summative evaluation collected in the months after the exhibition opened, and quantitative and qualitative studies produced in 2017. Comparative assessment of a large sample of visitor comments cards was also undertaken. The more recent evaluations focused particularly on emotional impacts.

Findings – The research finds that emotion is central to the success of the exhibition: underpinning the exhibition concept, guiding the research process and selection of interpretative approaches, and shaping visitor response.

Originality/Value – The emotional aspects of museum work have received relatively little attention, and few studies focused on the evaluation of visitor emotions have been published. The chapter uses a case study to highlight the role of emotions in museum exhibitions and historical interpretation, argues for more central place for emotions in historical enquiry, and addresses concerns about subjectivity, authenticity and evidence.

The Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN, National Archaeological Museum of Naples) is one of the most important archaeological museums in the world. In 2017, MANN launched several projects, such as Father and Son, the first video game made by an archaeological museum, and Ancient Present (Antico Presente), a series of five short films produced by the museum in five different languages and based on different artworks selected from the museum's permanent collections. The idea behind these projects was to ‘bring the museum outside the museum’, with the assumption that some tools may improve the museum's ability to speak and interact with its audiences, both in the spatial sense (outside its physical perimeter) and the temporal dimension (not only during the visit experience, but also before and after it). We have studied these two MANN projects, as this museum has explicitly targeted audience development as one of its main objectives (MANN, 2016, p. 72) and these projects are important examples of how to use new ‘languages’ (the digital and the cinematographic) to start a dialogue with new audiences and to address museum accessibility in a new way.

The ability to imagine our world being arranged along different lines is the first step to achieving sustainability. This skill comes particularly easily to artists and designers, who have been trained to appreciate the unexpected connections among facts, ideas, and images. It also comes more naturally to young people. As designers and teachers, how can we help others take that first step? I argue that museums offer the right settings and tools for opening eyes to seeing new possibilities. Students' personal accounts of their experiences in an art museum demonstrate that private, focused encounters with artifacts from other periods and cultures can trigger the process of seeing the world from new angles. Providing opportunities for business leaders to replicate such experiences of wonder may offer a path to stimulating the innovative thinking so critical for a sustainable future. This chapter argues that cultivating both the imagination and moral artistry are vital to moving from sustainability to achieving sustainable value.

While it is recognised that the involvement of children in sustainable tourism change and development is crucial the fact remains that information on their worldviews and sustainable tourism behaviour is scarcely available. One long-term empowerment strategy countries and governments around the world can implement is by promoting children's rights through responsible education. This chapter articulates one tactic of that strategy at the local action level of school excursions, which is seen as an instrument that can be made most effective when it is initiated with the assumption that it is needed to help our younger generation acquire an environmental worldview, is harnessed in coalition with collaborators and, applied around the ‘moral’ obligation of educational institutions to provide agency to students' voice. Of the 17 Goals of Sustainable Development, SDG4 (Quality) Education can make a critically important contribution to progress. A series of activities and initiatives undertaken in informal educational environments such as field trips and school excursions can contribute to educating children, building their awareness about responsible and sustainable tourism practices, and developing an environmental sensitivity. Excursion activities and destinations such as museum exhibits have the opportunity to shape identities—through access to objects, information and knowledge. Visitors can see themselves and their culture reflected in ways that encourage new connections, meaning making and learning. Upon looking into transformational experiences in museums it was found that students were easily able to articulate that ‘aha’ moment, particularly around thinking differently about issues and taking action for environmental and sustainable changes.

This study attempts to demonstrate how a tourism attraction (i.e., museum) could establish its brand equity. It involves a case study on one of the most famous museums in Taiwan which involves an in-depth interview. The results show that the museum under investigation has established a clear brand identification and its brand communications but has a limited interpretation of its brand assets. Recommendations include strengthening its experiential propaganda, organizing large-scale intercity festivals, coordinating with other vendors to sell cultural products, increasing the number of professional exhibitions, and establishing a self-evaluation mechanism.

With over 4.5 million objects and specimens from both the natural and human worlds, Manchester Museum, part of The University of Manchester, is the largest University Museum in the United Kingdom. By virtue of its position within The University of Manchester, learning and research are central to Manchester Museum’s work. The Museum has a track-record of educational work, from the ‘Children’s Museum Club’, a travelling school loans service set up in 1954, to the founding of a dedicated Education Department in 1981. Throughout its long history, the Museum has always held objects and collections at the heart of its popular learning offer. More recently, the growth of the learning team led to the creation of a set of learning principles to underpin its work. These principles – that learning should be object-centred, dialogic, imaginative, personalised, multi-sensory, collaborative and exploratory – are all based on inquiry-based learning and aim to foster a research-based disposition in learners.

As a University Museum with engagement at its heart, Manchester Museum is now looking to transform the third floor of its building into a space themed entirely around ‘research’. This redevelopment, due to open in March 2015, will see the creation of a new visitor research space – ‘The Study’. This unique development will extend the successful inquiry-based learning approach used with schools and colleges, into a public research space for all visitors, with collections at its heart.