Malawian Museums Development From A Tourism And Leisure Industry Perspective

Cultural heritage tourism provides tourists with opportunities to stroll and rediscover themselves as they learn and explore things that are either new or unfamiliar to their daily lives in places such as museums;which are institutions that collect and display artefacts of civilization and experiences of humankind(UNESCO,2012).As alluded to by Richards(2001),contemporary tourists always seek to tryout their beliefs,behaviors and curiosity by using the museums among other avenues,a development that has seen the rise of specialized museums like that of Karonga Museum in Malawi and the Cannabis Museum in Amsterdam among others.However,as more and more research in developed countries indicates an increase in museum traffic,the Malawian scenario remains at an insignificant level despite having different kinds of museums scattered across the country.This research therefore aimed at finding out Factors hindering Malawians from visiting museums as leisure and recreation centers in a bid to help develop and promote museums as tourist attractions.Five museums were involved namely;Chamare,Chichiri,Karonga,Mandala and Mzuzu.The research explored whether the collection and display of museum exhibits,museum services and communication messages have any pull effect on the tourists that could lead them to visit museums.This research adopted two theories for guidance;(Dann,1977)Push and Pull Theory and The Expectancy – Disconfirmation Theory(Oliver,1980).The research engaged a mixed research approach and used questionnaires,face to face interviews as well as observations to collect data to address the research questions.200 people were purposively sampled to answer the questionnaires while five managers were involved in the in-depth interviews.Qualitative data from the in-depth interviews as well as from the open ended questions on the questionnaires were analyzed by use of thematic analysis whereas quantitative data was analyzed by using the IBM SPSS software.Research findings indicate that most Malawians do not visit museums due to ignorance about the existence of museums as they are not properly marketed.Another reason is that most exhibits on display are as old as the museums themselves hence people do not want to go and see what they already saw when they were young.And lastly some people expressed unwillingness to pay an entry fee hence they stay away from museums.The research highly recommends that the Department of Culture gears up its experiential marketing and civic education campaigns to ensure that Malawians are knowledgeable of museums for an audience development.It is also recommended that exhibits on display should be regularly changed to ensure a steady flow of visitors into the museums.