Museums of the Future: Cultural Tourism Experiences for Wellbeing and Transformation

Museums, as important cultural tourism attractions, have an important role to play in promoting visitor wellbeing (Chatterjee, Vreeland & Noble, 2009; Vogelpoel et. al, 2013; Jelinčić & Matečić, 2021; Šveb Dragija & Jelinčić, 2022). While the concept of restorative museums was introduced in 1993, it has not been sufficiently studied (Kaplan, Bardwell & Slakter, 1993). Likewise, eudaimonic wellbeing (Ryff, 1989) and hedonic wellbeing have been studied (Diener, 1984), albeit less in the museum context. At the same time, travel activities are often seen as instantaneous remedies for healing and short-term escape from stressful lifestyles, as they offer new experiences, possibly resulting in wellbeing. While transformation is not a simple process as it requires a physiological change in the brain's neural networks, there are indications that museum tourism experiences may become a polygon for experimentation for new models of cultural tourism. The assumption is that, in the future, museum activities will increasingly be using stories and experience design in order to foster visitors’ wellbeing and transformation. In order to investigate museum experiences, focus group methodology is applied with three different participant groups: museum professionals, tourism agencies, and decision-makers. The main research questions are focused on investigating (1) the main factors in museum experience design influencing wellbeing and transformation respectively, and (2) the role of induced emotional valence in such experiences. The research is conducted in Croatia. Policy and managerial implications will be derived from the study findings.