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fold worldwide, and they have become essential
ingredients of much middle-class tourism.
Common values of the middle class are
expressed in both museums and tourism in general
save the most hedonistic: education, to increase
understanding of the cultural, ethnic, historical,
natural and more diversities of the world; conservation
of the past for its own sake and to
maintain continuities between the past and the
present; aesthetic appreciation and sense of the
wonderful and the special; status enhancement, for
the tourist vis-aÁ-vis their home reference group and
for museums as markets of place, status, taste and
enlightenment in their local community and the
larger world; and entertainment and the provision
of a relaxed social atmosphere, in contrast to the
workday world.
Museums fall into two types with respect to their
functions for tourism. The first may be called
`world museums'. These are deemed to be
important ingredients of the heritage of the
middle classes of the world. In addition, they are
markers which stand for and serve as essential
components of the touristic appeals of their home
cities. Such museums are primarily art museums,
like the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan and
MOMA in New York or the Ueno Park in Tokyo.
Such museums are great assets as attractions, for
they are thought to contain some of the best of
mankind's cultural productions and are a `must see'
for cultural tourists �see cultural tourism). They
are exemplars of their fields, and they provide a set
of values or criteria against which other collections
may be judged.
The competition for tourists is often played
out in efforts to raise regionally famous museums to
such world visibility, such as the Gulbenkian in
Lisbon or the new Museum of Modern Art in San
Francisco. The same could be said for natural
history or other comparable museums, whereby the
world class institutions such as the South Kensington
museums in London or the American Museum
of Natural History in New York have a global status
that newer entries such as the Ring of Fire
Museum in Osaka or the Exploratorium in San
Francisco may envy. Only rarely have regional
institutions been able to leap into the world class
category, as did the Canadian Museum of Civilisa-
tion of Ottawa or the Museo Nacional de
Anthropologia in Mexico City.
The second type, the local or regional museum,
serve as a touristic guide to the historical,
geographical, natural historical or ethnic characteristics
of a region. These museums help define the
identity of a region, or, in the case of many Third
World nations, the nationality. They frequently
serve as interpretative centres for tourists who want
to quickly grasp the key characteristics of a locality.
Though nominally educational, such museums are
under pressure to be informally didactic, or even
`info-tainment,' to present information in a lighthearted
way that does not appear to the consumer
to be `learning.'
Recent trends in world tourism show a sharp
increase in `cultural tourism' as opposed to more
hedonistic or recreational kinds. Museums, along
with art galleries, theatres, film festivals and other
cultural assets, play a large part in attracting
tourists. Economic calculations show that each
`cultural' attraction has a large monetary value,
by bringing in visitors who spend money on these
as well as on beach, natural feature, sports event
and recreational attractions.
Further reading
museum 401
Ames, M.M. �1992) Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes:
The Anthropology of Museums, Vancouver: University
of British Columbia Press. �A critique of
contemporary, especially anthropology, museums
as possible sites for hegemonic class-based
world views.)
Graburn, N. �1977) `The museum and the visitor
experience', in L. Drager �ed.), The Visitor and the
Museum, Berkeley, CA: Programs Planning
Committee, Museum Educators of the American
Association of Museums and the Lowie
�Hearst) Museum, pp. 5±26. �Discusses multiple
roles of modern museums, as awe-inspiring
houses of the sacred and inspirational, as
institutions of informal learning about the social
and natural world, and as gathering places for
locals or visitors.)
Kaplan, F. �ed.) �1994) Museums and the Making of
`Ourselves':The Role of Objects in National Identity,
London and New York: Leicester University
Press. �Concerns the identity-creating and main