Marketing museums and cultural assets in the modern era: an overview of the special topic

Abstract

There has been a shift in museum and heritage marketing management toward creating environments that are more pleasant, engaging, and transforming for visitors. Since Mclean's (1995) and Goulding's (1999) work on public attitudes within a postmodern consumption society, a variety of research questions and approaches, including some published in the Journal of Marketing Management, have acknowledged the contemporary perspectives in consumption of museums and heritage spaces (e.g. Bennett, Kerrigan, & O'Reilly, 2010; Jafari, Taheri, & Vom Lehn, 2013; Taheri, Jafari, & O'Gorman, These developments have fueled an ongoing evolution in current museum and heritage marketing management theory, yielding new understandings of consumer behavior and the marketing process as a whole. They have been notably rich in exposing consumer engage- ment and substantial interaction between visitors and service providers, particularly those underpinning new features of decision-making, co-created experiences as well as experi- ential marketing. As a result, a wide range of themes and approaches are represented in this issue's six pieces. Following this, we provide short descriptions of each article included in this issue.