Museums as a vehicle for domestic tourism growth in Malawi: an analysis of the push and pull factors

Abstract

Museums are one of the major reasons why tourists tend to visit a destination. As such, contemporary museums now have perceptual dimensions of leisure in addition to being custodians of human identity and history. In this regard, simply having a museum building will not attract modern day tourists to wander around in them as they need far more than the exhibits and the curatorial services. This study aimed at finding out the reasons why people visit museums, the relationship between museum attributes and the overall customer satisfaction as well as the reasons why some people do not visit museums in Malawi at all. Simple random sampling and purposive sampling were used. A total of 200 questionnaires were administered to domestic tourists visiting five museums out of which only 186 were usable and five in-depth interviews were conducted with the five managers/curators of the museums under study. Thematic analysis was use to come up with recurrent factors in the study. Results showed that most respondents have been to museums for their history and heritage value, and recreational, cultural and educational reasons, but most of them were not satisfied with the services on offer. Finally, the study draws conclusions and provides some managerial insights for better museums management and customer retention, and thus sustainability.