{"id":11467,"date":"2011-04-03T20:03:21","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T03:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=11467"},"modified":"2011-04-06T04:24:37","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T11:24:37","slug":"cultural-tourism-in-a-global-museum-world-international-tourism-conference-jerusalem-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=11467","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Tourism – International Tourism Conference Jerusalem 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cultural luminaries convened in Jerusalem to share their knowledge, experiences, strategies, insight and ideas for the future in a panel on Cultural Tourism in a Global Museum World<\/strong>, which took place on March 30, 2011 at the first International Tourism Conference Jerusalem 2011. The session was moderated by Mr. James Snyder, Director of the Israel Museum<\/strong>, with opening remarks by Ms. Hanna Munitz, General Director of the Israel Opera Tel Aviv-Jaffa<\/strong>; a presentation by Mr. Massimo Andreoti, Cultural Consultant, Carnival of Venice, President of the C.E.R.S. \u2013 Consortium of European Re-enactment Societies<\/strong>; and a panel discussion with Mr. Thomas Campbell, Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/strong>, New York<\/strong>; Mr. Axel R\u00fcger Director Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam<\/strong>; Mr. James Cuno President, Art Institute of Chicago<\/strong>; and Dr. Mikhail B. Piotrovski Director, Hermitage Musuem, St. Petersburg<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Ms. Hanna Munitz, General Director of The Israel Opera Tel Aviv \u2013 Jaffa\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The presence of such leading cultural figures at the conference, is in itself an indication of Jerusalem and Israel’s inherent potential as a center of cultural activity and initiatives. The panel opened with a success story: Ms. Munitz recounted her experience of connecting a cultural event \u2013 the production of Verdi\u2019s Nabucco<\/em> \u2013 to an historical, archaeological site \u2013 Massada. Ms. Munitz said that the open-air opera festival, inaugurated last year by the Israel Opera together with the Ministry of Tourism and the Tamar Regional Council, was the \u201cfulfillment of a dream, or rather of a vision.\u201d She reported that \u201cover 50,000 people came to the opera\u201d of which she described 4,000 as \u201cculture tourists\u201d who came especially for this event, some visiting Israel for the first time. Recounting that during her travels, she has often seen historic and archeological sites utilized as venues for cultural events and festivals, Ms. Munitz said, \u201cIsrael has thousand year old historic and archeological sites; it is time to turn them into prospering cultural, economic and tourist assets.\u201d In this sense, the Israeli Opera has set an example to emulate, as the successful open-air festival will extend its range this year to include a variety of performances in Jerusalem in addition to Verdi\u2019s Aida<\/em> at Masada.<\/p>\n

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Mr. Massimo Andreoti, Cultural Consultant, Carnival of Venice, President of the C.E.R.S. \u2013 Consortium of European Re-enactment Societies\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mr. Massimo Andreoti discussed the value of promoting cultural heritage in attracting tourism. Mr. Andreoti addressed the issue of historical sites, saying that these places of national heritage, which incur costs in their preservation, can be transformed into a resource. He described the concept of \u201ctourism of memory\u201d \u2013 visitors to a country \u201cdiscovering the identity of others during a stay in their territory.\u201d While acknowledging the fact that the world economic crisis has affected the availability of funds, Mr. Andreoti noted that the \u201cItalian system used only 13% of the 28.8 billion\u201d potentially available to them from the European Union, and said that it is important to \u201cfind a way to teach local bodies how to obtain funds.\u201d Mr. Andreoti concluded with a proposal to set up a \u201cGlobal Net of Cultural Tourism\u201d based in Jerusalem to research and analyze these issues, connect between all the international organizations and facilitate the development of international cultural tourism.<\/p>\n

The second portion of the session was devoted to a panel on \u201cMuseums as Cultural Venues.\u201d In his introduction of the speakers, Mr. James Snyder, Director of the Israel Museum, noted that \u201cthree of the five were born in countries different from those of the museums they run,\u201d reflecting the prevalent international perspective on culture.<\/p>\n

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Mr. Thomas Campbell, Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The significance of culture in relation to tourism was made clear by the first speaker, Mr. Thomas Campbell, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, who began by surveying the audience to see who had visited New York, and of those, who had visited the Met. The numbers spoke for themselves, many in the room had been to New York, and of those \u2013 all but five had visited the Met. In this regard, the Met is in an enviable situation, possessing one of the world\u2019s encyclopedic collections, and located in a city which attracted, according to Mr. Campbell, 47.5 million tourists last year. Of those, Mr. Campbell reported, 29 million were cultural visitors. \u201cWe really speak to everybody wherever they come from,\u201d said Mr. Campbell.<\/p>\n

One might think that this is one museum that doesn\u2019t need to invest in attracting visitors, yet this is precisely where one can learn from the Met\u2019s experience. Despite their obvious advantages, a great deal of effort, thought and money is invested in promoting the museum. Mr. Campbell said, \u201cWe attend a host of international trade and tourist shows\u2026have a manager of tourist marketing, produce printed and e-version brochures for the professional travel community\u2026work to cultivate hotel concierges\u2026\u201d and are devoting more and more attention to the internet, which Mr. Campbell described as a \u201cnew frontier, the wild west.\u201d He said that according to surveys conducted by the museum, 50% of the Met\u2019s visitors go online before they visit, and 30% use the website to plan their visit. Noting that this is his first visit to Israel, Mr. Campbell said that \u201cunquestionably the museum [the Israel Museum] made me want to come to Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Dr. Mikhail B. Piotrovski, Director of the Hermitage Musuem, St. Petersburg\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Mikhail B. Piotrovski, Director of the Hermitage Musuem, St. Petersburg, said that one crucial and common mistake made by many countries is \u201cnot investing enough in infrastructure.\u201d Dr. Piotrovski emphasized the unique position museums hold in today\u2019s digital world, saying, \u201cMuseums are about real things, people, objects, history \u2013 people feel this energy. It stands against the absolute virtuality of our lives.\u201d The Hermitage possesses an enormous collection \u2013 an advantage that also poses challenges for museum directors in terms of display and storage. The Hermitage is addressing this challenge in an innovative way by developing new galleries of \u201copen storage\u201d as a special way of showing the museum collections. Among the challenges he sees for the Hermitage as well as other cultural venues are attracting young audiences to the museum and developing content that will provide visitors with enough to see and do for more than a one day visit, and changing content for people, such as business tourists, who are likely to return for a second visit.<\/p>\n

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Mr. James Cuno, President of the Art Institute of Chicago\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mr. James Cuno, President of the Art Institute of Chicago, said that he represents a city which \u201coffers a very different kind of tourist experience, “Chicago is the capital of the Midwest; that sounds like a desperately pathetic qualification \u2013 it\u2019s not.\u201d Mr. Cuno reported that the museum attracts about 1.5 \u2013 1.8 million visitors each year, of which 10 \u2013 15% are international, quipping, \u201cthe brave few who venture into the depths of the country.\u201d Providing some background on the region for those less familiar, Cuno said that \u201chistorically the Midwest has been important to the development of the U.S. The last 50 years have not been kind to the Midwest\u2026the term \u2018dying\u2019 has been used to describe Detroit \u2013 that is not the case with Chicago. Chicago has continuously reinvented itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Art Institute of Chicago is modeled after the museums of New York and Boston, as Mr. Cuno described: \u201csituated in the heart of the city, open to all, part of a context of recreational park zone on Michigan Avenue, very accessible, centrally located \u2013 a vital part of city life.\u201d In addition to international exhibit exchanges, the museum collaborates with other cultural institutions in the city such as the Chicago Symphony, the Opera, dance companies, and the Poetry Foundation. Mr. Cuno stressed that it is necessary \u201cto continue to re-invest in the experience of the museum itself, to emphasize it as an experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Mr. Axel R\u00fcger Director Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mr. Axel R\u00fcger Director of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam said that for him, seeing the Israel Museum was \u201can overwhelming experience, also when elsewhere in the city, looking to the shining city on the hill, a beacon for a bright future.\u201d As Mr. R\u00fcger noted, there is \u201ca slight difference in scale [from the other museums, the Van Gogh museum] could comfortably fit into one of the small pavilions of the Israel museum.\u201d The museum houses the largest collection of works by Vincent Van Gogh, yet it is not a single artist museum, displaying the works of other artists of the period to show the artist\u2019s work in context. The visitor profile is also very different from the other museums, with 80% foreign visitors. In terms of drawing tourists to Amsterdam, the challenge here is unique as well, for Amsterdam certainly attracts many visitors, as Mr. R\u00fcger joked, for of \u201csex, drugs and rock and roll\u201d \u2013 leaving museums and other organizations \u201cstruggling [with the question of] how to promote the city abroad.\u201d One direction the museum may take in the future according to Mr. R\u00fcger, is to \u201cdig much deeper into the needs and expectations\u00a0 of visitors from different countries\u2026to tailor our offerings to more specific focal groups.\u201d Another aspect to develop is one mentioned by other museum directors \u2013 advance online ticket sales. People tend to complain about the long queues, yet, as Mr. R\u00fcger said, \u201cno one would expect to walk up to the opera or concert hall and say I want to go in now, yet everyone just walks up to the door [of a museum] and expects to get in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Mr. James Snyder, Director, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mr. James Snyder represented the home team with warmth and humor, saying, \u201cI know that if I ask how many of you have visited Jerusalem, I will win.\u201d Mr. Snyder referred to the original vision of former Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, to create a museum for Jerusalem and Israel \u201con par with the great cultural capitals of the world.\u201d The renewed campus has attracted many visitors since the official opening last summer, offering the benefit of what Mr. Snyder called \u201cpsychic currency for Israel, the twenty acres [of the museum campus] offer serene, calm, pure beauty\u201d as compared to the typical Israeli scene which he described as \u201ccomplex and cacophonous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Snyder then posed a provocative question to the distinguished panel: \u201cDo we actually like tourists?\u201d Mr. Campbell responded first, saying, \u201cI think we all like tourists, they pay more at the shops and restaurants,\u201d and said that the Met is revising their current tendency to \u201ctreat all of our visitors alike\u201d and examining their assumptions about the knowledge with which visitors come to the museum, trying to develop new content that will address visitors arriving with different backgrounds. Dr. Piotrovski commented that in his country, \u201cservice is not a part of our national culture, we don\u2019t like tourists enough,\u201d a comment that appeared to resonate with the Israeli audience. Mr. Cuno spoke of the responsibility museums with encyclopedic collections have to \u201cintroduce visitors to the historic cultures of one another, providing them with what they can\u2019t get at home.\u201d Mr. R\u00fcger said, \u201cI adore and want to embrace every tourist who comes to Amsterdam,\u201d but continued to say that many in his country \u201ccould not be more negative\u201d towards tourists. He added with humor, \u201cthey may not be able to cycle as well as we do\u201d and spoke of the need to \u201cchange attitudes\u201d towards tourists.<\/p>\n

The session was beautifully concluded by Ms. Lia Van Leer, founder of the Haifa Cinematheque, the Jerusalem Cinematheque, the Israel Film Archive and the Jerusalem Film Festival, who commented on the \u201csense of discovery\u201d that a visitor feels when seeing a museum for the first time, saying that when she made her first visit to the renewed Israel Museum she felt that sense of discovery anew.<\/p>\n

The International Tourism Conference Jerusalem 2011 was organized in association with the City of Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Development Authority, Ministry of Tourism of Israel, ICC Jerusalem International Convention Center, Israel Hotel Association, Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association, and Office of the Prime Minister. The event is an effort to initiate non-political dialogue illustrating and branding Jerusalem as an International tourist destination and convention center. , which took place from May 29 \u2013 31, 2011 at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem (ICC).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cultural luminaries convened in Jerusalem to share their knowledge, experiences, strategies, insight and ideas for the future in a panel on Cultural Tourism in a Global Museum World, which took place on March 30, 2011 at the first International Tourism Conference Jerusalem 2011. The session was moderated by Mr. James Snyder, Director of the Israel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}