E177 Essay: Museums, Cultural Attractions and Their Impact on Tourism

This essay delves into the pivotal role of museums and cultural attractions in the tourism industry. It explores how museums, such as the British Museum and Tate Modern, contribute to economic growth by attracting visitors and generating revenue. The essay highlights the importance of cultural touris...Read More

Individual Essay
Role of Museums and
Cultural attractions for
Tourism

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Role of Museums and Cultural attractions for Tourism..............................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Museum refers to a building which conserves and preserves historical items, Artistic paintings,
and stores cultural interest for exhibition. The word Museum originated from the Ancient Greek
Mouseion which signifies a temple or place which dedicated to the Muses which simply means
patron divinities in Greek Methodology of the arts. The Museum is full of rare, precious and
mysterious things. The Museum also contains antiques and sculptures. There are more than
55,000 museums in 202 countries in accordance with the World Museum Community. Cultural
attractions allows travellers to experience mankind's rational creations. Culture attracts tourist to
provide historical significance and offers leisure and amusements. The Essay will be discussing
the Role of Museums and Cultural attractions for Tourism.
MAIN BODY
Role of Museums and Cultural attractions for Tourism
Role of Museums – The role of museums is to collect objects and materials of religious,
cultural, historical scripts, sculptures and monuments. Role of Museum is to preserve Heritage
and to do research on them in order to present them in front of public for the purpose of giving
education and for the sake of knowledge and to make them well versed with the Historical
backgrounds and to provide familiarity with one's culture and religions (Moutinho and Vargas-
Sanchez, 2018). The purpose of Museum is to interpret and to display items of artistic or
scientific significance in order to increase the knowledge of public and to provide education. The
role of museum is to contain elements of culture, art galleries and cathedrals.
The role of Museum is to protect cultural heritage and attract more tourists. To educate
visitors about the history, cultural and natural heritage. The tourist can consumes diversity of
cultures through these museums. The Museums play crucial role in United Kingdom tourism for
attracting millions of international and domestic visitors. The Museums showcase the best of UK
history and cultural background to the widest audiences which come to visit from all over the
globe. The Tourism is the united Kingdom fifth largest industry through its popular destinations
they attract 32 million overseas visitors each year. It is been estimated that Tourism economy
grows by 2.6 % till the year 2018. The growth rate of Tourism economy is similar to the retail
and construction industries (Fang, Ye and Law 2016.). Museums nowadays also providing
efficient services through social media to their customers to attract more number of visitors. The
Museums are maintaining websites to interact more time with their visitors.
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For example, British Museum in London is the most visited Museum in United Kingdom.
The British Museum is established in the year 1753 about 266 years ago. About 5,828,552
visitors is come to visit in the year 2018. The British Museum is located in the Bloomsbury area
of London. The British Museum is a public institution which is dedicated to the human history,
Culture and Art (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015). The British Museum London has a collection
of approx eight million works. The British Museum was the first public national museum in all
over the world. It provides documentation of story of human culture from the beginning to the
present era to the tourist. The British Museum is largely based on the Irish Physician and
renowned scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The arts in British Museum London represent every history
period from the Vikings to the Romans to the Egyptians and Medieval Europe (Richards, 2016).
British Museum London is a central part of the Tourism industry of United Kingdom that
encourages tourists spending. British Museum London is an important part of the service based
economy of the United Kingdom.
For example, Tate Modern Museum has created approx 467 tourism jobs in London in
addition to 283 during its construction processing. Tate Modern Museum itself has increased
Hotel and catering business by 23% in its local area. This has lead to open around 1800 new
hotels in Southwark area of London. Tate Museum in London is founded in the year 1897 by
Henry Tate. Tate Museum London is a network of four art museums namely, Tate Britain, Tate
Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. The Tate museum London is a collection of British art,
International modern and contemporary art. Tate Gallery is displaying arts from the year 1500
till the present. The Tate is a government institution but mainly sponsor by the United Kingdom
Department for digital culture and Media and Sports. In the year 2000 Tate Museum announced
a new development project to its south existing building to transform the new iconic building to
south existing gallery (Tate Modern Museum, 2018). This transformation helps to create more
spaces for displaying the collection and helps to allow visitors to create more social spaces. This
modification allows the visitors to engage more deeply with these arts. Tate Museum plays the
role as a visitor attraction and it socially impacts and showing how it drives the urban generation.
There is individual contribution of each gallery of Tate Museum to its local areas. Tate Modern
Museum helps in regeneration of South Bank and Bank-side. The estimated Economic Benefit of
Tate modern Museum was 100 million pounds. The property prices has been increased after the
up gradation of Tate modern Southwark area has done. Commercial development of Southwark
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area is also been done after the amendment of the project of Tate Modern Museum. The Tate
Modern museum has accounted 30% of the employment in the local areas.
Role of cultural Tourism – Cultural Tourism helps to allow visitors to be immersed in local
rituals and provide familiarity with the different religions. Cultural tourism helps to boost
Country's economic growth. The visitors can live up the traditions and they got a chance to meet
different diversity a Culture shows. Culture tourism helps the tourist to learn the cultures of the
respective countries. Tourist can learn the cultures while travelling. Cultural tourism is helpful
due to various reasons it has social and economical impacts. The World Tourism organisation
has reported that Cultural tourism accounts for 37 % of Global tourism Industry. The Global
Tourism Organisation has increased by 15 % on annually basis. The Culture Tourism also
benefits the visitors to adopt the lifestyles of people they visit (Boniface, Cooper and Cooper,
2016). Cultural tourism provides the support to the owners of Cultural history and architectural
monuments. It provides familiarity to tourist about one's ethical background, class, family
history and also provide familiarity about different regional and local languages. It Strengthens
the dimensions of intangible cultural heritage for Tourists. This is helpful for researcher to gain
more knowledge and empower their observation skills while travelling in different countries.
This is helpful for conducting market research. The Cultural Tourism is helpful for providing the
training opportunities.
For example, Tower of London is considered as a most Important tourist attraction
building in England. The Tower of London is a top World Heritage site for the visitors. The
Tower of London was built in the year 1078 by William the Conqueror. It exhibits such as Line
of Kings and renowned as the world's oldest visitor attraction for its remarkable displays of
Royal armour (Mowforth and Munt, 2015). The Tower of London also includes the Crown
Jewels exhibition, the royal mint and classic Yeoman Warder Tours. The Tower of London has
exhibits and displays the prisoners and executions.
For example, St. Paul's Cathedral is an iconic Cathedral that has witnessed many
significant events in British Cultural and Religious History. The funeral of Sir Winston Churchill
and the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana is also happened in St Paul's Cathedral.
The St Paul's Cathedral Church has offers 1,200 years of history to the visitors and tourists. The
St Paul's Cathedral also give chance to climb the 237 steps to the top of the Spectacular dome. In
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the whispering gallery of St Paul's Cathedral a whisper can be heard from above 100 feet away
that admires the stunning views of London's skyline.
Tourists get attracted to the place which is rich in cultural heritage and defines the aims
of discovering monuments and cultural heritage sites. The Tourism industry also contributes
economic and social growth of United Kingdom by providing new Employment opportunities to
the people. Heritage includes traditional and cultural expressions of old peoples perception
towards the life (Benckendorff, Xiang and Sheldon, 2019). The arts are a visual images and
characters that historical people used to portrait on the canvas, stones, historical walls and
sculptures. To achieve the sustainable tourism development it is important to explore the one's
history and to exchange the cultural diversities through displaying exhibits in the various
museums of United Kingdom. The duty of tourist places is to explore various heritage attributes
to the visitors. The Museums and Cultural heritage can provide tourists about the insightful
information of the country's history and helpful in recalling old good times to their domestic
visitors. The Cultural attraction also related to the various festivals that are showcased to the
travellers and the visitors which came across from the various countries all over the globe. The
cultural attractions provide familiarity with the arts and crafts of a particular country (Becker,
2016.). Traditional practices of one's country is showcase to the Tourists by organising
exhibitions in Museums. The Museum and cultural attractions provides the visitors an
opportunity to travel at the literacy places. The Legacy tourism mainly search for the ancestors
historical scripts. The cultural Heritage provides artistic and literary forms of expressions to the
tourist. The Cultural Heritage provides the myths, beliefs and rituals from Country's density.
This also provides traditional knowledge to the visitors and the tourist which come across
overseas from various countries. The Tourist get familiarity about the archaeological sites and
they got chance to visit the Cultural Landscapes.
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CONCLUSION
The conclusion is being made from the above report is that Museums and cultural Heritage plays
a significant role to drive the tourism industry in United kingdom. The Tourism provides
conservation and protection of one's Culture, Religion and historical monuments. The Museums
and cultural attractions enrich the Country' s economy. It is been concluded that the Tourism
industry provide social benefits by creating Employment opportunities for the people and by
providing benefits to the local areas across the museums and cultural attractions points. The
Conclusion is being made that role of Museum is to collect and preserve a country's traditions,
values, arts and historical monuments in order to display and showcase them to the tourists and
visitors which came across overseas from different countries to generate revenues from them, for
the economic development.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Becker, E., 2016. Overbooked: The exploding business of travel and tourism. Simon and
Schuster.
Benckendorff, P.J., Xiang, Z. and Sheldon, P.J., 2019.Tourism information technology. Cabi.
Boniface, B., Cooper, R. and Cooper, C., 2016. Worldwide destinations: The geography of travel
and tourism. Routledge.
Buhalis, D. and Amaranggana, A., 2015. Smart tourism destinations enhancing tourism
experience through personalisation of services. In Information and communication
technologies in tourism 2015 (pp. 377-389). Springer, Cham.
Fang, B., Ye, Q. and Law, R., 2016. Effect of sharing economy on tourism industry
employment. Annals of Tourism Research, 57(3).pp.264-267.
Moutinho, L. and Vargas-Sanchez, A. eds., 2018. Strategic Management in Tourism, CABI
Tourism Texts. Cabi.
Mowforth, M. and Munt, I., 2015. Tourism and sustainability: Development, globalisation and
new tourism in the third world. Routledge.
Richards, G., 2016. Cultural tourism. In Archaeological Displays and the Public (pp. 1-11).
Routledge.
Online
Tate Modern Museum, 2018 [Online] Available through: <https://www.tate.org.uk/ >
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