Challenges and Issues on Marketing the Museum in Indonesia

Some issues on the museum marketing concept implementation have emerged since their existence. One of those issues was perceived as commercializing the institution and getting more people to come to the museum. In a developing country like Indonesia, the number of visitors to museums is relatively low. Creating a marketing program is expected to get potential visitors' attention. However, most museums in Indonesia are managed by the government, thus implementing marketing concepts also have their challenges. This paper aims to explore the obstacles and challenges faced by museums in this situation. As preliminary research, the methodology used for this paper is a mix of desk study and a survey. The literature study was taken into account to explore the possible issues in museum marketing, while the survey was intended to describe the characteristics of museum visitors in Indonesia, as well as their general opinion of the museums they have visited. A survey has conducted by distributing questionnaires using online and offline means to respondents who have visited museums in Indonesia. From this study, the visitors' perception is then classified into several categories to identify the challenges which relate to the implementation of marketing in the museum. There were some essential preliminary findings related to how people associated the meaning of the museum, the visitors' intention on how they spend their leisure time, and how the museum should respond to the current situation.