Horváth László – H. Bathó Edit – Kaposvári Gyöngyi – Tárnoki Judit – Vadász István szerk.: Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 13. (2003)

The Role of Museums in Communal Life

RAY HOPPER THE ROLE OF MUSEUMS IN COMMUNAL LIFE The author is the leader of Ray Hopper Associates (RHAtourism), a tourism industry consultant company founded in 1988. He deals with the evaluation and improvement of the cultural and economic life of museums and tourist installations. He considers museums as tourist attractions and eyemarks that play an important role in the life of the community attached to them as far as the cultural, financial and employment aspects are concerned. He evaluates these aspects as the decisive elements of future development. He views museums as main element of cultural heritage and tourism, which is provided with a weak network of relation and insufficient communication, and the reason of this is the outdated views of the creation and maintenance of museums. Outside nation-wide institutions, the activities attached to museums lacked professional competence, however they made honourable efforts to meet the requirements of authenticity. The decisive role of authenticity hindered attraction, and thus they could only rely on the support from the traditional public and government institutions. This system does not help improvement, what's more, it makes it impossible and sometimes brings cut-back. The get-out is taking local communities into expansion, meeting the demands of the visitors, and taking these into account creating a proper image. During the projecting a question has to be answered: whether the museum in question could be made profitable or not, measuring its capabilities such as accessibility. That is, "Do we want a museum right there at all?" And only after we have answered this question can we start "merchandising", where everything, based on the demands of the visitors, is attached to nation-wide cultural integrity and we can set forth towards the future. 310