Challenges in cross-cultural tourism : New Zealand museums and Chinese visitor experience
Description: This thesis explores Chinese museum visitorship in New Zealand. Recognising the importance of visitor studies in general and the challenges of cosmopolitan audiences in museums, the goal of this thesis is to understand why, when Chinese people have a passion for visiting museums and are keen to come to New Zealand, they are not visiting New Zealand museums in significant numbers, even though Chinese now constitute the second highest number of international tourists for New Zealand, outstripped only by Australia. In order to investigate Chinese museum visitors' experiences, case studies of four representative museums in New Zealand and China were undertaken: the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira, the National Museum of China and the Palace Museum in Beijing. Questionnaire surveys and museum employee interviews, together with my own observations, provided data for comparative analysis. By comparing data from these museums, the aim was to discover Chinese preferences and understand their attitudes towards cultural curatorship, museum technology, language assistance, marketing strategies, and commercial services, which has not previously been undertaken. Analysis revealed that Chinese visitors have a strong feeling that New Zealand museums do not make enough special provisions for them. This related particularly to problems of communication because New Zealand museum displays depend heavily on English (and occasionally Maori) texts. While Chinese people considered the Maori content potentially very interesting, and wanted to know about Pakeha-Maori historical relations, most had no effective way of understanding the information provided. They were also interested to see how Chinese people live New Zealand, particularly early settlers, but found little on this. Chinese visitors enjoyed the uncrowded environment and commercial facilities in New Zealand museums compared to those of China, and multimedia forms of exhibition which were easiest for them to understand. But, while they appreciated the use of innovative technology which gave them new learning experiences, they found it disappointing that it was not always accessible to people who could not easily understand English. Chinese museum visitors' foremost concern was Chinese language assistance. Apart from the provision of Mandarin-speaking guides, the most effective language assistance was identified as multi-language audio guides like the Palace Museum 'Explorer' with automatically guided functions. The surveys also identified many smaller issues, such as food preferences, and clarified that the use of social media and the adaptation of technology would make New Zealand museums more accessible to Chinese
Collection: DOCUMENTARY HERITAGEDescription: This thesis explores Chinese museum visitorship in New Zealand. Recognising the importance of visitor studies in general and the challenges of cosmopolitan audiences in…