Digital heritage tourism involves individuals who explicitly and voluntarily engage with a museum's collection and services online, without necessarily visiting the physical museum. This document proposes defining the "digital heritage tourist" as someone who remotely visits a museum through online activities like viewing collections on a website, watching videos, or sharing images on social media. The definition includes limitations that a digital tourist has no intent to visit the physical museum within a year, only interacts with collection-related online services, and visits independently of location. The growth of digital tourism presents opportunities and challenges for museums to account for online visitors and develop alternative financing models to involve virtual consumers.

1. Digital heritage tourism:
innovations in museums
Trilce Navarrete – Erasmus University Rotterdam
Hokkaido University – 10 September 2019

2. Tourism 2018 (UNWTO)
• 1.4 billion individuals travelled internationally (tourists arrivals)
• International tourists receipts + passenger transport = 1.7 trillion USD
• 4 out of 5 tourists travel within their region

3. Tourism 2018 (UNWTO)

4. Tourism 2017 (Netherlands)
• Tourism continues to grow (modestly) in the Netherlands
• There is no coordination to isolate tourists that visit museums
• National tourists cannot be matched to national museum visits

5. Tourism 2020+ … the digital tourist
• 51% of individuals (3.9 billion people) used the internet in 2018.
• Less data is available on the digital services provided and on the
number of visitors – much less on their profile and motivations….

6. https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/search?q=nike

7. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio

8. https://www.instagram.com/dordrechtsmuseum/

9. https://www.nextrembrandt.com/

10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_A0sZi1ZEQ

11. https://artsandculture.google.com/project/vermeer

12. https://www.earlymusicsources.com/Iconography-database

13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_instrument

14. Museums online
• In the past 50+ years, museums have adopted the Internet beyond
the remote catalogue.
• The most ‘successful’ projects appear to be independent from the
physical museum.
• Service innovation has lead to a distinct consumer: the Digital
Heritage Tourist – so far not accounted for in the literature.

15. But …
• How to account for the virtual / digital / online visitor?
• Value to institution? To society?
• Free riding?
• Definitions of visitor / space / activity?
• Online collections are conceptualised beyond the physical museum.
• Visits are an online journey navigating through hyperlinks.

16. And …
• Authenticity is relative to time and place, more dependent on the cultural
capital of the viewer than on the object or site (Timothy and Boyd, 2006).
• Leisure activities (and tourism) are expanding in response to changes in
social practices, use of time, and conceptualisation of place (Henderson,
2008).
• Literature so far discusses digital technology in tourism (1) to enhance
physical visit and (2) as marketing and part of business models (e.g. online
ticket sales, online shop).

17. Definitions
The current definitions:
• Tourist (or overnight visitor) = “A visitor (domestic, inbound or outbound)
is classified as a tourist, if his/her trip includes an overnight stay, or as a
same-day visitor (or excursionist) otherwise (IRTS 2008, 2.13).
• Tourism = “a trip to a main destination outside of [a traveller’s] usual
environment, for less than a year, for any main purpose (business, leisure
or other personal purpose) […] Tourism is a subset of travel and visitors are
a subset of travels.” (UNWTO).
• Heritage tourist = “the explicit and voluntary contact that tourists have,
away from their normal place of residence, with cultural heritage through
the visit or consumption of heritage goods and services” (Bonet, 2013)
http://statistics.unwto.org/sites/all/files/docpdf/glossaryterms.pdf

18. Proposal: Digital Heritage Tourism
Digital Heritage Tourist = exists independently of the physical location
to explicit and voluntary come in contact with the museum’s goods and
services online, not necessarily involving direct payment.
The tourist visits the museum remotely to enjoy the vast information
services related to the collection, which can include viewing an online
catalogue on the museum’s website, watching videos on the museum’s
YouTube channel, or sharing images from the museum’s Instagram
profile. For some, access to specialised content may involve payment
as would the purchase through the online shop.

19. Proposal: Digital Heritage Tourism
Limitations of time, place and activity:
Time = A digital tourist will not intent to visit or actually visit the actual
physical museum within the year of visiting the museum online.
Space = The digital visit will only apply to those products and services
originating from the museum, which may involve collaborative ventures but
not all services that make use of the museum content.
Activity = Only interaction with the actual collection related services of the
museum, excluding information online on parking facilities or opening hours
since these are associated to the physical museum visit.

20. Further thoughts
• Museums remain an authority with (mostly) monopolistic
management of their collections. A strong digital brand may prevent
unwanted copying.
• The tourism industry is interesting because of its economic impact to
the region (though negative externalities to locals). Online, museums
hardly ever charge for access. Alternative financing models can be
considered (e.g. Wikipedia) further involving the consumer in the
digital production cycle.

21. Thank you
Please find the paper at https://doi.org/10.1080/16078055.2019.1639920
For more publications see https://trilcenavarrete.com/publications/
Please contact me at Navarrete@eshcc.eur.nl