Marketing in museums: Modern marketing approach in museum-visitor relationships

This postgraduate thesis on "Marketing in Museums: Modern Marketing Approach in Museum-Visitor Relationships" has investigated the theme of modern marketing in museums, by establishing a relationship between modern marketing applications, which are traditionally developed for products and which take consumer satisfaction as a basis, and the museum experience and visitor satisfaction level. This study consists of three parts. In the first part, which conveys general information about the concept of museum; the definition of museum, it's goals and the development process of museology in Turkey and in the world have taken place. Moreover, the environment in which museums operate and it's effects have been investigated and reasons for visiting and nonvisiting behaviors are dealt with. In the second part, the inquiry of the marketing applications acoording to the various features of the museum market has been referred to and the necessity for an investigation, that deals with the satisfaction of museum visitors, has been touched on. Due to the significance of the definition and analysis of the research in selecting the target market, segmentation in the museum market and the adaptation of the marketing mix elements to the museums in conformity with the segmentation have been explained. In order for the museum experience to conclude with visitor satisfaction, the need of the marketing mix elements to work in harmony both within themselves and with general aims, has been stressed and marketing plans developed for museums have been investigated. The third part includes the "Museum Visitors Profile and Satisfaction Survey", held in Istanbul Archeology Museums and Hagia Sophia Museum. In order to determine the profiles and the opinions and considerations of the visitors visiting these museums, the applicability of a questionaire and it's ability to discover the differences between the two museums have been tested.