Using edutainment to enrich visitor experience in museums

Museums, as one of the components of the tourism sector, have economic and socio-cultural functions. While the museums fulfil their duties towards the society as educational institutions, they aim to contribute to the destination in terms of image and economic return by attracting more visitors, as well. For this reason, museums try to ensure that visitors have better experiences. One of the models that can be used to improve the visitor experience in museums is edutainment. Edutainment, which can be described as providing education through entertainment, contributes especially to the learning experiences of the visitors by increasing the memorability of the content of the museums. The main purpose of this dissertation is to reveal the impact of the edutainment on visitor experiences. In this context, an experimental design was carried out in the Izmir Trade History Museum and the impact of the edutainment treatment on the learning experience was measured by comparing it with a second educational treatment (information card), which is not intended for entertainment purposes. The data of the research was collected through observation, written exam and group interview. The findings of the study demonstrate that edutainment and information card treatments significantly affect the learning experience in museums. Accordingly, while the edutainment treatment gave more effective results than the information card treatment, the strongest learning experience was observed when both applications were adopted together. Keywords: Edutainment, Museology, Museum Visitors, Visitor Experience.