Marketing research and museum consumer behaviour in Berlin

Abstract

This research tries to go into the consumption patterns of tourists visiting museums in Berlin. Indeed, the importance of the museum tourism market in Berlin has created a need for information on the motivations of cultural tourists, as attention has shifted from historic and architectural tourism model or “bildungsbürgerlich tourism” (Spode and Gutbier 1987: 30), towards broadening the range of cultural attractions, unter alia museums regarded with both, traditional and contemporary culture. In particular, the city of Berlin gives an accurate picture of what European cities are willing to do in response to the growing relationship between tourism and museums, with more than 170 museums of world culture. In this context, a visitor survey (200) was conducted in one of the most important Museum of Berlin , the “Pergamon Museum”, in order to investigate the motivation, image, socio-demographic profile, opinions and consumption patterns of cultural tourists visiting Berlin. The findings of this research indicate that today’s cultural tourists in Berlin are generally well-educated people with high status occupations, good incomes, heavily concerned with the environment, and that not all cultural visitors are cultural tourists as the level of cultural motivation varies greatly from one tourist to the next.