Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Museums lag global standards

05/01/2010
Bangkok Post

Thai museums must meet international standards with their presentation and promotions to attract more local and international tourists, says Pichet Turongkinanon, managing director of the museum specialist C-Mex.

Thailand has about 1,100 museums but fewer than 10 are well-known and highly regarded, he said.

"Thailand has a lot of potential to open more museums because we have a wealth of local knowledge and culture," said Mr Pichet.

"But our existing museums lack professional management and good displays, so that even local people never pay attention to them or know them."

Foreigners often know Thai museums better than Thais, he said.

Most Thai museums feature exhibits that are uninteresting. Some display valuable items on shelves or in showcases without even providing enough basic information, he said.

Thailand's museums need professionals to help them develop along the right lines, said Mr Pichet. In his view, there are only about 10 skilled museum operators in Thailand. Museum development has only emerged as a trend in the last two years.

"Museum operators must have creativity to build themes and stories for each place and item together. Good presentation is also key to making a museum interesting," he said.

But getting Thai museums up to international standards requires government support because most museums are state-owned, he said.

"We think this government is quite interested in museum-related issues. So we plan to directly approach the government and provincial administrations to develop or improve some museums as tourist attractions," he said.

C-Mex plans to develop three museums per year. The company has already completed six projects such as Bueng Boraphet Aquarium in Nakhon Sawan and the Angkor National Museum in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

After its recent facelift, Bueng Boraphet Aquarium now attracts between 700 and 1,000 visitors a day, up from only 200.

C-Mex has been approached by several private museums and a zoo - as well as by provincial administrations wanting to develop museums - but lacks the staff to take on all these projects, he said.

Demand for developing tourist attractions is rising and local communities want to attract tourists and generate revenue, he said.

Development budgets are from 30 million to 50 million baht for a private museum and about 100 million baht for government museums, although it depends on the scope of the project. Most jobs are facelifts, adding new space or creating themes and concepts, said Mr Pichet.

C-Mex also plans to launch museum package tours abroad, starting with a tour to France in the middle of this year.

"We have organised unofficial museum package tours abroad for our clients but today we get more requests when we visit clients. They want direct experience of international museums," said Mr Pichet.

C-Mex plans to build a museum network that will start with 18 destinations in the next three years.

"We will pool them together and create marketing promotions such as offering museum package tours and building a website of Thai museums as a centre of information," he said. "We believe that this will help promote Thai museums both locally and internationally."

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