The role of museums in the constructs of the global destination experience - The case of the Ceramics Museum of Caldas da Rainha

Abstract

As we act preferably in a direct way upon the Tourist Systems, the Museums face challenges in order to integrate their visitors within the Destination (or universe) to which they belong. These ways to integrate a visitor may be limited to the specific theme sustained by the Museums or, little by little, still focusing on its specificity, they could contribute to a wider integrating scale, and thus making it easier to achieve a desirable systematic cohesion of the Destination. To which extent would the actors, more precisely the Museums, comply with the Global Experience of the Destination, as they limit their strategies according to their visitors, is an issue that concerns the tourist activity as a whole. The Ceramic Museum has been the subject of my research and it sustains and applies a Collective Imaginary of its visitors relying on a cultural nostalgia that asserts the local ceramics as the prevailing means of the promotion of the culture and heritage of Caldas da Rainha. This dissertation exposes the possibility that the Imaginary, within specific contexts, may be equated as a cultural prejudice that inhibits, or at least, does not contribute to promote wider cultural experiences. In opposition to this approach, the definition of strategies to be followed by the Museums becomes increasingly important, to widen the scope of their pedagogical and emancipating aims, according to already existing interests that had been asserted by the Destination.