Victoria and Albert Museum

Introduction

Museums have been an integral part of heritage tourism. They have served the role of guardians for the local, national and international heritage; and they have provided the visitors into an insight into the different aspects of mankind be it art, history, science or fashion. However, the changing world has resulted in the need for museums to go beyond their traditional job of collecting, preserving and displaying artifacts. Decreasing aid from Government has made the museums heavily dependent on their private investors and visitors for support. The newer generation of visitors has increasingly sophisticated demandsfor exceptional service and experience qualities. Museums are,thus, facing increasing pressure to broaden their collections base, and diversify the audience base to include the un-represented and excluded population(Black, 2005). Museums in the 21^st century face the challenge to become customer-centric rather than being product-centric to survive and excel and become centres of entertainment and learning. Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum of London is an example of one such museum which has accepted the need of changing with the world.

V&A Museum is a museum of decorative arts and design. It has been named after Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. Founded in 1852, it has grown to have nearly 145 galleries showcasing paintings, ceramics, glass, sculptures, furniture and many more. V&A is known for its Italian Renaissance collections and East Asian collections. V&A’s museum of childhood is popular with parents and children alike.V&A museum archives comprise of four units: The Archive of Art & Design, The Beatrix Potter Collections, The V&A Archive and The V&A Theatre and Performance Archive(V&A Museum). The museum conducts many national and international exhibitions. There are study rooms for the enthusiasts to study and gather information and do research on their topics of interest.

Facts about V&A

V&A museum’s visit figures have continued to increase over the years. The total number of actual visits to the museum sites was 3,049,000 in 2010/11 compared to 2,746,000 in 2009/10 and 2,490,700 in 2008/09 (V&A Museum). The visits to V&A museum, Museum of Childhood and the Blythe House have all seen an increase in 2010/11. For example, Blythe house registered 6,800 visitors in 2010/11 compared to 2,900 visitors in 2009/10 (V&A Museum). The percentage of black and ethnic minority visitors attending the museum sites has increased from 12% in 2006/07 to 16% in 2010/11 (V&A Museum). Despite a cut in Grant aid, the museum has recorded a profit of £284K in 2010/11, mostly from fundraising, exhibitions and the friends and benefactors of V&A Museum.£1.83M was spent on acquisitions for the collection, along with objects worth £4.97M donated to the museum(V&A Museum). The total funds raised in 2010/11 were £7.53M. The prime donators to the museum are the Friends of V&A, the Director’s Circle, and corporate partners along with the donation boxes.The V&A Museum has engaged in transforming the museum and renovating its various departments and galleries since 2009. It has drawn up ‘Future Plan’ for redisplaying the collections, and improving the visitor facilities. The Future Plan project has resulted in the opening of the Clothworkers’ Centre for Textile and Fashion Study and Conservation which holds 104,000 objects ranging from ancient textiles to fashionable ball gowns.

The museum has transformed itself from a product-oriented organization to a customer-centric organization, by changing its traditional operating styles, and embracing the new values of customer service and engagement. The operating style of the museum along with its endeavor to reach out to newer, unrepresented communities and providing a quality experience to its visitors have been discussed in the following paragraphs.

V&A’s Operations in relation to Customer Experience Quality

Heritage tourism is viewed as an experiential consumption (Chen & Chen, 2010). The experience quality in case of museum visitors can be defined as the visitor’s response and feelings of satisfaction towards the service of the museum. Otto and Richie have developed a scale of experience quality in tourism industry comprising of four factors: hedonics, peace of mind, involvement and recognition(Otto & Ritchie, 2000).Hedonics is affective responses like excitement, enjoyment and memorability. Peace of mind is an assurance of physical and psychological safety and comfort. Involvement refers to engaging the visitors in activities, with giving them power to choose. Recognition refers to the feeling of important. Good customer experience quality not only ensures the revisits by the visitors, but also leads to newer visitors through the word-of-mouth advertising by the satisfied visitors.

V&A Museum has transformed its operations in many ways for enhancing the customer experience quality. V&A’s initiatives in relation the four factors of experience quality are provided below:

Hedonics: V&A has started ‘Future Plan’ project which involves revitalizing visitor facilities and redisplaying the collections. These are all aimed at improving the memorability of the visitors’ experience with V&A. The Exhibition Road Project, undertaken in 2010, is expected to connect the V&A to the Exhibition road with an open air courtyard for contemporary design and architecture installations. This is going to affect the visitor’s affective responses of memorability and excitement. Various events like the ‘Ball Gown Show’ provide the visitors with pleasure and enjoyment. Friday Late is an event held at the V&A Museum every last Friday of the moth. It involves live performances, fashion shows, debates, special guests, DJs and bar and food, all aimed at giving a unique experience to the customer. The interior decorations designed and redesigned by famous architects are aimed at pleasing the visitors’ aesthetic sense. The Museum of Childhood conducts various events and activities to provide fun and enjoyment to the visiting children. Activities like storytelling, treasure hunts, and arts and crafts are run daily, that provide the children with enjoyment and memories.

Peace of Mind:The continuous investments in renovations and refurbishments of departments and galleries provide a sense of physical safety to the visitors. Assisting Staffs are present through the museum, who provide the visitors with answers to any queries, or help them with any problem. This in general helps in creating a peace of mind. There are friendly staffs present in the Museum of Childhood, especially trained in handling and engaging children. This offers a peace of mind to the parents who think the museums to be safe physically as well as psychologically.

Involvement:The Museum of Childhood runs a variety of teaching programmes incorporating elements of the National Curriculum. Moreover, the museum does not just display its collections, it involves the children in various activities like story-telling, crafts, etc. which increases their sense of involvement.

The V&A Museum is famous for its study rooms and archives. V&A museum, in addition to its galleries, has the National Art Library, the Archives and Study Rooms where enthusiastic visitors may get additional material about the collections. Aimed at improving the affective sense of involvement, these study rooms provide the visitors with a unique sense of being part of the museum. For example, Prints and Drawings study room gives the visitors access to about 750,000 objects, help from staff if the visitors are unsure about researchand no-time constraint so that the visitors can examine the various objects at leisure.

Recognition: Each contribution to the museum is duly recognized by the managing committee through publishing on the website and the periodicals.

The Museum’s success in improving the experience quality of visitors can be viewed from the increasing number of visitors to the museum, increasing number of participation at various events and exhibitions, and the success of the fundraising activities.

Audience Development in V&A Museum

According to Graham Black, audience development is not about increasing the size of the audience, nor is it about increasing access to the museum. He says audience development is all about reaching out to new audience previously unrepresented, under-represented and excluded in the museum(Black, 2005). Moreover, audience development should be targeted at developing and sustaining the relationship with the new audience over the long run. Museums have generally been the privilege of the ‘haves’ of the society. Poor, minority communities and differently coloured population have been under-represented in the museums. However, the commitment to diversify the audience base is not easy. It will involve changing how the collections are displayed, and it will need an organizational change(Black, 2005). Audience development can be an expensive exercise, as it needs large funding to incorporate the changes required.

V&A Museum has been taking initiatives to reach out to newer audience sections. It has diversified its collections base to attract newer audience. For example, the Clothworker’s Centre for textile and fashion study and conservation is bound to bring in visitors with interest in textiles. Similarly, the opening of Ceramics Galleries has helped V&A Museum in diversifying its visitors’ base to include Asian population as well. As the Ceramics Galleries house over 26,000 objects from Asia, Middle East and Europe, the Asian and Middle East Community have also been enthusiastic visitors to this section.

The museum does not have any entry fee. Thus people having moderate income also have access to the museum facilities. Through its various programmes for school children, the Museum of Childhood is actively involved in the engagement of students from different backgrounds in the museum.

Although, the museum has not had many outreach programmes to include the UK black and ethnic minority visitors. The percentage of UK black and ethnic minority visitors continues to remain constant at 16% in 2009/10 and 2010/11, with a slight increase from 12% in 2006/07. The museum’s activities are very limited in this field, and should be developed to attract the black and ethnic minority community to the museum sites.

‘Learning’ and ‘Engaging’ in V&A Museum

Museums have the responsibility of serving as centres for learning and development of individuals. They are used by schools for educating the students and creating an urge to learn among the young students. Apart from that, museums serve as database of information through their archives for the researchers. However, learning in itself is not efficient as long as it does not engage the participants. Engagement in learning activities increases the retention of whatever has been learned.

V&A Museum has been an active promoter of learning. Through its galleries, study rooms and archives, it presents to the visitors the opportunity to learn and even research in their areas of interest. ‘Design for Life’ is a national project started by V&A in partnership with Action for Children and five regional museums(V&A Museum). This project is aimed at developing new ways to engage young people in design. The young students are provided opportunities to work with professional designers.

The V&A Museum also has residency programmes. There were residency programmes in Architecture, Fashion, Poetry, Digital Design, and Photography. Bussing artists and designers are helped through the residency programmes to hone their skills and learn the intricacies. These artists and designers were also encouraged to work with school children, young adults and disabled people.

The V&A Museum has a dedicated Learning Department that runs a number of part-time courses for budding artists and designers and enthusiasts. One such example is the ‘Architects Build Small Places’ which explored how to build a structure.

The opening of the Clothworker’s Centre for Textile and Fashion Study and Conservation and the Ceramics Study Galleries is providing learning through engagement to the enthusiasts. The galleries can be used for study purposes through appointments. The galleries have interpreted displays with visible storage helping the visitors in easy browsing and allowing the visitors to engage in self-study.

The Museum of Childhood conducts wide variety of teaching sessions for children. These are guided by the National Curriculum. Some of the themes included in these teaching projects are moving toys and toys from the past. Activity assistants facilitate the learning process. Resource bags are also provided to the students. Spotlight talks are delivered by front of house staff. School Groups are also encouraged to interpret and think for themselves through self-guided visits.

The V&A Museum has built up an image of learning and engaging institute for children and adults alike. It has spent £5.55M in learning and training expenditure.

Collections and Funding in the V&A Museum

As said by Graham Black, “As visitor dependent attractions, as recipients of public sector funding and as guardians of local, national and international heritage, museums have been subject to increasing pressure in recent years to broaden access to their collections”. In its initiative to attract the under-represented community or visitors with different interests, the V&A museum has diversified its collection base to include architecture, books, cast courts, ceramics and glass, paintings, fashion, furniture and furnishings, drawings, photography, print, sculpture, textiles, theatre and performance. It has various study rooms dedicated for specific interests like Asia, paintings and photography, ceramics etc.

In order to increase access to the collections and generate buzz, the museum has conducted several exhibitions in 2010/11. These exhibition programmes have seen large participation from audience. V&A touring exhibitions at 13 different venues saw a participation of more than 464,300 people. Admission income and incomes from exhibition has also helped V&A Museum is registering a trading profit for the year.

The Collections base at the V&A Museum is increased through acquisitions and donations from supporters. The year 201/11 saw a £1.83M worth acquisitions. Along with this, private donations of objects worth £4.97M were made.

The Purchase Grant Fund, managed by V&A, is used for engaging V&A with UK organizations for broader collaborations. In 2010/11, the Purchase Grant Fund supported 143 acquisitions. This fund helps the museums across UK to make acquisitions.

The Grant Aid decreased in the year from 2009/10. Fundraising from the Friends of the V&A, the Director’s Circle, corporate partners and donations were the primary funding source for V&A’s activities.

The major benefactors of the V&A museums are:

Friends of the V&A: American Friends of the V&A, Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Clothworkers’ Foundation, Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the Irish Foundation and several eminent and rich personalities.

Director’s Circle: It includes gold, silver and platinum members.

Sponsors: Many sponsors helped V&A Museum in conducting events and learning courses and residence programmes. Some of the sponsors include The Embassy of Monaco, Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums, The Linbury Trust, U.S. Embassy, London, Bank of America etc.

Corporate Patrons: Some of the corporate patrons include Bloomberg, Coller Capital, E nY, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan etc.

Corporate Members: The corporate members include American Express, SocieteGenerale etc.

The V&A Museums acknowledges the support of these funding sources and supporters in its website and through publications.

Conclusion

The V&A Museum is an example of the changing role of Museum in the 21^st century. As an associate in the heritage tourism, museums have to focus on customers and give high importance to their satisfaction levels to survive in the industry. The decreasing Government aid has put pressure on the museums to broaden access to their collections. These are being done through audience development, i.e. reaching out to new audience who were previously unrepresented or under-represented. Apart from gaining new audience, the museums also need to maintain and develop this relationship over time. Thus, museums need to be learning institutes with engaging visitors and improving their experience quality. The four factors of customer experience include hedonics, inner peace, involvement and reputation. The V&A Museum has been studied in this essay and its operations policies and initiatives are analyzed with respect to the theory discussed. V&A Museum has been able to change its focus to being customer-centric. Its infrastructure, décor, and collections have been improvised and diversified to promote audience development. The museum’s study rooms and archives have served as a resource for enthusiasts and researchers. The museum has been conducting exhibitions and events to encourage participation from audience and engage them. The success of the museum’s strategy is evident through the increasing number of visitors in the museum sites and exhibitions. The fundraising activities of the museum have also been successful enabling it to make future plans for development and renovations. The V&A Museum holds proof to the theory as to how heritage tourism can promote learning among the customers along with engaging them and enhancing their satisfaction.

Works Cited

Black, G. (2005). The Engaging Museum: Developing Museums for Visitor Involvement. London: Routledge.

Chen, C.-F., & Chen, F.-S. (2010). Experience quality, perceived value, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions for heritage tourists. Tourism Management, 29-35.

Otto, J. E., & Ritchie, J. R. (2000). The service experience in tourism. Tourism Management, 165-174.

V&A Museum. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.vam.ac.uk/

V&A Museum. (n.d.). Annual Review 2011. Retrieved from http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/annual-review/2010-11

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