Snježana Pintarić, Chair of Zagreb’s Contemporary Arts Museum, gave a highly anticipated public lecture at Aspira University College in Split, titled “Cultural Tourism and the Digital Revolution.”
Cultural Tourism was defined by Mrs. Pintarić as travel in order to visit cultural attractions. She underscored that “visitors are interested in the totality of culture” and that the majority of cultural tourists are young people. The digital revolution brings new patterns in behavior and communication, giving birth to creative tourism under the aegis of cultural tourism. Within this niche, interactivity and experience are factors which set certain destinations apart from others. Since as much as 40% of all international travel involves a cultural component, this is certainly a activity with promising potential.
The speaker then informed her audience about the global best practices in cultural tourism. Their application extends the travel season, brings in higher quality clientele and increases their average spend. In addition to all this, cultural tourism helps to develop new destinations while also increasing awareness among the local population as to the value of the area in which they live, and the historical monuments their generation has inherited.
Effects such as those described are highly visible in Germany, which has positioned itself as Europe’s prime location for cultural tourism. On the city level a prominent example is Bilbao, whose Guggenheim Museum is the reason for an incredible 82% of all visits to the Basque Country’s capital.
Mrs. Pintarić has headed the Museum of Contemporary Arts since 1998. The Museum opened in 1954., having been in its current home since 2009. Its 12 thousand exhibits are seen by up to 930 thousand visitors annually.