When I'm traveling overseas, one of my hobby is visiting the museum. Instead of spending my money in the shopping center or another things that need a lot of money, for me going to a museum is more important. I could gain more knowledge and know more about the country/city that I visited, with a cheap entry price (even free!). Another reason is I can see many interesting things inside the museums, not only the collections, the history, the architecture, and how they display it, but also how they seriously manage and organize their museum shop.
I have visited some museums in Indonesia, mostly in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia (more than one time for some museums). One of the question that I kept in my mind for a very long time is: "Why we can't make a proper museum shop for our museum?". Old fashioned stuffs, bad quality and uninteresting range of products become our museum shop identity. Even the locals are not interested to visit it or just take a look.
It seems that Indonesian government still not see the museum shop as an important tool for our country branding and promotion. Museum souvenir can be one of the gift options that the foreign visitor could bring for their love one in their home country. When they give it to their friends or family who doesn't know about Indonesia, it could increase their curiosity to know more about our country. Furthermore, it can also be one of the income source for the museum, beside the entry fee. So I think, this is the time for the government to set up a new standard for our museum shop. If it already exist, re-concept it, if it doesn't exist, let's make it together!
For me, these are proper museum shop standard:
It should have a strategic place. Most of museum build their shop near the entrance / exit gate. Most tourist tend to buy something memorable for them after hanging around the museum.
Promotion is the key: Visitor should know that the shop is exist. Promote the products using social media and make brochure that placed in some corners of the museum is a must.
The product: the product should be unique and come with a great quality and design. Display it properly!
We can collaborate with well known designer/artist to sell their product in the museum shop.
Branding: It should have a strong identity. Branding is one of the important thing to make it memorable for the visitors. Even there's some product that are not self produced by the shop, we should ensure that the buyers will remember where they get it. The shop should also be well designed to make people want to check what's available inside.
A really big homework for the Ministry of Tourism (Kementerian Pariwisata Republik Indonesia) and us.
