Get ready for themed tours at National Museum

By Vinod Nair — MUSCAT: May 6 - The National Museum, which completes its first year of operations this summer, seeks to enhance customer experience through a series of projects and programmes in the coming year. The museum claimed students and tourists topped its list of visitors.

Speaking to the Observer, Jamal al Mosaawi, Director-General, The National Museum, said, “The National Museum of Oman is fully established now and there is no phase two. But we have a few projects lined up to enhance its visitor experience. A number of new objects will be kept for permanent display.”'

The new objects that will be added to the display are based on recent discoveries or acquisition. “We have three new publications, one of which is highly illustrative and over 100 years old. It is written in French and water colour drawings of old Muscat and Muttrah and the northern Omani coast.” Al Mosaawi said that in collaboration with the Royal Court Affairs, a permanent car parking for visitors will be ready next year. The museum will open a restaurant in 2018, a gift shop and a cafe within the premises. A new outlet was opened recently at Muscat Duty Free. It will be open all seven days of the week until September 30, including public holidays. Based on public response, a call will be taken whether to continue with this in the long run.

The museum aims to engage more with the public and widen its income generation sources through tickets, themed tours for visitors, rentals from temporary exhibition and multipurpose halls. “We recently hosted an event as part of the Conde Nast conference. So there is enough potential and means to generate income”. “As a government entity, we depend on it for support. In the first fiscal year, we received 90 per cent of funding from the government and we want to gradually reduce the dependence to 85 per cent in the next fiscal. In the long term, we want to limit the dependence on government to 60-70 per cent and the rest 30-40 per cent from the private sector and internal revenue generation,” Al Mosaawi said. Private sector’s role has been there, but there is more emphasis on the same now. The museum aims to increase cooperation with the private sector. He agreed the museum needs more marketing within Oman. “We are targeting the youth through social media and at the same time working actively with hotels and tour operators.”

The marketing strategy revolves around its close cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (through Omani diplomatic missions abroad) and various social media platforms.

The National Museum plans to engage students during summer as some of them would be staying back in the country. “This has been open for all and the focus has been on a variety of programmes for families and students across age groups.”

The museum’s learning centre has delivered over 100 programmes, including theoretical courses, to enable young visitors have in-depth knowledge about the artefacts. The facilities include interactive touch screens, audio devices and virtual cinema, among others. On an average, it takes 3.5 hours for a complete tour of the museum or at least an hour or more for a comfortable trip. “A second visit is a must and there are people who have come three to four times,” Al Mosaawi said. He said based on the statistics, students (Omanis and non-Omanis) form the largest chunk of our visitors, followed by tourists (30 per cent), Omanis (18 per cent) and expatriates (11 per cent).