Curious things from exotic cultures have always fascinated tourists visiting a particular town.
These curious symbols of culture end up becoming more of an acquired idea for the person willing to embrace. This can be in form of music collections, contemporary collections, food, clothing, personal items, art, history, curiosities and even décor.
Avid travellers talk about having collections. These travellers make display cabinets, and showcase these collections that serve as décor in their homes. The collections make a very good icebreaker in conversations with visiting relatives, friends and business acquaintances. Sometimes, it is museums that create inspiration for avid travellers to go ahead and collect from various shops around the cities they visit.
For centuries, museums have played an integral role in preserving the history of societies. Exhibits tell us stories about how nations, communities and cultures came to be and without them, those stories could be forgotten.
Museums inspire and educate, they can be used for academic research and have a great social impact in the community.
So how can our county governments and concerned institutions make tourists, local or international embrace our intangible and tangible heritage?
Our ideas do not have to only be at the preserve of the national government and only through the National Museums of Kenya. We can also have counties, non-governmental organisations and community-based organizations come up with speciality museums.
These museums can serve as a collection point to organize or classify, display, instruct its audiences, and to project a sense of the nation and the identity of the particular community.
Museums can be set up in strategic locations and not necessarily what has commonly been done in the past, where small community museums are set up deep in the village, or in a sleepy towns. That needs to change.
They should be in the most major locations, meaning the major streets, near government offices or near strategic tourism spots in that particular town where people go to sightsee. Advanced countries set these museums in the most prime of their locations.
Currently, there are around 95,000 museums in the world, and now, more than ever, as nations strive to increase tourism numbers, many countries have taken pride in their cultural history and put it on display for tourists and locals alike to see. For instance, the US has an impressive 33,098 museums, others that follow are Japan, France Italy and China.
Museums can increase our sense of wellbeing, help us feel proud of where we have come from, inspire, challenge and stimulate us, and make us feel healthier as society. With society facing various challenges such as poverty, inequality, intolerance and discrimination, museums can help us understand, debate, and challenge these concerns.
These museums can then inspire people well enough to buy these same items from the local community, thus promoting local economy. We can then have people spoilt of choice of where to visit once they tour our towns.
The various museums should on 10 most incredible things to do when visitor tour different counties.
Vera is a part time lecturer and a communications researcher [email protected]
