ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses a specific meaning and offers a distinctive interpretation of the market orientation of cultural institutions in the heritage city. It focuses on the “Casanova Museum and Experience” in Venice but speaks of a general transformation of cultural institutions in the economy of mass tourism. In these contexts, and parallel to the managerialization and marketization of established (and public) cultural institutions, a new breed of museums is emerging, infused with an intrinsic business spirit and native market orientation. Such new museums brand themselves as providers of memorable experiences that are cultural and educational but predominantly enjoyable and entertaining for the masses of tourists. The chapter discusses the ways in which the market orientation is expressed by synthetizing in a fascinating symbol of “authentic” cultural experience the unique features of Venice, aligning it with the machinery of the tourist industry. Finally three trends are tentatively reconstructed that reconfigure the relationship between cultural institutions and market mechanisms: the emergence of a “native” marketization of the institution of the museum, the affirmation of a new, business oriented, cultural entrepreneurship, and the collapse into spectacular commodification of the notion of “experience” in cultural consumption.
