Record numbers of visitors are hitting Bologna’s museums – according to Carlino Bologna. They provide the following stats on 10 popular museums such as Museo del Patrimonio Industriale = 32,730, Museo Civico Archeologico = 103,839, Collezioni Comunali D’Arte = 31,053, Museo Davia Bargellini = 6,442, Museo Medioevale = 27,462
Considering Bologna is not on every tourist hitlist it would then be interesting to know more then about who exactly is visiting. Granted Bologna does in fact have many above average places to see, fabulous art work and hidden gems in back streets, but it would only appear that people stop off here because it’s the midway point for anyone travelling further north to Venice, Milan and Turin.
Case in point, a few other museums not so well attented include: Museo del Risorgimento = 5,995, Museo della Resistenca = 4,703. They are by no means big or display extravagant exhibitions however, they both illustrate important periods of Italian history. Bets on that these visitor numbers represent school pupils rather than any travellers. For the simple reason is that these musuems are not at all easy to locate. This then calls into question what more can the Comune do.
The internet is still one area that the Comune di Bologna are wholly inadequate to cope with. More should be done to make it easy for tourists to find information on museums here. Many sites are only found via several pages into the Comune one, they lack details and provide a simple synopsis, videos and photos should be utilised more, most of all the English language is seriously undervalued.
Bologna needs an internet Tzar, not another public servant who acts for their own self interest and promotes ‘their’ museum in Italian stuck away on pages a detective would have a hard job finding.