Overall concept
WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO
The Touriseum is a museum that focuses on the topic of tourism, offering visitors the chance to experience as well as to see. Housed in Trauttmansdorff Castle, the former holiday residence of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth set amidst the Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle, the Touriseum is both a provincial museum and a popular object of interest in its own right. It is characterised by a humorous, open approach where tourism – i.e. the combination of travel and hospitality – is observed, investigated, processed and made accessible.
The Touriseum is a place where to reflect upon tourism as a regional development as well as a global phenomenon in all its aspects. We look at both its historical and its current and future significance, internationally and more closely at home. We look for new accesses, establish surprising proofs and pioneering new paths for museum work. We thus reach out to a very wide spectrum of people to make them aware of the numerous levels that make up the definition of tourism.
The Touriseum highlights tourism as
- a regional industry
- a social movement
- a place for cultural encounters and discussions
- a distinctive feature of landscape and culture
- a result and an engine of social change
- a topic that concerns and affects us all, whether directly or indirectly, as hostesses and hosts, as visitors and locals, as entrepreneurs and employees…
As a document clearing house, research establishment and ideas workshop, the Touriseum is a skills centre, co-operation partner and advisor for institutions, scientists, practitioners and everything regarding the subject of tourism.
As a popular visitor destination, as a place to relax and learn for South Tyroleans and tourists alike, the Touriseum enriches the city of Meran, its surroundings and South Tyrol as a whole as a travel destination.
The Touriseum forms part of the “Department of Provincial Museums” and works closely with museums, research and educational facilities throughout Europe.
Our ethical guidelines meet the ICOM statutes, which define museums as not-for-profit establishments that serve the common good, and that are permanent, publicly accessible enterprises in the service of society and its development. As a museum it is our task – likewise in accordance with the ICOM statutes – to collect, keep, investigate, communicate, exhibit and publicise both material and immaterial records of people and their environment for study, educational and entertainment purposes.
WHO WE ARE HERE FOR
The Touriseum is a paragon of hospitality. All our guests are warmly welcomed at reception and looked after individually: individuals, groups large and small, school groups, families, grandparents and grandchildren, South Tyroleans, those who have moved to South Tyrol and visitors from all over the world.
We are particularly popular with families and children owing to our humorous, playful approach to tourism-related topics.
For specific groups we offer specific communication formats, for example for technical colleges, schools, pensioners and families, and will in future also be aiming at those with an immigrant background who we would like to invite to the museum for intercultural exchanges. Our museum is barrier-free.
The Touriseum also wishes to remain a positive memory for visitors to the gardens who explore our museum as a secondary attraction, supporting them on spontaneous, uncomplicated visits.
As a provincial museum we are pleased to act as a contact partner and support for other museums, institutions and educational facilities in South Tyrol and beyond.
HOW WE ACHIEVE OUR GOALS
The Touriseum is what it does
The Touriseum in Trauttmansdorff Castle, amidst the Gardens of Trauttmansdorff, is at the same time a museum, an attraction and a tourist destination. We are what we do, simultaneously reflecting, documenting, investigating, communicating and practising a central topic of tourism, namely hospitality.
The Touriseum influences
The Touriseum makes people curious, surprised, puzzled and also stimulates ideas. In this sense we initiate encounters between people, between people and things, between the familiar and the unfamiliar. We thus select topics, objects and information that are directly connected to the lives and experiences of our visitors.
The Touriseum entertains
We see ourselves as a place to communicate knowledge and poetry. Our work is thus tinged in equal measure with strong production values and a quiet irony, using larger-than-life figures and caricature. We therefore always follow our main motto, that of always linking specialist knowledge and a critical awareness of themes with innovation, wit and humour.
The Touriseum collects and researches
The Touriseum collects and keeps material and immaterial records of the region’s tourism history. We attach great importance to making our collection accessible to interested parties in different ways. We are constantly researching the various areas of our collections and carry out basic research into tourism-relevant topics. We actively participate in scientific discussions with our findings and make them available to the wider public.
The Touriseum provides impulses
As the first and only museum in Europe that is solely and fully dedicated to the topic of tourism, the Touriseum is always looking for new ways to achieve professionalism and innovation in its work. The Touriseum positions itself at all those interfaces of society where practitioners and researchers in the fields of tourism, economics, culture, politics and art are conducting debates and shaping the future.