The Museum Offering System from the Experiential Perspective: The National Gallery of the Marche Case Study

In light of evolving cultural consumption, the aim of the present study is to understand the characteristics and potentialities of museum offerings, analyzed from an experiential perspective (Pine, Gilmore, 1999). In particular, two research questions are considered: • 1) How does the marketing approach of museums change if one moves from a logic based on services - the service logic - to one based on experience – the experience logic? • 2) How does the National Gallery of the Marche of Urbino apply the experiential management approach to marketing? To answer the first research question, we carry out a literature review of service marketing (Grönroos, 2011; Grönroos, Gummerus, 2014), experiential marketing (Pine, Gilmore, 1999; Schmitt, 1999; Pencarelli et al., 2015; among others), and cultural marketing (Colbert, 2000; Kotler, Kotler, 1998) and we suggest a conceptual framework for the museum service offering. The second research question is answered through the case study analysis of the National Gallery of the Marche, based in Urbino, a city which was one of the most important centers of the Renaissance period in Italy and which is a World Heritage Site, today. Some managerial implications and future research directions are also discussed.