The Night of Museums – a boost factor for the cultural dimension of tourism in Bucharest

Several media and research sources have recently have flagged a new process of concern to tourism planners in Bucharest. The Night of Bucharest Museums has initially been a quite isolated, museum focussed and rather individualistic event has progressively developed over the past very few years into a cultural process involving several cultural institutions among which museum are still predominant. Most of the participant members into the event have developed complex and dynamic programmes comprising sections of joint institutional events. A brief comparative analysis of this progressive event development also identifies changes in the extent and dimension with particular regard to the tourism development dimension and particularly to the cultural dimension of it. This paper is mainly attempting to answer the question regarding to what extent the public of such event has become tourist. The paper also aims to focus on more specific aspects and issues concerning the main aim by sketching a brief overview regarding the attitudes and perceptions of people regularly attending an event such the European Night of Museums in Bucharest. The paper attempts to determine the profile of participant to such event trying to identify the trends of this event on the Romanian wider market but particularly on the tourism market given the fact that museum visitor are mostly tourists. The study is making use of data collected during 2013 and 2014 editions of the event. The final aim of the paper is to emphasise issues regarding the wider concept of motivation in visiting museums how they are linked with the cultural dimension of tourism highlighting several difficulties faced by a multitude of institutions and how these are attempting to use tourism to overcome problematic situations.