Museums’ management innovation between crisis and opportunities

Cultural institutions have been hit hard by the lockdown that led to the complete stop of the supply of cultural services in praesentia and world’s museums have been forced to temporarily close their doors to protect their visitors. If it is still not possible to understand how and when the activity can resume at full speed, this moment also appears as an interesting opportunity to reflect on management innovation, and on how to rethink the cultural offer in a digital key. In fact, in recent months, cultural institutions have reacted by making their repertoire available online or by increasing digital virtual tours in the case of museums, up to experimenting with some cultural productions made at a distance: from traditional visits to digital access and personalized experience. Museums and cultural sites have therefore temporarily turned visitors into users doubling their online activities and increasing the number of their social media followers. In addition to a way to to maintain their cultural role and to preserve jobs for their employees, this represented an attempt to offer, in a short time, a response to compensate for a demand for sociability and use of cultural content that is perhaps greater now than ever. However, it seems not only appropriate, but urgent, to reflect on how this experience can lead to a redefinition of the consolidated model of construction, supply and use of the cultural offer, opening up to a phase of coherent digital transformation. The paper helps the reader to better understand the challenges and key issues arising from digital innovations and the changes in the environment of museums, as well as providing some useful strategies for museum management, including small museums, in view of the “new normal”. Starting from those premises, the paper aims at pointing out how pandemic expressed a strong push towards museum innovation. Particularly, it contributes to detect the changes that are occurring in the museum environment, both on cultural offer and cultural demand.