Service Innovation in Heritage and Tourism


Client/Collaborator: Devon Museums

We were initially commissioned to develop new heritage services and increase users for twelve museums in Devon.

A key issue for museums continuing to diversify and prosper in the 21st century, is lack of engagement with younger people. Redfront observed and reviewed current provision for young people and helped re-design services in twelve museums, developing new services to expand their user base, attracting and involving large groups of young people in the process.

We ran action research and ideas generation workshops with museum volunteers and young people, and found the biggest barriers to engagement were attitudinal (on both sides), capacity, and lack of awareness. To tackle these issues we assigned youth ambassadors to each museum and supported them to co-create innovative projects with each of their museums, additionally building sustainable links with local communities

We tried out different ways museums could increase and expand audiences, improve efficiency of resources and communication, build capacity through increasing the volunteer base, improve skills in new media technology and innovate services. We involved young people at every stage in project design, delivery, and impact analysis.

The project has led to increased audiences, partnerships, funding and sponsorship opportunities for museums involved. The museums have also benefited from skills development in communications and new media, and most importantly experienced a fundamental shift in service innovation.

Key experiences have been channeled into two multimedia toolkits, disseminated nationally in the youth sector and museum sector.