The Role of Jordanian Archaeological Museums in as Tourism Attracting

Abstract

This study aims of investigating the role of Jordanian archeological museums in attracting tourists and explaining their perceptions about this role in four museums: Jordan Archaeological Museum in Amman, the Archaeological Museum of Madaba, the Archaeological Museum of Umm Qais in Irbid, and the archaeological Museum of Jerash. The study involved a distribution of a questionnaire to a sample of foreign visitors to these museums (130 visitors). These questionnaires were analyzed by using the statistical package for social science (SPSS) to extract the frequencies, and means. It was concluded that museums in Jordan are not considered as a tourist attraction in itself, but as part of the tourism industry as a whole. The location of the museum played a key role in attracting visitors, in which tourist guides would lead to them instead of being included in tourism programs sold for tourists before their visit. The study also found that there is a lack of visitors statistic studies related to museums, so addition to that further development and caring are needed.