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Make an impact that visitors want to share
Catherine Newley on how the Verulamium Museum uses TripAdvisor
Verulamium Museum recently received a 2024 TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Award. This honours businesses that earn great reviews and places us among the top 10% of listings around the world on TripAdvisor.
Online reviews can have a significant impact on someone’s choice to visit – but often, it’s the negative ones that are shared. So, what have we done to have such a positive impact on our visitors that they feel compelled to tell others?
Beyond the amazing collections, hands-on discovery areas, dressing up and friendly staff, for the past year we’ve tried something new. We’ve been uncovering some of Roman Britain’s more hidden histories and encouraging visitors to think differently about what they know about
the Romans. This has included displays exploring themes of migration, as well as the role of women in Roman Verulamium.
Our current exhibition, Superior : Inferior, looks at social status in Roman times and asks visitors to engage with historic case studies, and to then think about those concepts within society today.
Our online reviews often focus on the level of, not just hands-on, but “brain-on” experience our visitors encounter. When people can make links between historic life and contemporary society in unexpected ways, it leaves a lasting impression.
Catherine Newley is the audience development manager at St Albans Museums