This Thesis project aims to investigate the role of corporate museums, facilities owned by companies, as possible players in industrial heritage tourism for land development and heritage preservation (SDG 8, Target 8.9 “devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products”; SDG 11, Target 11.4 “strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage”).

Industrial heritage tourism relates to a tourist activity that takes place in or near production facilities that are still active, for educational and cognitive purposes on industrial heritage, which is a unique type of heritage that relates to the industrial and technical progress that took place in the industrial sites.

Although there is some evidence on corporate museums as tourist sites, there is scant discussion and a lack of empirical studies on the phenomenon of corporate museums in industrial heritage and tourism’s debate.

The Thesis is exploratory and the field of research is new. Coherently, a qualitative approach is suggested. More precisely, the methodological steps will be:

1. Literature Review on the phenomenon of ‘industrial heritage’ and ‘industrial tourism’. This phase is important to better understand the reference context, the actors, the organisational-cultural forms, the business models, the value generated for the various stakeholders.
2. Multiple case-study over real corporate museums and archives. The Candidate will personally select cases of corporate museums and archives to further study through qualitative analyses. For each case, the Candidate will perform desk-research and interviews with, for instance, the Director, Curator, Communication Office, Education Office of the institution, and someone from within the company. For each reality, if interested, the Candidate will also perform an on-site observation.

The intention is to frame possible strategies and business models for the effective positioning of the corporate museums and corporate archives on the industrial heritage tourism routes, with the fina goal of contributing to land development and land preservation.