Salar Jung Museum Visitors Survey Report

Submitted to

Ms Jaisree Anand- Dean/Professor (Hospitality)

NITHM, Telecom Nagar

Gachhi Bowli, Hyderabad- 500032

Andhra Pradesh

By

Bhaskar Roy

MBA 3rd semester Batch-A

NITHM

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….3

Objective of the report…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..4

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..4-5

Limitation and Observation…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..6

Conclusion and Suggestions………………………………………………………………………………………………………….7

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I had foreseen this survey as an OPPURTUNITY to learn and to get an overview on one of the components of research. My hearty and warm regards to my seniors Vikrant, Sandeep and Mahendar- proud alumni from NITHM, Dean Hospitality Ms Jaishree Anand and last but not the least our most humble director Dr. E. Shivnagi Reddy who also heads the Archeology department of the museum, for giving me this break to experience Research Methodolgy into the practical aspect. This has also binded my confidence in Entrepreneurship to have the guts for the relative risks involved.

I am also grateful to the Director Keeper of the Museum Shri Veerendra for his cooperation regarding permission, provision of stationary and other materials including temporary passes for all of us.

My best wishes for my seniors with their research assignment and to my college NITHM.

OBJECTIVE OF THE REPORT

To take survey at Salar Jung Museum in form of series of questionnaire asked from the visitors on how to improve visitor’s footfall and satisfaction.

INTRODUCTION

The Salar Jung Museum is an art museum at Dar-Ul-Shifa, on the southern bank of the

Musi river in the city of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India which has an exquisite collection

of priceless articles like Ivory, Marble sculptures etc. of over 1 million, 90,000 of which still

lies in the store room. It welcomes its visitors with a huge portrait of Salar Jung III. Adjacent

to it is a museum shop for the visitors to have memorabilia.

The Salarjung Museum is the third largest museum in India housing the biggest one-man

collections of antiques in the world. It is well known throughout India for its prized

collections belonging to different civilizations dating back to the 1st century. Nawab Mir

Yousuf Ali Khan Salar Jung III (1889-1949), former Prime Minister of the seventh Nizam of

Hyderabad, spent a substantial amount of his income over thirty five years to make this

priceless collection, his life's passion. The collections left behind in his ancestral palace,

'Diwan Deodi' were formerly exhibited there as a private museum which was inaugurated by

Jawaharlal Nehru in 1951. Old timers believe that the present collection constitutes only half

of the original art wealth collected by Salar Jung III. His employees siphoned off part of it,

since Salar Jung was a bachelor and depended upon his staff to keep a vigil. Some more art

pieces were lost or stolen during the shifting of the museum from Dewan Devdi to the present

site. Later in 1968, the museum shifted to its present location at Afzalgunj and is

administered by a Board of Trustees with the Governor of Andhra Pradesh as ex-officio

chairperson under the Salar Jung Museum Act of 1961.

The museum building in a semicircular shape with 38 galleries, spread on three floors,

displays only a part of the original collections. The ground floor has 20 galleries and the first

floor has 18 galleries. The exhibits on different subjects are displayed in separate galleries.

The second floor is Administration block. CRPF Security officers are on vigil round the

clock.

Guides are available at fixed timings free of charge.

Important Exhibits

There are Aurangzeb's sword, daggers belonging to empress Noor Jehan, emperors Jehangir

and Shah Jehan, the turbans and chair of Tipu Sultan, furniture from Egypt, paintings on

display. Among the sculptures stands out the world famous statue of Veiled Rebecca(a

biblical character) by G.B. Benzoni, an Italian sculptor, in 1876. Her beautiful face hazily is

visible through a marble but gossamer veil. Equally captivating is a double-figure wood

sculpture. It stands before a mirror and shows the facade of a nonchalant Mephistopheles and

the image of a demure Margaretta in the mirror. The eastern section is of equal importance

with its wide variety of silk weaving and different art forms, including layer wood cutting

paintings, porcelain works and many more, dating back to almost 2nd century.

The Musical Clock

A 400 years old Musical chiming greets the visitor in the clock room. The clock was

purchased by Salar Jung I from Kenley and Cook co. in England. Every hour, a timekeeper

emerges from the upper deck of the clock to strike a gong as many times as it is the hour of

the day. It was assembled in Calcutta of more than 350 parts. It chimes in every 15 minutes.

A huge gathering can be seen in the clock room 15 minutes prior every hour. There are

ancient Chandeliers in the form of obelisks to huge and modern clocks of the twentieth

century, many of which are not in display. Others in the range vary from miniature clocks

which need a magnifying glass to imbibe their beauty and complexity to stately grandfather

clocks from as far away as France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Britain.

The Indian Parliament has declared the museum an Institution of National Importance.

The museum is open from 10:00 to 17:00 (except on Fridays).

LIMITATIONS & OBSERVATIONS

1) Human resource- number of persons undertaking this survey (5) was half considered to what was originally required. This was realized when we were given the target of 2500 respondents views in 5 days.

2) As the number of our team members was limited, we had to increase individual targets i.e. 2500 divided by 5 which is 500 in 5 days and 100 in each. This resulted in fall of quality of the responses due to lack of time spend on each respondent. The pattern of questionnaire was as such that it was necessary to explain what needs to be answered and how.

3) The survey form was in English language which required the respondents to be English literate. This was one of the greatest limitations because the visitor’s crowd flocking the museum comprised majority of non- English literate.

4) The days involved in our survey comprised majority of female correspondents who were from colleges or schools. A large of portion of only young crowd was eager to fill the forms. Those travelling in family or small groups provided only one representative usually the head of the family.

5) The second half of the day, i.e. afternoon yielded more people compared to morning. However, most of the tourists seemed to be tired after already touring the city whole morning and showed disinterest to look at the forms. Hilarious part was that most of the less-educated crowd use to run away at our sight assuming us to belong to some charity organisation approaching them for money.

6) The directions for the visitor were quiet confusing as the room numbers didn’t follow the series of their location.

7) The food at Haritha cafeteria was not economic, which the survey results too support my findings as the visitors mostly belong to the middle class and complained about the prices. We also didn’t find any other food outlets in the proximity of the museum.

8) Auto rickshaws too were very pushy with the visitors in demanding fare and places to visit after the museum trip.

9) There were only 2 guides available in room number 2. Many visitors requested for guide as there was insufficient information about the articles in many galleries.

CONCLUSION/SUGGESTIONS

1) Either the number of days undertaken for the survey should have been increased or the number of responses collected should have been limited between 30-40 per person per day to achieve desired results and high quality of analysis.

2) At the end of the survey, we were able to collect around 1800 responses. It would have been more effective and efficient if the questionnaire had been printed in three languages- English, Hindi and Telugu. Also, the vocabulary could have been made easier to understand.

3) Proper direction boards should be installed in the museum. Staff should also be trained in being more pro-active while helping the visitors.

4) Cafeteria should economise their menu.5) More transportation services should be provided for the visitors and the fares charged

by the auto-rickshaws should be controlled.

Finally, I would like to share my bit of experience about the museum, staff and my team.

I would love to visit the museum again. My last day experience was very pleasurable. We were given a target of 50 respondents each. A little disappointed though from previous days experiences, we felt it would be difficult to reach the goal on a slack day, when the verdict of Babri incident in Ayodhya was to be delivered and a day before the immersion of Lord Ganesh Idols, which obviously affected the visitors/tourists count. However, we were fortunate to find a huge group of school children entering the museum. It was challenging task to get the forms filled from them as they were too young to respond maturely. Luckily, one of their teachers caught me thinking me to be a staff and enquired me about the guides. I escorted and cooperated with them as the guides were not available. They agreed me to least explain them on the main attractions of the museum- The Musical Clock, Veiled Rebecca, The Man with the Lamp and The wooden 2 sided sculptor of Margeretta and Mephistopheles. I was glad to explain them successfully and pleased to be confronted with questions from the anxious eager kids, a part which involved me in gathering previous knowledge on the attractions. They, in return of my gesture saved my day by filling those forms and reaching my goals which otherwise would have been a difficult objective. I too in exchange have learned a lot from them.