Abstract
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) pervasiveness is changing the visitors’ expectation in the fruition of cultural heritage assets(e.g. artefacts, buildings, monuments). While owners of such assets have to face new challenges in the protection, conservation, management and active promotion of places they are responsible for, pervasive ICT systems (e.g. mobile devices and the Internet-of-Things) show significant opportunities as facilitators of innovative ways to engage visitors and measure their experience during the visit. New ICT based tools enable new data-driven business models that effectively aid the sustainable revitalization and valorization of Cultural Heritage. This paper aims at investigating how cultural heritage owners could digitalize the visiting process, measure the engagement of visitors with digital tools and turn data collected during the visits into value for their business model. In particular, results achieved by the AMAmI (Ancient and Modern, Ambient Intelligence) Project will be presented: a multisite real world experimentation of the adoption of digital tools (proximity technologies, mobile, sensors, user-location-based content delivery platforms and big data analytics systems) to deliver an Ambient Intelligence enabled user experience and thus strengthen the management policies of cultural heritage assets. Two case studies with different management model and physical environment will be discussed and compared: MAGA Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art sited in Gallarate and Masnago Castle Museum of Modern Art sited in Varese.