# Virtual Reality in Museums: Exploring the Experiences of Museum Professionals
## 7 Conclusions  
Undisputedly, VR and other emerging technologies created a fundamental shift, necessitating in some cases a reinvention of traditional concepts on what the museum experience entails. Thus, a holistic understanding of the impact of VR is more critical than ever, since this will affect both the design of VR and its perception and acceptance by museum professionals. However, we argue that such a holistic approach should take into account all stakeholders involved with and affected by VR technology. That is, the museum visitors, the VR developers and the museum professionals. Although a considerable corpus of literature is either devoted to the visitors and their experiences, or the developers and the technical issues that preoccupy them, what is usually neglected is the examination of the needs and perceptions of museum professionals who are usually the mediators between the VR developers and visitors. Therefore, the aim of this research was to fill this gap and understand the experiences and perceptions of museum professionals regarding the use of VR technologies in museums and critically discuss the future of these technologies. When it comes to the use of VR in museums, the data analysis revealed seven categories of perceived advantages and nine categories of perceived challenges and limitations. Despite the interviewees' consent on the main advantages of VR, immersive installations are still not frequently encountered in museums and when found, they are usually included on a temporary basis. This can be explained by the many challenges faced by museum professionals. According to the interviewees, the most important challenge that VR developers need to overcome seems to be the inability of VR to provide engaging social experiences. This points towards a necessary direction for further research: Interactive and social VR applications. Furthermore, the increased staffing and training needs identified, point towards the need to create dedicated interdisciplinary teams in museums that will deal with technology and the need for further training both for current museum professionals but most importantly, for university students who will become the future museum professionals, and who usually do not have topics relating to technology in museums incorporated into their studies. In general, there is a lack of adequate research on the impact of VR on different levels, some of which are often neglected: From the visitor experience, to museological approaches, to organizational issues. The insights of museum professionals presented here indicate that there are many issues we tend to forget when exploring the potential of these technologies, which are nevertheless extremely important for museum professionals and the museum sector. Through this research, we attempted to achieve two aims. On the one hand, it is important to understand where we currently stand regarding the use of VR in cultural institutions and it is important to do so from the museum professionals' perspective. This will allow a more comprehensive analysis, since \"it remains unclear where we are in terms of how well the research community and cultural institutions are doing with the technology\" [47] (p. iv). Based on the presented findings, researchers and developers can direct their research towards current needs. This will allow us to align and bring together the worlds of museum professionals and VR developers. On the other hand, it is important to explore how we can use VR in the future \"for increasing value, for both cultural heritage and our users\" [47] (p. iv). Thus, through the experiences of these professionals we presented specific suggestions on how to best develop and use VR in museums. Our aim is not to propose solutions to technical issues, but rather to direct future research on how VR can be better incorporated in museums. These proposals can act as a roadmap, setting the stage for the future and allowing people from both worlds to understand each other's needs and communicate more effectively.