A striking change in how museums have come to organise their exhibitions is that their departments dealing directly with the public—through education, marketing and what have you—get involved in the process at an earlier stage. Saskia Bak, director of Museum Arnhem, a museum for modern and contemporary art, recognises this development as a clear example of the growing focus on the museum visitor. According to Bak, this is one of the main successes of cultural policy in recent decades.

The recognition of the need to guide visitors through an exhibition in a way that makes it accessible for a wider range of people is a theme that has gained momentum in both museums and museum policy. It is representative of the current situation that this issue is being tackled from both sides. For quite some time now, top-down policymaking has been replaced by a growing responsibility on the part of cultural institutions. Museum professionals increasingly have a say in the shaping of policy. Bak considers this a good thing, as the most radical changes in this field are being initiated by museums. She sees how museums are fuelling the debate on diversity and establishing a meaningful connection between their collection and its (potential) public, and looking for ways to better involve this audience. When Secretary for Culture Rick van der Ploeg changed the emphasis of cultural policy at the turn of the century to focus on public outreach, the sector was not quite ready for this change. Nowadays, however, almost everyone agrees that initiatives to improve audience reach are laudable—and still necessary. However, there is also critique. Take for instance a museum that wants to communicate by organising an exhibition. Getting the message across better to its audience, should be an issue but not the only issue. Some fear that too strong a focus on the government's reasons for public outreach might cause the message itself to wither away outside of the limelight.

For Bak, maintaining a strong connection between the cultural sector and a rapidly changing population remains one of the biggest challenges for both cultural institutions and cultural policy in the years to come. One issue that will definitely influence museum practice is the ageing of the population. At a certain point in the not-so-distant future, museums will mostly be visited by a generation that was brought up in a digital world.