Los museos militares y el turismo. El caso de la Sala-museo del Automóvil (Torrejón de Ardoz) y su gestión turística

The purpose of military museums is to transmit a democratic culture of defence. The boom in cul‑ tural tourism, as well as the use of museums as tourist resources, may be an opportunity for the Ministry of Defence museums to increase their audiences. The purpose of this work is to establish possible links between military museums and tourism in order to see if these institutions could benefit in the future from such a relationship. The research focused on the Automobile Museum of Torrejón de Ardoz as a model for this type of institution, analysing its current situation with respect to the public and the possibilities that it might offer with adequate tourism management. The methodology was based on questionnaires, interviews and direct observation, and may be applicable to other small and medium‑sized museum institutions with low demand. Among the main conclusions we have reached, we would like to highlight that there are many improvements that should be introduced by this type of museum, if they are really interested in increasing the number and di‑ versity of visitors, opening up to tourism and thus transmitting an idea of a renewed present culture of defence.