The annual conference would further boost the museum's national profile, and highlight Dunedin's many cultural and scientific strengths, museum marketing and development director Caroline Cook said this week.
The conference features talks by dinosaur specialist and paleontologist Prof Phil Manning, of the University of Manchester, and Art, Culture and Heritage Minister Maggie Barry at the main opening session, at the Otakou marae.
The conference focuses on ''communicating culture'' and runs for two main days, starting on Thursday.
About 180 participants would be from outside the city, including many North Islanders.
The main conference would be preceded by a day for specialist museum groups, including a ''mini-conference'' involving ''emerging museum professionals''.
Toitu Otago Settlers Museum would also host a ''drama in museum education workshop'' on Saturday after the main conference, she said.
Hosting the conference shows a marked change of approach by the Otago Museum, which had previously not belonged to the national museums body for some years, before recently rejoining.
