‘Escaping to the gallery’: understanding the motivations of visitors to galleries

Abstract

*Whilst market research and academic studies by sociologists have identified the personal and socio-cultural factors that influence visits to galleries, there has been less attention to the area of motivational research. Understanding motivations is important as it reveals the underlying reasons why visitors choose to participate in specific leisure activities. This paper focuses on the motivations of two groups of visitors at events at an art gallery. A pretested motivational scale built around three factors, learning, social/family interaction and Escapism explained 71.5% of variance. Escapism explained 29.4% of that variance and was the core motivation. The findings of the research are important to both academics and practitioners as previously learning was thought to be the main motivation. This study should be replicated in other settings to evaluate whether gallery and museum managers need to re-consider the purpose, content and marketing of their programmes in a post-modern society.

Why people go to the theatre: A qualitative study of audience motivation

“…Bergadaà and Nyeck's work confirmed earlier research into consumer behaviour, which found that the most cited motivations for a leisure experience were pleasure and escapism (Unger and Kernan 1983). This finding is supported by Slater (2007), whose research into the motivations of visitors to art galleries also revealed escapism as the core motivator, challenging the widely acknowledged view in the museums and galleries sectors that learning was the primary motivation. But it is contested by other research into consumer behaviour in arts and culture, which delineates shared experience and social engagement as dominant motivators (Arai and Pedlar 2003;Bourgeon-Renault 2000).…”

“…But this approach circumvents the possibility that people with similar values can be driven by different motivations on different occasions (Slater 2007); and even among proponents of values research, there is a lack of consensus about how values can most effectively be measured. One popular approach is laddering, whereby respondents' values are mapped hierarchically through probes, which delve behind their actions and attitudes to find core values or motives (Thyne 2001).…”

“…But the complex motivations of theatre audiences remain unclear. While some insight can be gleaned from recent research into the motives and values of museum and gallery visitors (Morris Hargreaves McIntyre 2007;Slater 2007;Thyne 2001), this field of research has remained predominantly quantitative in its approach. While qualitative studies do exist (Thyne 2001;Carù and Cova 2006;Pitts 2005), they are predominantly exploratory in design and, with the exception of Bergadaà and Nyeck (1995), relate to art forms other than theatre.…”

A Theoretical Positioning of Self and Social Identities as Antecedents in Cultural-Experiential Tourism

“…This contrasts with intrinsic motivation, for which engagement in the act is sufficient in itself (Alexandris, Tsorbatzoudis, & Grouios, 2002). Visitors' cognitive learning, reflective and recreational motivation is associated with their visiting experience and reasons associated with their museum visit (Falk, 2013;Prentice, 2001;Slater, 2007). Taheri et al (2014) identified recreational and reflective motivation to determine museum visitors' level of engagement.…”

Comparison between Holistic Museum Visitors and Utilitarian Museum Visitors

“…The recent researches on museum consumer behavior reveal that museum visits are not anymore a simple informative cultural visits, but they are experiences (Falk and Dierking, 1992;Prentice et all., 1997;Kawashima, 1998;Goulding, 1999;Rowley, 1999;Goulding, 2000;Thyne, 2001;Bollo, 2004;Hume et all., 2006;Rojas and Camarero, 2006;Slater, 2007;Bifulco and Ilario, 2007;McCarthy and Ciolfi, 2008;Chan, 2009). The concept of experience becomes a key leading to consumer satisfaction.…”