Visitors’ Preferences for Museum Interpretation: Identifying and Targeting Market Segments

Abstract

A number of heritage studies have revealed that interpretation is an essential component of the visitor experience. However, visitors differ in their interests in interpretation. Preferences for interpretation, which are often neglected in the literature, are essential for the marketing and management of heritage organisations. This paper deals with visitors' preferences for museum interpretation to determine what the preferred types of interpretation of museums exhibits are and what the differences between the segments of visitors in this regard are. The research focuses on seven Adriatic heritage museums that took part in the cross-border project on the strengthening of cultural tourism through market-oriented initiatives. The survey set out to obtain information on visitor profiles and their preferences for museum interpretation. By isolating and analysing interpretation variables and visitor variables associated with visitor interpretation preferences, a framework was developed that enable the initiatives in museum interpretation for target market segments.

Reading Museum Exhibits: Visitors’ Reading of Exhibits in Cultural Heritage Institutions and Museums

“…An additional area of concern is that docents' training lags behind other visitor-facing educational initiatives (Murphy, 2018). Research has been done to gauge visitors' interpretations of exhibits (Horton, 2006;Peacock, 2011;Sedmak & Brezovec, 2017), but more can be done to specifically measure whether changes to make CHIM more inclusive result in attracting additional diverse groups of visitors.…”