Myths, Mirrors and Reality: The Importance of Visitor
Research When Making Museum Business Decisions
Robert “Mac” West, Dan Martin and Carol Bossert
Editor’s note: This paper is derived from a presentation made by the authors at the annual Visitor Studies Conference in Columbus, Ohio, July 17, 2003.
In order to make effective business decisions, at various levels within educational organizations and attractions, we need visitor studies that go significantly beyond the conventional definitions of visitor. Random House Dictionary: “Visitor—a person who comes to spend time with or stay with others or in a place. A visitor often stays some time, for social pleasure, for business, sightseeing, etc.” In this paper we define the “visitor” in visitor research as applied to comprehensive decision-making much more broadly, to include both the general public and group visitors to a museum or attraction (as in the definition above), and the variety of stakeholders whose engagement in and support of the project is vitally important but who may not be actual physical visitors or users of the facility and its programs and activities.
As new projects are conceived and move into development—whether it be a new addition, an exhibition, a program expansion, or a completely new institution—it is essential to know who is being targeted for what reason and the degree to which the subject matter and presentation is engaging to those visitor market segments being targeted. It also is important to ascertain the extent to which the subject matter and presentation is of interest and concern to those stakeholders who must support the project financially and politically.
Outcomes of this broadly defined visitor and stakeholder research can affect decisions ranging from label copy and selection of objects to the size and organization of a building—or even whether to embark on the project at all.
It is similarly essential to continue to monitor the degree to which the subject matter and presentation is engaging to those target visitor and stakeholder markets as the project is developed. Almost all projects are altered to some extent during the development process. New decision-makers such as funders or development alliances can, and often do, cause change. All manner of budgetary changes cause an often-wide range of consequences. Locations can change based on availability as well as on perceptions of access and personal safety. Target audiences can be redefined based on knowledge of and familiarity with the subject matter and strategic partnerships can be developed based on changed awareness of content/audience overlap or expressed interest on the part of potential sponsors or political champions.
Therefore, it is important that the initial research into potential visitors and stakeholders begins well in advance of project initiation, continue throughout the decision-making and implementation process and conclude with flexible outcomes that can be reassessed several times during the development. In-progress development reassessments can detect the inevitable consequences of the many small but accumulating decisions made along the way as well as permit corrections or adjustments—in content, in presentation, in scale, and in budget - before projects open.
Who are included in these populations of interest?
Users
The traditional day visitor/user:
Local free-choice learners
Schools and other content-driven groups
Heritage/eco/topical locals and tourists
Those visiting friends and relatives (VFR)Special day and even overnight programs users seeking:
Personal enrichment
Professional training
Group experiences
Users of restaurants and gift shops
Participants coming for an ever broadening range of social, educational, and business events
Of equal or greater importance to the success of many projects are organizations and agencies that have a stake in the creation and success of museums and other educational attractions, including those advocating:
Quality of life
Education taken generally
Economic development (jobs)
Community development (urban and suburban renewal)
Community pride
Tourism with economic impacts
Organizations advocating a similar mission
And as a third group, we add those stakeholders who hold or control access to assets that allow projects to move forward:
The board of directors
Politicians at multiple levels (municipal, county, state, national)
Philanthropists and non-profit investors
Educators at all levels
Business leaders and for-profit investors
“People with influence”
Adjacent and nearby landowners whose uses and businesses may be impacted
Adjacent and nearby institutions
Therefore, by our definition, visitors and stakeholders include everyone and every organization/agency that has a stake in the creation and ongoing success of the museum or similar organization.
It now is important to refer to the “research” part of visitor research. The field has the tools necessary, when properly applied and with the data properly interpreted, to understand the needs, wants and motivations to all of these various visitors, users and stakeholders. And it is important that business decisions be made taking into account all of the above—traditional users and visitors and also all the “non-user” stakeholders.
It is essential to create and monitor continuing interest by all three groups as the project is developed. As noted, almost all projects are altered during development.
It should go without saying that projects must be
developed with an attendance model built up from a well researched understanding
of the various local and visitor sub markets with multiple lines showing
the numbers available in potential and key markets. This can be an analytical
tool with data that can be used later (what if we change programmatic
elements to target young families, seniors, young adults, etc., too?)
A good attendance model will lead straight into a better quality set of
revenue projections. It also makes it more challenging for the proponents
of a project to create inflated or unrealistic attendance expectations—as
is so common.
Figure 2. Tennessee Aquarium
Sometimes specialized original research is needed. For example, the creators
of a museum in a small community in the western U.S. regarded much of
the traffic flow on a nearby interstate highway to be the potential audience
for their specialty museum until intercept interviews at rest stops and
highway exit services showed that this clearly was not the case. Proponents
of new aquariums in urban areas have often looked only at the most successful
aquariums like Chattanooga and Baltimore without considering attendance
problems at places like the Long Beach, Denver, Duluth and Tampa aquariums.
Developers of a small natural history museum based attendance estimates
on the audience attracted by a local Shakespeare festival, which proved
to be a poor assumption.
Figure 3. Colorado’s Ocean Journey
Sports halls of fame are a good lesson in how substantial interest in a topic doesn’t always translate into site attendance. A single major league or even Division I college game broadcast will typically have more viewers than that sports hall of fame has in a year.
Establishing, early on, a set of reasonably comparable projects—those of similar subject and magnitude in communities of similar size and characteristics with similar visitor markets that you can profile in depth and learn from—is very helpful. Building an ongoing relationship with some particularly good comparables so that you can go back to them with questions again and again is like finding a good mentor. Use of inappropriate comparables, such as in the aquarium example above, can lead to serious miscalculations. Similarly, misunderstanding of the dynamics of a given place, such as Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, or of proximity issues, such as the increasing number of “museum districts” in the U.S., also can lead to inaccurate projections of visitor interest and/or participation. Developing an understanding of a community’s and a comparable’s visitor market can be very important where tourism is seen as a source of visitors. Tourists can be as diverse in their potential attendance as various resident market segments depending on the amount and timing of their free time and the purpose of their trip.
Similarly, the degree to which museums and commercial attractions in the same community can both complement and compete with one another for visitors and financial support can easily be misunderstood.
The entertainment and attractions industry has developed some powerful tools based on demographic and lifestyle data. This data (such as Tapestry (Acorn’s replacement) and Prizm) is built on information gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau and supplemented by proprietary data developed from shopping, reading and recreational habits. However, this demographic data must be used carefully. Even successful entertainment giants such as Disney can misinterpret data and make very costly mistakes—as happened with their failed DisneyQuest, Camp Disney, and other non-park initiatives.
Comparables also must accurately reflect the experience that would be found in the new facility. An example of how two facilities with the same subject can have differing levels of appeal can be found at Sea World in Florida. There, Discovery Cove, at $250/visit, continues to draw very well while Sea World itself, with similar subject matter and much lower cost, continues (along with Orlando’s other theme parks) to suffer lower attendance since 9/11. Discovery Cove also illustrates how the type of museum or commercial experience offered can draw different target markets given the uniqueness of the experience.
Figure 4. Hall of Exploration at the Columbus Center
The failed Hall of Exploration at the Columbus Center in Baltimore is a useful case study. Its attendance projections—and hence project magnitude and budget—were developed in the absence of a specific educational and exhibit program. Thus, much importance was attached to its Inner Harbor location and proximity to the National Aquarium in Baltimore and the Maryland Science Center. It was only after the program was developed and the exhibits actually under construction that visitor interest in and awareness of the primary subject (marine biotechnology) was tested. Research quickly determined that an important portion of the target audience, casual visitors to the Inner Harbor, didn’t either know or care about biotechnology. Moreover, a significant portion of that target audience, families with children under age 7, did not feel that sophisticated scientific subject matter would appeal to the interests or needs of young children. Neither finding boded well for the sustainability of the project. This was amplified by a poor pre-opening marketing campaign, a first year budget that provided no funds for tweaking the exhibit experience post-opening, and the need to begin paying off loans taken out to complete the project immediately upon opening. The Hall of Exploration closed after only seven months.
On the other hand, the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., has been a spectacular success. There are numerous reasons for this: a location in a development “hot spot” in the city, a well-constructed business plan which looked carefully at conferences, receptions and conventions as a significant target audience (and revenue source), and a heightened post-9/11 awareness of spying and espionage. Engaging exhibits, extensive marketing and good word-of-mouth also have helped. The Spy Museum used visitor evaluation studies at several key junctures during the development of the visitor experience.
Figure 5. International Spy Museum
Our experiences as consultants to numerous new, emerging, and evolving museums have confirmed the importance of broadly based visitor research in making many critical decisions at both programmatic/exhibit levels and institutional and political levels. Without good business decisions at those critical points:
- Projects don’t happen
- Projects happen but fail
- Projects happen but must change dramatically in order to survive.
Therefore, the responsibility of those who conduct visitor studies and provide advice and recommendations based on understanding of current and potential visitors, users and stakeholders is:
- To use the tools we have to understand and relate to all of the visitors, users and stakeholders
- To understand the reality of the environment(s) in which we and our visitors, users and stakeholders operate, and
- To develop new tools for this purpose in order to help our institutions make better business decisions.
Robert “Mac” West is President of Informal Learning Experiences, Inc., Washington, DC, and Editor and Publisher of The Informal Learning Review. He may be reached at ile@informallearning.com. Dan Martin is Vice President of Economics Research Associates, Chicago, IL. He may be reached at dan.martin@econres.com. Carol Bossert is Principal of CB Services, Silver Spring, MD. She may be reached at bossert@erols.com.