Visitor Experience at Archaeological Museum: The Importance of Different On-Site Factors

Abstract

The global phenomenon of tourism and heritage tourism is one of the most researched subjects in tourism studies and there are plenty of researches focusing on visitor experience and visitor satisfaction at the tourist attractions. However, only a few of them investigated the difference between visitors’ perceived importance of on-site factors, for instance, the recent study by Jensen, Li, and Uysal (2017) which was conducted at four different museums in Northern Norway. This current research is a replication and extension of Jensen et al. (2017) and examines and distinguishes the underlying factors or sub-categories of visitors’ perception of the importance of on-site attributes (presentation platform and support service platform) and whether these factors affect overall visitor satisfaction, while taking into consideration the impact of visitors’ interest and visitor type. The findings from a survey among 86 visitors at a single attraction in Southern Norway shows that there are sub-categories in visitors’ perception of presentation platform, but there is no sub-category found in support service platform. The findings also suggest that visitors’ perception of those factors do not differ significantly by visitors’ interest and the type of visitor. Besides, visitor’s perceived importance on both platforms is significantly associated with overall visitor satisfaction. The results partly confirm the findings from the original study and give different perspectives on the role of different attributes in museum attraction. Some managerial implications are also presented in this study, for attraction operators to increase visitor satisfaction.