How can art museums develop new business opportunities? Exploring young visitors’ experience

Abstract

Purpose So far, most studies in cultural tourism have looked at visitors in relation to the experience itself. This study aims to bring a broader view on what constitutes the daily environment of younger visitors and how museums could use this knowledge to develop a service delivery that is more adapted to their needs without sacrificing the museums’ integrity and authenticity. As such, this research brings a unique and deeper analysis of young visitor behavior, in relation to arts and cultural practices that could be expanded to other areas of tourism experiences. Design/methodology/approach The present study examines the main art and cultural tourism activities among adolescents. Using 32 in-depth interviews with adolescents between 13 and 18 years of age, this research takes a closer look at their experience and perceptions of art museums and exhibitions. Findings The findings show that adolescents’ perception of arts and exhibitions do not correspond to museum art criteria held by cultural tourism professionals. Based on the key theoretical themes emerging from the empirical investigation, a conceptual framework of adolescents’ attitudes toward arts and exhibitions is now presented to provide insights into the dimensions of adolescents’ art consumption in today’s western consumer society. Figure 1 provides a graphic model that visualizes adolescents’ art consumption experiences and summarizes the main findings and marketing implications in the arts field. Originality/value Based on these findings, new ways of engaging with adolescents in the field of arts are suggested to create new business opportunities for the museum. The findings lean toward the necessity to develop a more youth-centric approach, which differentiates between how adults define art and what adolescents believe art is supposed to be. Thus, the findings demonstrate that adolescents’ art consumption experiences are deeply anchored within the context of their social environment and the value judgments of their peers. The adolescent-centric logic within the arts experiential context is taken into account to underline the gap existing in many current arts marketing strategies that are targeting young visitors – and especially adolescents.

Art and tourism – a systematic review of the literature

“…Our review unveils that a limited number of papers apply or use a theory, with only six papers applying an existing theory. Batat (2020) explores art experiences among adolescents during their museum visits through the youth subculture theory developed by Hall and Jefferson (1976). Barbieri and Mahoney (2010) study consumption preferences within the context of life-performing art by applying the omnivorous–univorous consumption framework (Peterson, 1992).…”

To buy or not to buy: how young consumers approach new smart products in the social media context

“…Eventually, a symbolic brand value could change a brand into an iconic brand. Furthermore, young consumers are experienced and well-educated with classic marketing efforts (Batat, 2020). Maintaining and attracting young consumers need a fundamental change in response to enable young consumers with significant with them symbolic values (Esmaeilpour, 2015).…”

Young adult tourists’ intentions to visit rural community-based homestays

“…Numerous homestay studies have focused on the perspectives of homestay operators and local communities (Fong et al , 2016), tourists’ perspectives, perceptions, perceived values and motivations for visiting rural homestays (Dey et al , 2020; Law and Lo, 2016), and young consumer’s behaviour towards cultural tourism, and the intention to visit future travel destination (Batat, 2020; Lončarić et al , 2019). Past literature has shown that demographic variables, including age, are vital for accurate market targeting in rural tourism (Batat, 2020; Chen et al , 2022; Yousaf et al , 2018), where young tourists aged between 15 and 30 contributed the most to the Malaysia tourism market (Kasim and Wickens, 2020). Studies focusing on community-based homestays among young adults in rural areas in Malaysia are limited, especially those focusing on the pandemic (Bao et al , 2018; Pasa, 2020).…”