Visitor studies

O texto apresenta uma reflexão crítica sobre os debates do Encontro Internacional Públicos da Cultura (Sesc São Paulo, 2013), argumentando que os públicos não devem ser concebidos como entidades homogêneas, mas como formações múlti-plas e historicamente produzidas. A partir das conferências do evento, discute três eixos: a pluralidade dos públicos, a formação de públicos e os modos de estudá-los. O artigo examina transformações associadas à digitalização da cultura, à diver-sificação das práticas culturais e à crise das políticas de democratização cultural centradas na oferta. Analisa ainda tensões entre educação e marketing, inclusão e governamentalidade, bem como o papel de jovens, pessoas com deficiência e ou-tros grupos frequentemente tratados como “públicos específicos”. Dialogando com autores como Olivier Donnat, Pedro Güell, Ana Rosas Mantecón e Carmen Mörsch, defende que os públicos sejam compreendidos menos como segmentos previamen-te definidos e mais como efeitos de interações culturais, processos de subjetivação e formas emergentes de participação social. Conclui propondo uma pluralidade de concepções de públicos, articulada às práticas, mediações e conflitos que os cons-tituem.

This paper presents the design rationale and conceptual framework for a virtual gallery platform aimed at supporting digital curatorship and cultural engagement in academic contexts. Grounded in the lessons learned from a legacy foundational prototype and informed by user-centered research, the platform is designed to enable students, educators, and cultural heritage professionals to curate, configure, and share digital exhibitions based on institutional collections. The paper defines the platform's architectural vision and functional requirements, structured around four main components: a digital library, a 3D exhibition environment, a publishing interface, and an AI-based curatorial assistant. A formative user experience evaluation with emerging professionals provided critical insights into usability and curatorial needs, directly informing the design of the proposed platform, as a reference model for integrating digital heritage practices into university education, fostering both curatorial agency and sustainable access to underused collections.

Tourism in Rodriguez (Montalban), Rizal is continuously growing due to its natural attractions and increasing number of visitors, resulting in more frequent interactions between residents and tourists. Because of this, local residents play an important role in shaping the overall tourism experience. This study examines residents' hospitality and interaction behaviors toward tourists and identifies influencing factors such as tourism awareness, cultural and communication differences, economic involvement, environmental conditions, and local government support. It also presents possible actions like tourism awareness programs, cultural sensitivity training, livelihood opportunities, sustainable tourism practices, and stronger local governance to improve interactions. The study concludes that resident behavior is influenced by multiple factors and is essential in enhancing tourist experiences and supporting sustainable tourism development in Rodriguez (Montalban), Rizal.

A report on a visit to Little Wenham Hall and Church in Suffolk. The Hall dates from the late 13th century and is probably the earliest building constructed largely of brick in England; the adjacent church is largely of the same date; both are Listed Grade I and both were saved by the efforts of the Crisp family in the early 20th century. This report features other accounts of visits in 1899, 1901 and 1928.

Language is a multi-dimensional and rule-guided activity. Many philosophers and scientists considered “Metaphor” as a linguistic phenomenon, a figure of speech in which one thing is represented as something else. Being that so, the role of metaphor is usually confined in the margins of life activities that lack its interactive and interpersonal process that fundamentally shapes our ways of perceiving and understanding the world. The aim of this paper is to examine some of the uses of metaphor in the philosophy of Mind, by giving an alternative account on how the concepts might be understood. Metaphors play an important role in science as a tool of innovation and discovery, providing a way of novelty by connecting unfamiliar facts to familiar experiences. By showing its importance in several epistemic fields we are using the narrative speech in addition to the Wittgensteinian phrase “agreement in judgments”, intending not to expel the scientific theories in epistemology, yet to illuminate some other aspects in the exegetical context.

This is a qualitative case study of a midwestern United States educator's journey to learn and implement social-emotional learning (SEL) in an economically disadvantaged, public school district, the infrastructural challenges that she faced, and the design she was able to implement when these infrastructural challenges were removed. This case study unwraps a teacher learning story that highlights her perceptions of systemic pathways for SEL implementation as well as challenges, such as standardized testing, educational bureaucracy, and unmet child welfare needs.

The article examines the possibilities of integrating the State Museum of the Applied Arts and History of Crafts of Uzbekistan (Tashkent) into the country's creative economy ecosystem. Based on international and national documents models of cooperation between museum and craft communities and creative entrepreneurs will be analyzed: co-creation of content, incubation, educational programs, commercialization (museum shop-market), digital formats. Practical recommendations are offered to strengthen the museum's influence on the development of craft clusters and the export readiness of craftsmen.

Online reputation has become a strategic component for cultural institutions, as it directly influences public perception and the social valorisation of heritage. The aim of this research was to analyse the online reputation of the Museo Nacional Sicán (Sicán National Museum), on the northern coast of Peru, as an expression of the symbolic and social dynamics that shape cultural consumption in digital environments. The methodology adopted was quantitative, exploratory, and descriptive, through content analysis and systematic observation of the TripAdvisor and Google platforms, considering variables such as ratings, comments, images, and scores. The results show that the museum maintains a solid digital image, with an average rating of 4.5/5 on Google with more than 1,300 opinions, and 4.0/5 on TripAdvisor, where 87.7% of the reviews are positive. I t also ranks as the most recommended activity in the city. Comparison with other museums in the region revealed that, although the Museo Nacional Sicán has a favourable reputation, it still faces challenges to match the digital visibility with leading inst itutions such as the Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipán. In conclusion, online reputation not only reflects the quality of the museum service but also the capacity of these institutions to actively participate in the symbolic construction of cultural identity , highlighting the need for digital strategies that strengthen their role in contemporary circuits of heritage legitimisation.

Studies-it not only enriches theoretical discourse but also equips readers with practical insights. By examining meaning-making across different spatial scales, the book advances analytical tools that are highly relevant to scholars and practitioners alike. Its practical orientation makes it a particularly useful resource for translators, curators, and museum professionals who aim to enhance accessibility and cultural communication in museum spaces. Ultimately, this work serves as a much-needed bridge between disciplines and will inspire further research and innovation in both Museum and Translation Studies.

The paths taken by visitors in museums influence what they see, do, learn, and experience. Poorly designed museums can lead to missed goals and opportunities. In this article, I critically review visitor studies published since the 1930s to evaluate explanations for visitor path choice in museums, namely, the location and attractiveness of displays, exhibits, and entrance and exit doors; spatial layout of exhibitions, galleries, and museums; cerebral lateralization of brain function; learning and cultural norms; optimality models of behavior; and the museum experience (e.g., visitor agenda, motivation). I discuss wayfinding aids including new technologies such as digital signage, indoor location technology, mobile access to wayfinding information, and Artificial Intelligence. Suggestions are made for understanding path choice and enhancing wayfinding in museums. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The imagination is at play when audiences experience museum exhibitions. In fact, it plays a central role in the interpretations involved in their museum encounter. If scholars are to understand the imaginaries involved in museum experiences, they face a challenge: how does one explore that which is imagined? This paper presents the collage method as a tool for exploring the imaginaries of museum audiences. Based on a recent study at the National Museum of Denmark, involving twenty participants creating collages to express their imaginaries of Ancient Egypt and the Viking Age, this article illustrates examples using the collage method and explores how it differs from other audience research methods. The collage method involves audiences beyond active participation. It works to aid access to memories and to make audiences express rich, personal narratives; it facilitates non-verbal creative expression and generates elaborate, multimodal data sets. The insights gained using this method provide new perspectives and understandings of audience imaginaries and the repertoires they bring with them to the museum experience. Collage examples illustrate how popular media and cultural education alike-fact and fiction-blend in the imaginaries of audiences, thus providing complex points of departure for their interpretations in and of the museums.

Performance measurement of tourism websites is becoming a critical issue for effective online marketing. The aim of this article is to analyse the effectiveness of entries (visit behaviour and length of sessions) depending on their traffic source: direct visit, in-link entries (for instance, en.wikipedia.org), and search engine visits (for example, Google). For this purpose, time series analysis of Google Analytics data is made use of. This method could be interesting for any tourism website optimizer. ## REFERENCE: Plaza, B. (2011). Google Analytics for measuring website performance. Tourism Management, 32(3), 477-481. DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2010.03.015 ## https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=k40EuU0AAAAJ&citation_for_view=k40EuU0AAAAJ:2osOgNQ5qMEC ## https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247231083_Google_Analytics_for_measuring_website_performance

This study evaluates the educational efficacy of zoological institutions and the ongoing debate regarding the effectiveness of zoos as educational centers for conservation, specifically examining how Animal-Visitor Interactions (AVI) influence public understanding and conservation attitudes. A quasi-experimental design, involving a sample of visitors (N=1200), pre-and post-visit questionnaires, observations, and semi-structured interviews, was employed to analyze the impact of zoo pre-and post-visit on conservation awareness. Chi-square tests of independence were conducted to assess differences in categorical responses, with a significance level of 0.05. Cramer's V was calculated to quantify the strength of association between variables. Statistical analyses revealed significant post-visit increases in conservation knowledge and the perceived urgency of wildlife conservation. While the findings indicate a positive correlation between zoo visitation and enhanced conservation awareness, multivariate analysis demonstrated that socio-demographic factors particularly age-significant impacts visitors' enjoyment levels. This highlights the necessity for zoos to implement age-specific considerations in their design and programming to optimize visitor experiences. The study suggests that while zoos hold the potential for fostering conservation awareness, targeted age strategies are crucial to maximize their educational impact across diverse demographics.

This paper examines the motivations of museum visitors and some of the primary needs they seek to satisfy in their contact with museums. The authors used a survey conducted in three regional museums of the island of Lesvos in Greece to establish a hierarchy of visitor gratifications. The survey included questions about demographic information and asked visitors to rank their motives when visiting the museums. It was filled in by 416 visitors and was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results showed that cultural and educational gratifications were significant motivations for visitation and were ranked higher than entertainment or escape motivations. Ηaving a "cultural experience" was the primary reason visitors stated for visiting the museums. The study used a regression model to understand how the concept of cultural experience relates to demographic, educational, and motivational elements.

The characteristics of Virtual Reality seem to fit current museological trends, which understand the visit as an active immersion in a multimedia environment. However, this suitability remains theoretical and should be verified through empirical evaluations, especially because VR and exhibitions correspond to different communication paradigms. In fact, as previous studies indicate, the potential advantages of Information and Communication Technologies seem to be effectively used in the formal learning environment but have problems of integration in the informal one. The Ename Museum (Ename, Belgium) is used as a case study in order to evaluate the effect of ICT applications on visitors' experience. This offers the opportunity to compare three kinds of ICT communicational formulae and evaluate their effectiveness. After an initial discussion about the theoretical relation between Virtual Reality and current museological trends, this paper presents the results of the evaluation conducted at the Ename Museum, focusing on the issue of interactivity. Its ultimate intention is to contribute to the construction of a wide-encompassing body of empirical knowledge and specific methodological standards aimed at guiding future designs and evaluations of exhibitions.

Modern zoos serve many purposes. There's no doubt that some of the main ones are recreation, research, conservation, and education. However, in What Are Zoos For?, Heather Browning and Walter Veit argue that zoos' traditional purposes are of secondary importance. They maintain that, first and foremost, zoos are for the animals who live in them, or in other words, that providing animals with a sufficiently high standard of welfare should be zoos' primary purpose (3-4). Part of Browning and Veit's rationale is that since most of the animals in zoos are born there and are dependent upon zoos for having their needs met, zoos, in turn, have a special duty to meet those needs (65 and 102-3), one that's similar to the duty that parents have to care for their children. Additionally, though, Browning and Veit maintain that so long as zoos secure a sufficiently high level of welfare, no other purposes are needed to justify their existence (3-4). Contrary to what zoo abolitionists believe, captivity is only, in and of itself, harmful to those who possess the capacity to realize that they're in captivity (97-102). Though certain highly complex animals, such as great apes and elephants, may possess this capacity, Browning and Veit contend that most animals do not (98 and 112). The upshot is that so long as zoos refrain from housing highly complex animals, and so long as they maintain a high standard of welfare for the animals that they do house, there really isn't anything morally wrong with them. Browning and Veit's argument is made in the same vein as arguments recently advanced by Rachel Robison-Greene in Edibility and In Vitro Meat: Ethical Considerations (Lexington Books, 2022), and by Josh Milburn in Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully (Oxford University Press, 2023). Robison-Greene and Milburn are concerned with animal agriculture, rather than with zoos, but they share Browning and Veit's critical attitude toward abolitionism. Traditionally, debates in animal ethics assume that if animals do have basic rights, such as a right to live and to be free, then both zoos and animal agriculture should be abolished. Abolition may be less politically feasible at present than welfarist reforms (such as increasing cage sizes) are, but the traditional view is that ultimately, and over the long term, animal rights advocacy should work towards abolition. But if the arguments made by the above authors are sound, then respect for animal rights doesn't necessarily entail a commitment to abolition. Though current agricultural practices, such as the practice of killing animals for meat, are rights violating, there's no reason to think that animal agriculture can't be rights-respecting. Possibilities include replacing slaughter-based meat with 'lab-grown' (cultured) meat, extending workers' rights to egg-producing chickens (see Chapter 6 of Food, Justice, and Animals), and various others. And though many zoos provide many zoos animals with insufficient space, and insufficient opportunities for agency and enrichment, there's no reason think that zoos can't be rights-respecting if, as Browning and Veit argue, captivity is not intrinsically harmful to zoo animals. Central to Browning and Veit's argument is a distinction between two types of freedom: liberty and agency (98-9). Agency, or the freedom to make choices, is an important part of animals' welfare. Ensuring that zoo animals have the opportunity to exercise agency requires ensuring that

Il patrimonio culturale è un varco verso il passato, una chiave per comprendere le radici di una società, la sua evoluzione nel corso del tempo e le influenze che hanno plasmato la cultura attuale. Per trasmettere questa ricchezza di conoscenza al pubblico, la comunicazione del patrimonio culturale deve essere sì finalizzata ma soprattutto emozionale, inclusiva e accessibile. La valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale si sta ormai rafforzando sotto questi aspetti mediante l'attivazione di processi innovativi che comprendono l'uso delle tecnologie digitali. In questa prospettiva si indaga il rapporto tra memoria emozionale e multimedialità della narrazione attraverso un equilibrio tra il coinvolgimento emotivo e l'accuratezza storica.
Caso di studio: Installazione multimediale presso l'Ipogeo del Cerbero sito in Canosa di Puglia a cura dello Studio Glowarp di Donato Maniello.

Using insights from the learning sciences, the four papers in this symposium investigate the ways teachers’ collegial talk contributes to their learning about equitable instruction. One pair of papers comes from primarily observational studies, investigating how everyday storytelling and facilitation stand to instantiate or challenge teachers’ knowing about their diverse students and their instruction. The other pair of papers comes from designexperiments aiming to transform teacher knowledge. These contribute frameworks for understanding teacher learning through discourse. Together, the collection illuminates relationships between teachers’ collegial talk and projects of instructional change. Learning to Teach Equitably For education to fulfill its democratic function, teachers must effectively engage students from diverse backgrounds and support their learning and development. Such equitable teaching has been pursued by educators for decades and has yielded many well-articulated f...

While there is quite substantial research on how marketing strategies for
archaeological sites affect destination branding, little can be found in literature on the impact of a market orientation adoption in these heritage assets on the development of sustainable tourism. This study aims to examine and propose a market orientation model which variables best define tourism sustainability in archaeological sites. The methodology is based on a qualitative and quantitative research to empirically test the model, using an international sample of eleven heritage management experts for the qualitative study, and 129 managers of archaeological sites worldwide for the quantitative research. This research provides empirical evidence indicating that market orientation positively influences tourism sustainability in archaeological sites, and proves the relevance of analysing the tourism functionality of these assets before implementing a market orientation plan.

L’articolo interpreta l’aeroporto di Changi come caso utile per verificare la tenuta della categoria di non-luogo. L’analisi mostra come un’infrastruttura di transito possa acquisire qualità di permanenza tramite una regia progettuale che rende l’attesa un tempo esperibile e socialmente praticato, anche da pubblici non in partenza. La prospettiva resta museologica e osserva come dispositivi spaziali, atmosfera e mediazione implicita orientino la produzione di senso in uno spazio altamente regolato, evidenziando insieme potenzialità e ambivalenze del modello.

Using Carol Scott's (2006) discussion of museum impact as a frame, a survey instrument was created to measure the value perceived by a community toward an art museum. The survey was administered at a local community arts festival. A factor analysis revealed that 18 out of 19 items used in the survey aligned with the 3 hypothesized areas of value: individual, societal, and economic. Results of the survey suggest that both recent and recent non-visitors of the museum find similar levels of value in having the museum exist in the community. Across the board, the economic items received the lowest score. Female participants gave significantly higher scores than males. Recommendations include marketing messages that highlight the perceived values expressed in the survey, and further investigation as to how to increase the value perceived by males in the community.

L’azione del viaggio e della visita è sensibilmente cambiata nel corso degli ultimi secoli, passando da una pratica esclusiva e per pochi a un fenomeno di massa e popolare, e con essa l’iconografia del viaggiatore: ecco, dunque, che dalla silhouette dell’elegante damerino con bastone, che compare ad esempio in molte raffigurazioni prodotte nel corso del Settecento, si è passati al visitatore ‘cafone’ che gira per le grandi capitali in shorts e infradito presente in tante immagini che raccontano l’evoluzione del turismo di questi anni (si pensi soltanto ai lavori del fotografo britannico Martin Parr). Questo volume tenta di offrire un nuovo e diverso modo di approcciare la rappresentazione non soltanto del viaggio e della visita ma anche di chi compie quell’atto, seguendo alcune possibili tracce tematiche.