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The behaviour of repeat visitors to museums: review and empirical findings

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Abstract

This study presents a theoretical and operational framework for analysing repeat visit to museums. Starting from the literature on repeat visit in tourism, the specificities of these cultural attractions are made explicit through a review of theoretical and applied works. Consistently with previous contributors, the paper suggests that the analysis of actual past behaviours has to be preferred to the one of attitudes. The application of proper econometric models is also remarked in order to put into account individual profiles. Information coming from three techniques is then used in an integrated way in order to provide a more comprehensive view of the phenomenon. Evidence from an ad hoc survey suggests the necessity to give a greater attention to perceived cultural value during the visit, promoting cultural events during the week and addressed to children, and taking care of those visitors that come from far places also through an integrated tourist supply.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Autonomous Province of Bolzano project ‘Le attrazioni culturali e naturali come motore dello sviluppo turistico. Un’analisi del loro impatto economico, sociale e culturale’, and by the Free University of Bolzano projects ‘Determinants of tourist expenditure: theory and microeconometric models’, ‘Tourism and Economic Growth: the Role of Transportations and Spatial Contiguity’, ‘The museums’ visitors: a comparative socio-economic analysis’, and ‘STTOBS’. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the conferences ‘Il turismo culturale europeo—Prospettive verso il 2020’ (Cultural Tourism in Europe—Perspectives towards 2020), organized by CESTIT and SISTUR (Italian Society for Tourism) in Bergamo (Italy), 15–16 November 2012, and CBTS 2012, Consumer Behaviour in Tourism Symposium, held in Brunico (Italy), 10–13 December 2012.

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  1. School of Economics and Management, Free University of Bolzano, Piazza Università 1, 39100 , Bolzano, Italy

    Juan Gabriel Brida, Marta Disegna & Raffaele Scuderi

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  1. Juan Gabriel Brida
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Brida, J.G., Disegna, M. & Scuderi, R. The behaviour of repeat visitors to museums: review and empirical findings. Qual Quant 48, 2817–2840 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-013-9927-0

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