Cultural participation is gaining increasing attention from scholars and policymakers as it is deemed to provide several benefits at the individual, social, and economic levels. Museums are emerging as the most popular form of cultural participation, and they are experiencing a surge in attendance. This increase in popularity is primarily due to the paradigm shift museums are promoting, moving from being objective centric to adopting a visitor-oriented approach. To make this shift happen, museums are leveraging the provision of an increasing number of support services. Many academic papers have studied these support services and tried to determine their effectiveness, taking into account external factors such as COVID-19, an event that deeply affected the cultural sector. However, until now, museums’ support services have not been analyzed holistically. Thus, the objective of this Master Thesis is to examine which support services provided by museums are the main determinants of visitor attractiveness, measured as the annual number of visitors, and whether this role has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure clear and generalizable results, it was decided to employ a framework for categorizing the selected services into thematic groups. This categorization not only provided a systematic structure but also facilitated a comprehensive exploration of all services, enabling generalizable results. Once the whole spectrum of support services provided by museums was classified within the macro-categories, a quantitative analysis was carried out to fill the gaps found in the existing literature. To determine which support services provided by museums are the main determinants of visitor attractiveness, three different models were implemented, namely best subset selection, ordinary least squares, and random forest. Considering the results of the three models, it was possible to conclude that only 3 out of the 4 macro-categories of support services resulted significant in affecting visitor attractiveness. Moreover, a set of linear models (OLS) including the interaction between support services and the variable "year" highlighted that the importance of some support services has changed as a consequence of the pandemic.
La partecipazione culturale sta guadagnando sempre più attenzione da parte degli studiosi e dei policymakers, poiché si riconosce che porti diversi benefici a livello individuale, sociale ed economico. I musei stanno emergendo come una delle principali rappresentazioni della partecipazione culturale e stanno registrando un aumento di visitatori. Questo aumento di popolarità è principalmente dovuto al cambiamento di paradigma che i musei stanno promuovendo, passando da un approccio centrato sull'oggetto a un approccio orientato al visitatore. Per realizzare questo cambiamento, i musei stanno facendo leva sulla fornitura di un numero crescente di servizi di supporto. Numerosi articoli accademici hanno esaminato tali servizi di supporto e hanno cercato di valutarne l'efficacia, considerando anche fattori esterni come la pandemia da COVID-19, un evento che ha influenzato profondamente il settore culturale. Tuttavia, fino ad ora, i servizi di supporto dei musei non sono stati analizzati in modo olistico. Pertanto, l'obiettivo di questa tesi magistrale è esaminare quali servizi di supporto forniti dai musei siano i principali determinanti dell'attrattività per i visitatori, misurata come il numero annuale di visitatori, e se questo ruolo sia cambiato a seguito del COVID-19. Per garantire risultati chiari e generalizzabili, si è deciso di utilizzare un framework per categorizzare i servizi selezionati in gruppi tematici. Questa categorizzazione ha fornito non solo una struttura sistematica, ma ha anche facilitato una esplorazione completa di tutti i servizi, consentendo risultati generalizzabili. Una volta che l'intero spettro dei servizi di supporto forniti dai musei è stato classificato all'interno delle macro-categorie, è stata effettuata un'analisi quantitativa per colmare le lacune riscontrate nella letteratura esistente. Per determinare quali servizi di supporto forniti dai musei siano i principali determinanti dell'attrattività per i visitatori, sono stati implementati tre modelli diversi, ovvero best subset selection, ordinary least squares e il random forest. Considerando i risultati dei tre modelli, è stato possibile concludere che solo 3 delle 4 macro-categorie di servizi di supporto risultavano significative nell'influenzare l'attrattività per i visitatori. Inoltre, un insieme di modelli lineari (OLS) che includevano l'interazione tra i servizi di supporto e la variabile "anno" ha evidenziato che l'importanza di alcuni servizi di supporto è cambiata a seguito della pandemia.
Museum support services and visitor attractiveness before and after Covid-19: a quantitative study in Italy
Benetollo, Camilla
2022/2023
Abstract
Cultural participation is gaining increasing attention from scholars and policymakers as it is deemed to provide several benefits at the individual, social, and economic levels. Museums are emerging as the most popular form of cultural participation, and they are experiencing a surge in attendance. This increase in popularity is primarily due to the paradigm shift museums are promoting, moving from being objective centric to adopting a visitor-oriented approach. To make this shift happen, museums are leveraging the provision of an increasing number of support services. Many academic papers have studied these support services and tried to determine their effectiveness, taking into account external factors such as COVID-19, an event that deeply affected the cultural sector. However, until now, museums’ support services have not been analyzed holistically. Thus, the objective of this Master Thesis is to examine which support services provided by museums are the main determinants of visitor attractiveness, measured as the annual number of visitors, and whether this role has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure clear and generalizable results, it was decided to employ a framework for categorizing the selected services into thematic groups. This categorization not only provided a systematic structure but also facilitated a comprehensive exploration of all services, enabling generalizable results. Once the whole spectrum of support services provided by museums was classified within the macro-categories, a quantitative analysis was carried out to fill the gaps found in the existing literature. To determine which support services provided by museums are the main determinants of visitor attractiveness, three different models were implemented, namely best subset selection, ordinary least squares, and random forest. Considering the results of the three models, it was possible to conclude that only 3 out of the 4 macro-categories of support services resulted significant in affecting visitor attractiveness. Moreover, a set of linear models (OLS) including the interaction between support services and the variable "year" highlighted that the importance of some support services has changed as a consequence of the pandemic.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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2024_04_Benetollo_01_Thesis.pdf
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2024_04_Benetollo_02_Executive.pdf
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/219096