Museum visitors and non-visitors in Germany: A representative survey

Abstract

German museums have only recently employed sample surveys to learn about the people who visit and who do not visit their museums. The reason for this late activity is a search for new financial sources, and the discovery of the marketing of museums. However, there is still little knowledge of non-visitors and their social background. This survey focusses on the effects of socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic factors on visits or non-visits to four different types of museums: science and technology museums, natural history and natural science museums, history museums, and art museums. For art museums, it was possible to compare the German results with data from the Surveys of Public Participation in the Arts in the United States. In Germany, the type who does not visit museums is more often a blue-collar worker, unemployed or not in the paid labor force. Visitors to science museums and to natural history museums are more often between 30 and 45 years of age and live more often in a household with many people. Visitors to history museums and to art museums are highly educated, and are likely to be professionals or students. A single contrast of non-visitors and visitors could not be corroborated. Rather, the contrasting character of art museum audiences and natural history museum audiences emerges strikingly. On the one side we find the natural history museum and science museum visitors, on the other side the art museum and history museum visitors. There is a continuum ranging from non-visitors to popular museums to visitors of high culture museums with respect to their socioeconomic, demographic and geographic characteristics.