Visitor Responses Research Articles

Closing the climb: refusal or reconciliation in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park?

ABSTRACT The Uluru Climb, located within Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Australia, was permanently closed to tourists on the 26 October 2019 after decades of controversy. Determined by a unanimous vote of the Anangu majority Board of Management, news of the Climb’s closure quickly captured popular, political and media attention, not all of which was positive. Drawing on two periods of fieldwork – the first in November 2012 (n = 68 interviewees) and the second in May 2019 (n = 62 interviewees) – this paper discusses visitor responses to the Climb both in terms of the ongoing coloniality evident in discourses of nationalism and individual rights and the possibility of the transformation of such views via a range of emotional and affective engagements. We highlight the prevalence of feelings of ownership, empathy and shame in the deployment of a range of views on the Climb and other cultural restrictions, as well as their political implications in the context of contemporary Australian settler-colonialism. In so doing, we position an ethic of relationality as key to the mobilisation of feelings, emotions and affects necessary to transform the outlook of visitors in the context of ongoing reconciliation debates between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.

THE INDONESIAN ALCOVE AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: Art, Culture Areas, and the Mead‐Bateson Bali Project

abstract Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson were iconic figures whose contributions to visual anthropology are well documented, but what is less well known is their role as collectors and curators of Indonesian objects. The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) houses a large Balinese collection with numerous textiles, paintings, carvings, and puppets. Some of these objects were housed in permanent exhibits, such as the AMNH’s Hall of Pacific People (HOPP), curated by Mead, or displayed temporarily in the Museum of Modern Art’s traveling exhibit, curated by Bateson. Against this backdrop, this article adds to the critical discussion of curating, anthropological history, and categorization schemes in Western museums by exploring how Bali and Java came to be so prominent in the AMNH’s Indonesian alcove. Stimulated by visitor responses to exhibits, museum archives, ethnographic notes, and actual physical displays, it traces how Mead and Bateson’s study (1936–1938) of “culture areas” and traits such as “art” in Bali influenced the representation of Indonesia. The alcove’s emphasis on art and aesthetics as forms of cultural equanimity and consistency can be related to prevailing hierarchies of religion and technological development as well as how ahistoricism became an anthropological device of freezing, categorizing, and representing. [Bali, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, art, ahistoricism]

Impact of Substantive Staging and Communicative Staging of Sustainable Servicescape on Behavioral Intentions of Hotel Customers through Overall Perceived Image: A Case of Boutique Hotels.

Customers have become very sensitive regarding the innovative evaluation of services. Due to competition in the hospitality industry, it is a challenge for hotel marketers to understand customers’ behavior. There is scant research in the hotel industry of Pakistan and especially on boutique hotels. This research seeks to measure the relationship between substantive, communicative elements of the sustainable servicescape and behavioral intentions (word of mouth) in a boutique hotel setting. However, the mediating effect of the overall perceived image is examined between these constructs. Responses of boutique hotel visitors were collected from Lahore, Islamabad, Faisalabad, and Murree. Data were analyzed by using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results display that both substantive and communicative servicescape elements positively affect the perceived image of customers, which has a positive influence on behavioral intentions such as word of mouth (WOM). Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

Designing sensory museum experiences for visitors’ emotional responses

ABSTRACT Engaging senses in the museum experience design enables emotional visitor responses and makes the experience more memorable. The aim of this study was to discover a potential relationship between visual and aural stimuli and emotions to provide guidelines for the design of sensory museum experiences. To do so, the study used self-report and psychophysiological measures (skin conductance rate, zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii activity). The results indicated sound and visual stimulus to be equally accurate in inducing specific emotions on the self-report measures, while psychophysiological measures showed sound to cause higher arousal than visual stimuli for the majority of the emotions, joy to be more strongly elicited by means of sound, while sadness by visual stimuli. Guidelines for the designers of sensory museum experiences are provided at the end of the article. Future studies should try to confirm these findings on a more representative sample, using neuroimaging techniques.

Exhibitions about mental health – a platform for repairing perceptions and developing literacy

ABSTRACT Museums are discovering their role relative to health literacy. The growing number of mental health exhibitions may preface a “golden age” of museums advancing mental health by addressing stigma and fostering education with credibility, resources, and infrastructure. This paper provides a typology of mental health exhibitions and examines visitor responses to Mental Health: Mind Matters, adapted for North America by the Science Museum of Minnesota. Our research examined Mind Matters while on display at Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, Colorado, during 2020-2021. Data regarding visitor-level impacts were collected using index card responses to an open-ended prompt and via survey, and were analyzed using a hierarchical open coding strategy. Our research identifies how mental health exhibitions can impact sense of community/isolation among people with existing mental health conditions; understanding and empathy among other visitors; and, openness to help-seeking. Findings suggest museums can help reframe and repair what is possible with mental health.

WATER SPRINGS AS A RESOURCE FOR NATURE TOURISM IN LATVIA: A TOURIST PERSPECTIVE

Water springs are considered as one of the important natural resource for tourism due to its socio-economic, cultural, health and religious benefits. Tourists are motivated to visit the water springs due to various reasons like sacredness, health benefits, education and cultural enrichment. Latvia is blessed with several water springs, which are potential attractions for the sacred water or holy water tourism. There are several studies conducted on various aspects of water springs in general. However, the research in the context of tourism, particularly motivations and interest of tourist is very scant. In this regard, aim of the paper is to know the motivations and potential benefits of the water spring tourism to tourist in Latvia. Initially authors reviewed existing literature to know the state of the spring tourism. Semi structured interviews and online-survey method to obtain visitors responses. Interviews were held with the visitor, covering various aspects like motivations and benefits of water spring tourism. To the best of the author’s knowledge, very few studies conducted on spring tourism in Latvia, to provide a detailed overview on tourist motivations and potential benefits of visiting water spring tourism. Overall, the study results provide the basis for understanding the most frequently visited water spring resources by the tourists in Latvia. Nature appreciation, natural setting followed by mineral and health benefits are the major reasons to visit the water springs. Further, it allows decision makers to incorporate tourist opinion and their suggestions in the sustainable planning, promotion and management of water springs as tourist destinations in Latvia.

Willingness to Pay More: The Quest for Superstar Museums

Museum managers constantly focus their efforts on gaining economic viability. This has become a key challenge as the offer of ‘experience economy’ attractions is increasingly rising and visitors are searching for experiences that are competitive. Although it has been stated that a picture paints a thousand words, the main objective of this research is determining if the relationship between museum image and visitors’ satisfaction significantly and positively influences their willingness to pay more. Partial least analysis was used to conduct the multi-group comparison by including the recently developed measurement invariance of composites (micom) and new permutation methods. A total of 529 valid responses of museum visitors were obtained. Interestingly, the findings showed that there were no significant differences between the two museum samples, and that all the relationships analysed were positive and significant. Interestingly, Henseler’s mga identified a slight difference between the two museum visitor samples in the linkage between visitors’ satisfaction and visitors’ word of mouth. This research proposes a multi-group comparison study examining two different samples of visitors to two superstar Mexican museums so that findings provide useful generalizations that imply academic and managerial contributions for the tourism industry. Keywords: multi-group, satisfaction, image, willingness to pay more, word of mouth

Museums and Transitional Justice: Assessing the Impact of a Memorial Museum on Young People in Post-Communist Romania

Memorial museums are frequently established within transitional justice projects intended to reckon with recent political violence. They play an important role in enabling young people to understand and remember a period of human rights abuses of which they have no direct experience. This paper examines the impact of a memorial museum in Romania which interprets the human rights abuses of the communist period (1947–1989). It uses focus groups with 61 young adults and compares the responses of visitors and non-visitors to assess the impact of the museum on views about the communist past, as well as the role of the museum within post-communist transitional justice. The museum had a limited impact on changing overall perceptions of the communist era but visiting did stimulate reflection on the differences between past and present, and the importance of long-term remembrance; however, these young people were largely skeptical about the museum’s role within broader processes of transitional justice. The paper concludes that it is important to recognize the limits of what memorial museums can achieve, since young people form a range of intergenerational memories about the recent past which a museum is not always able to change.

THE FUNCTION OF PROTECTED NATURAL AREAS OF THE VOJVODINA PROVINCE IN SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

To determine the state of sustainable tourism development in the protected natural areas of AP Vojvodina, it is important to analyze and correlate certain indicators of sustainable tourism. It is also important to analyze the opinion of visitors according to the selected protected natural areas, from the perspective of experiences and potential suggestions for specific interventions, to improve the state of natural values and improve the area protection. As a final result, it can provide significant benefits for all participants of sustainable tourism development. This paper analyzed and presented the results of visitor responses regarding 5 selected protected natural areas on the territory of AP Vojvodina. These areas represent a significant sample for analysis and the results of the research can influence the overall assessment of the sustainable tourism development of the Province. Using the correlation method of obtained average values of estimated sustainability indicators, the relation of these indicators to sustainable tourism was defined. The results obtained can influence the constitution of proposals for the improvement of the natural values of these areas through the proper implementation of nature protection. By enhancing these natural values, benefits are provided to all participants in sustainable tourism development.

Designing Soundscapes for Presence in Virtual Reality Exhibitions: A Study of Visitor Experiences

In museum exhibition design, the experiential aspects of virtual reality and other immersive technologies are increasingly being explored. This study contributes to these explorations, focusing on the role of hearing and sound in visitors’ experiences of a hybrid virtual environment designed for an architecture museum exhibition. Physically, the environment consisted of a full-scale, multi-level structure installed in a large gallery space. Virtually, visitors ‘switched’ between being in a contemporary villa and a natural shoreline biotope while moving in the physical installation, experiencing and comparing nature and architecture as “parallel realities." This study investigates visitors’ experiences of realism in the soundscape and how this contributed to the immersive experience. Exit interviews with randomly selected visitors on the sound experience (N = 82) are primary data for this study. Visitor responses to questions related to sound (N = 320) and data collected from interviews and observations of recruited visitor pairs (N = 16) are complementary data. The study finds that visitors considered sound essential to the high degree of realism they experienced in the hybrid virtual environment, in the sense of “being there,” and that this was dependent on signal types that were appropriate in type and variation. Additionally, relevant to exhibition design practice, issues of quality and delivery methods had minimal impact on the visitor experience.

Using value-belief-norm theory to explore visitor responses to education programs at animal-themed facilities

I use value-belief-norm theory to frame how environmental education program participants interpret important messages and set behavioral intentions in response to environmental education program content. I compare participants at three animal-themed environmental organizations with different missions, postulating that institutional mission frames values-based messaging and drives outcomes in these contexts. This paper is the third part of a mixed-methods comparative case study in which I analyzed program content across sites, compared visitors’ pre-program characteristics and beliefs, and now explore visitor interpretations and intentions post-program. I find that visitors accurately detect key values-based messages at each facility, but that each organization activates different preexisting knowledge and values, which affects both the relative salience of different elements of the value-belief-norm framework and whether visitors commit to pro-environmental behavior.

Visitors’ discursive responses to hegemonic and alternative museum narratives: a case study of Le Modèle Noir

ABSTRACT Recent reflection on the role of museums and galleries has focused on their socially situated nature; and that as a social construct, co-produced with its audiences, heritage is in part discursively constituted. This has included acknowledgement that the inherited discourse is hegemonic and exclusive of divergent narratives, leading to moves to create alternatives to contest it, which include temporary exhibitions. These provide a potentially democratic space for discursive incursions freed from the constraints of the permanent museum. But they are also spatially and temporally peripheral, occupying a discursive space outside the standard visit. This raises questions as to whether, once the exhibition is over, the alternative will be subsumed once more. This article explores this issue using a dataset of TripAdvisor reviews to analyse the discursive responses of visitors to temporary and permanent collections, using the Musée d’Orsay's 2019 exhibition Le Modèle Noir as a case study. Analysis shows that Le Modèle Noir reviews exhibit greater discursive fragmentation, reveal a relative lack of appeals to collective identity, and do not connect the exhibition with the permanent collection. Potential implications of this for initiatives that seek to counter the hegemonic narrative are discussed.

Small Garden, Big Impact: Emotional and Behavioral Responses of Visitors to a Rooftop Atrium in a Major Hospital.

To measure hospital visitors' satisfaction with a rooftop atrium and its resultant impact on the visitors' behavioral intentions toward the healing garden, the hospital, and overall satisfaction with the hospital. There is a significant lack of empirical research that links the emotional and behavioral responses toward healing gardens and the hospitals providing them. A purposeful sample of 96 visitors to the healing garden in the rooftop atrium of a surgery building in a major hospital in the Southeastern United States completed a survey based on Roger Ulrich's Theory of Supportive Gardens and the Stimulus, Organism, Response (S-O-R) paradigm. Findings of this study suggest visitors' experience with the healing garden can lead to overall satisfaction with the hospital and behavioral intentions toward the hospital. Visitors' satisfaction with the healing garden significantly predicted their satisfaction with the hospital, their intend to revisit the hospital, and their intend to recommend it. This study demonstrates that a small healing garden can be a powerful enough space to impact visitors' overall satisfaction with the hospital and their intentions regarding their future behavior toward the hospital, such as revisiting or recommending the hospital.

Ecology versus society: Impacts of bark beetle infestations on biodiversity and restorativeness in protected areas of Central Europe

Protected areas worldwide are important to maintaining biodiversity and providing recreational opportunities to society. However, many protected areas are affected by unprecedented, large and severe natural disturbances, like bark beetle outbreaks. Due to the contrasting responses of different taxonomic groups to disturbance events and largely negative human perceptions of disturbed landscapes, there are conflicting opinions about the appropriate way of managing affected stands. Aligning these different objectives and understanding the responses of biodiversity and visitors' perceptions to different disturbance severities is a prerequisite for disturbance management in protected areas. We conducted multi-taxon biodiversity surveys – including meta-barcoding hyperdiverse groups such as insects and fungi – and analysed the restorativeness (i.e. the landscape's ability to renew personal cognitive capacities for forest visitors) using visitor surveys in five national parks throughout Europe. Response curves of biodiversity and restorativeness were analysed along a continuous gradient of bark beetle infestation severities in Norway spruce forests on the same study plots. Arthropod biomass and the diversity of primary producers and pollinators increased linearly with increasing disturbance severity, while overall multi-diversity (an index of the average scaled species richness per taxonomic group) did not change. Restorativeness decreased linearly with increasing disturbance severity; however, even heavily disturbed forests still had high restorativeness. In spite of the ongoing debates about disturbance management, the high biodiversity and restorativeness that accompany disturbance suggest that major goals of protected areas are not threatened by bark beetle disturbances.

Surprise me Softly: The Element of Surprise in Designing Museum Experiences

Experience design has become a widely discussed topic. Museums use experience design for engaging their visitors and culture offers exceptional tools for it. Visual arts and music are particularly effective in eliciting visitors’ emotions. However, there are a number of visual and acoustic cues that influence museum visitor response behaviours. Understanding the ways in which the human brain processes information provides a basis for furthering experience design principles. This study focuses on the emotion of surprise, considered especially effective for engaging visitor attention, providing meaning and affecting memory. The methodology involved monitoring psychophysiological responses and self-reports to assess research participants’ reactions to visual/acoustic stimuli. The aim was to confirm/detect types of sensory stimuli that generate the emotion of surprise, to see if participants have similar reactions to stimuli and whether individuals’ self-reports are aligned with their psychophysiological reactions. The results showed that musical stimuli are more effective than visual arts in eliciting surprise. While the study showed no clear indications that visual cues have an effect on surprise, musical cues, such as rapid attack, large pitch variation, higher harmonics, slow tempo with a sudden interruption, and sudden change in loudness do seem to play a role. Other cues, such as major key, 4/4 meter, timbral difference, and diatonic harmony also have an impact on the elicitation of surprise. These are important implications for designing museum experiences.

“Powerful,” “Proud,” and “Let’s Be Real, It’s Time”: Visitor Responses to a Fashion Museum Exhibition Centered on Black Women’s Styles in a Predominantly White Space

“Powerful,” “Proud,” and “Let’s Be Real, It’s Time”: Visitor Responses to a Fashion Museum Exhibition Centered on Black Women’s Styles in a Predominantly White Space

Response of flower visitors to the morphology and color of crab spiders in a coastal environment of the Gulf of Mexico

Abstract Predation is one of the main interactions between organisms and one of the primary selective agents for their survival. Both prey and predators have developed different strategies and characteristics that allow them to be conspicuous or go undetected. In sit and wait predators, their shape and appearance are important factors that allow them to remain undetected by their potential prey. Sit and wait predators such as crab spiders are difficult to identify when they sit on flowers or areas of flowers with colors similar to the color of their bodies. In this study, we aimed to determine if insects can recognize the morphology and color polymorphism of crab spiders by evaluating the response of flower visitors. We quantified the visits and approaches of floral visitors to the flowerheads of Palafoxia lindenii with spider morphology and color polymorphism treatments. Our results show that insects in general, and bees in particular, avoid visiting flowers with a real spider or a spider model and visit vacant flowers more frequently. In the case of the color polymorphism, insects approached flowerheads with spiders with a similar frequency independently of the color of the spiders, but did not visit them. Insects appeared to identify spiders through their morphological characteristics rather than their color characteristics, since flower visitors did not discriminate between the evaluated spider colors (white, lilac, and purple). This study emphasizes the differential response of different insect prey to the presence, color, and morphology of sit and wait predators.

Impact of travel distance and experience use history on visitors’ climate friendly behavior and support for climate friendly management action

Despite growing concern about climate change and the potential impacts of tourism on the environment, little is known about visitor responses toward climate mitigation strategies in nature-based tourism settings or factors that influence them. This study examined the influence of travel distance and Experience Use History (EUH) on visitor willingness to engage in climate friendly behavior in state parks and their support for management actions to minimize climate change impacts. Following a stratified-cluster sampling approach, a total of 1,775 visitors (69.7% response rate) completed online or paper surveys at 20 pre-selected Missouri state parks and historic sites. Results indicated that visitors living within 100 miles of these locations were more willing to engage in climate friendly behavior, but less supportive of climate friendly management actions, as compared to those living farther away. Visitors’ EUH was only associated with their willingness to engage in climate friendly behavior, but not with support for climate friendly management actions. In addition to some theoretical and methodological contributions, this paper sheds light on management of nature-based tourism destinations such as state parks.

Visitors’ satisfaction and development strategy of agrotourism: evidence from Semarang, Indonesia

Visitor satisfaction is fascinating to learn because this is always a significant positioning in developing tourism destination.This study aims to analyze visitor satisfaction and formulate the agrotourism development strategy. The research survey was conducted in Purwosari Agrotourism, Mijen District, Semarang City, Indonesia. A total of 100 visitors and 20 people were purposively selected to address research objective. Visitor satisfaction is evaluated using the 7P marketing mix approach. The analysis method uses the Importance Performance Analysis and Customer Satisfaction Index to analyze visitor satisfaction; and Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat (SWOT) analysis to formulate development strategy. The results showed the location, transportation, promotion, and physical evidence (parking area, toilets, and information boards) are the main priority attributes of improvement. The response of visitors was in the satisfied category with a total Satisfaction Index of 73.39%. The development strategy of Purwosari Agrotourism shows the SO (strength and opportunity) strategy approach, which means being in a favorable position with aggressive strategy recommendations. The strategy includes the innovation of tourism products, collaboration with other tourism objects to create tour packages, and expand product marketing networks.JEL Classification: Q13; R58; Z32

Scent chemistry and pollinators in the holoparasitic plant Cynomorium songaricum (Cynomoriaceae).

Holoparasitic plants are interesting heterotrophic angiosperms. However, carrion- or faeces-mimicking is rarely described for such plants. There is no information on the pollination biology of Cynomoriaceae, despite the fact that these plants are rare and vulnerable. This is the first study to reveal pollination in a member of this family, Cynomorium songaricum, a root holoparasite with a distinctive and putrid floral odour. From 2016 to 2018, we studied the floral volatiles, floral visitors and pollinators, behavioural responses of visitors to floral volatiles, breeding system, flowering phenology and floral biology of two wild populations of C. songaricum in Alxa, Inner Mongolia, China. A total of 42 volatiles were identified in inflorescences of C. songaricum. Among these volatiles are compounds known as typical carrion scents, such as p-cresol, indole, dimethyl disulphide and 1-octen-3-ol. C. songaricum is pollinated by various Diptera, such as Musca domestica, M. stabulans (Muscidae), Delia setigera, D. platura (Anthomyiidae), Lucilia sericata, L. caesar (Calliphoridae), Wohlfahrtia indigens, Sarcophaga noverca, S. crassipalpis and Sarcophila meridionalis (Sarcophagidae). The inflorescence scent of C. songaricum attracted these pollinators. The plants significantly benefit from insect pollination, although wind can be a pollen vector in the absence of pollinators. C. songaricum is a cross-pollinated, self-incompatible plant. Our findings suggest that C. songaricum releases malodorous volatiles to attract Diptera to achieve pollination. This new example lays the foundation for further comparative studies in other members of this plant group and contributes to a better understanding of fly-pollinated, carrion mimicking plants.