Gazing from home: Cultural tourism and art museums

This study reconstructs and expands well-established cultural tourist typologies while offering an alternative model to help explain the subtle differences between different cultural tourists in art museums. Keeping in mind that art museum visitors differ from visitors of other kinds of museums and that museum visitation is not separate from everyday life, in-depth, semi-structured interviews in the participants’ home country were used to explore museum perceptions and memories of past museum experiences. The main outcome of the study is the identification of eight different ways of perceiving the art museum whether at home or a tourist destination. Five case studies are presented in order to demonstrate the need for more inclusive and flexible typologies.

Research highlights
► Reconstructs and expands well-established cultural tourist typologies.
► Offers a flexible and fluid model as an alternative to cultural tourist typologies.
► Art museum visitors differ from visitors of other kinds of museums.
► Cultural tourism is an extension of everyday life.
► Supports the “spillover hypothesis”.