Insights from Visitor Studies

Book excerpt: Insights from Visitor Studies: A purpose-oriented model for museums provides a systematic overview of the value of visitor studies and, for the first time in English, a comprehensive overview of the development of visitor studies in mainland China. This book emphasizes the importance of approaching visitor studies with a focus on purpose-oriented way and introduces the PSD model based on it. Zhao suggests that when museums aim to use the results of visitor research to gain support, or when they want to conduct a visitor evaluation to address a specific issue, they can follow the logical sequence of Purpose, Standpoint, and Dimension for analysis and identification. This approach will help museums derive maximum value from previous research or enhance the effectiveness of evaluations in practice. Throughout this process, Zhao not only consolidates literature from various cultural backgrounds into a unified framework, but also strives to incorporate existing terminology from the field of visitor studies to the greatest extent possible. Insights from Visitor Studies: A purpose-oriented model for museums examines the value of visitor studies for museum practice. It will be of great interest to museum practitioners to design transparent visitor research and evaluation practices. It will also assist academics and students engaged in the study of museums, heritage and tourism.