Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research - Why Do Visitors Go to Museums (Chris Ryan and Shih-Yun Hsu)

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Why do Visitors Go to Museums? The Case of921 Earthquake Museum, Wufong, TaichungChris Ryan

a& Shih-Yun Hsu

b

aDepartment of Tourism and Hospitality Management, University of

Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealandb

Depart ment of Leisure and Recreat ion Management , Asia Universit y,

Taichung, Taiwan

Available online: 23 Mar 2011

To cite this art icle: Chris Ryan & Shih-Yun Hsu (2011): Why do Visit ors Go to Museums? The Case of 921Earthquake Museum, Wufong, Taichung, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 16:2, 209-228

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Why do Visitors Go to Museums? The Case of 921Earthquake Museum, Wufong, Taichung

Chris Ryan1 and Shih-Yun Hsu21Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management, University of Waikato, Hamilton,

New Zealand2Department of Leisure and Recreation Management, Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan

The paper examines the motives and sources of satisfaction of 286 respondents relating tothe 921 Earthquake Museum in Taichung, Taiwan. In concludes that income, age andeducation remain statistically significant determinants of at\titudes, and notes the exist-ence of four clusters derived from k-means analysis but supported by a cross-tabulationof cluster types and categories derived from themes identified in responses to open-ended questions. The paper lends some support to the continuum of the authentic topure essentialism while arguing that the latter is a logical corollary of the concept,but in practice will be rare. In that respect the Museum represents a negotiated essential-ism in that the core of the Museum is the damaged school, but it has been sanitized. Refer-ence is also made to differing concepts of museums and the literature relating to

competing understandings of the roles of museums and why people visit them.

Key words: museums, visitor motives, Taiwan, earthquakes

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to examine the

sources of satisfaction derived from a visit

to 921 Earthquake Museum in Taichung

County, Taiwan. Hence, it reports the results

of a survey derived from visitors to the

museum with reference to what was perceived

as important about museums in general and

their specific reactions to the 921 Earthquake

Museum. The paper is structured as first to

review the literature relating to museums as

attractions for visitors, second to describe

the nature of the museum, then to discuss

considerations of questionnaire design and

finally to present the results of the study.

An importance-evaluation approach was

adopted and a regression analysis conducted.

It was found that when the museum commem-

orates a relatively recent event that touches a

Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, Vol. 16, No. 2, April 2011

Email: [email protected]

Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, Vol. 16, No. 2, April 2011

ISSN 1094-1665 print/ISSN 1741-6507 online/11/02020920# 2011 Asia Pacific Tourism Association

DOI: 10.1080/10941665.2011.556342


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strong communal experience, socio-demo-

graphic variables of age, income and

education can help to determine attitudinal

scores, although as discussed these are not

wholly independent variables. The paper also

discusses hot and cool spaces in themuseum, and implications of these results are

discussed in the final section of the paper.

Museums and Visitors A LiteratureReview

Gil and Ritchie (2009) argue few studies exist

that generate understanding of what visitors

expect when visiting a museum, and what pro-vides them with satisfaction. In their study they

examined the role of image in attracting visitors

and compared results derived from a survey of

103 tourists and 149 residents to 13 sites in

Gran Canaria. They found little difference

between residents and visitors . . . in the way

that image functions (relationship among the

different dimensions of image) and its influence

on visitor satisfaction (Gil & Ritchie, 2009,

p. 491). With reference to the cognitive image

they found that general visitor experience,

general appearance, and a souvenir shop were

found to be important determining variables.

Slater (2007, p. 149) presented a different

case from that propounded by Gil and Ritchie

(2009), arguing that Researchers have been

trying to find out why and how people visit

museums and galleries for over a 100 years

a view with which the current authors concur.

In a study at a London Gallery and using a

scale derived from the Beard and RaghebLeisure Motivation Scale (1983), she found

three underlying dimensions explaining visitor

motivations: escapism, learning, and social

and family interaction (Slater, 2007). Certainly

museum staff would maintain, it is suggested,

that one of their functions is the imparting of

knowledge, and early studies such as those of

Boggs (1977) indicate that people could recall

facts after theirvisit, and in the case of historical

re-enactment, Ryan and Dewar (1995) found

evidence of recall several months after a visit.

Boisvert and Slez (1994) examined the relation-ship between visitor characteristics and use of

museum displays to assess whether this

relationship helped predict levels of learning.

They found no relationships between gender,

age or social grouping on the one hand and

attraction, holding power or engagement

levels on the other with reference to an exhibi-

tion on the human body, although they noted

other studies that found contradictory results.

This seems to imply that the subject matter ofan exhibition does have a role to play in attract-

ing differing groups of people.

McIntyre (2009) is another who notes at

least two decades of research about the

purpose and function of museums and art gal-

leries, but he takes a middle path between the

contentions of a lack of research and that there

is much research by arguing that for all the

research that has been undertaken there is a

need for more as museums change. For

example, they have introduced cool spaces

in the form of cafes and atriums, and devote

less space . . . supportive of an involved or

reflective adult learning experience, of a

warm nature (in humanistic, individual or

social terms) . . . (McIntyre, 2009, p. 156).

His own study was undertaken in Bourne-

mouth and utilized language used by infor-

mants. He concluded that the desired

experience is a self-oriented immersion in the

cultural objects of another age, of a perform-ance of personal reflection and imaging . . .

across past, present and future realms (McIn-

tyre, 2009, p. 165). He consequently devised a

conceptual model of cold, cool, warm and hot

spaces along dimensions of space usage and

experience involvement.

210 Chris Ryan and Shih-Yun Hsu


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Hetherington (2007) is another who exam-

ined concepts of space in museums, albeit

from the perspective of movements through

museums. He began by noting that from a

public authority perspective museums have

often been used to attract visitors to areas aspart of urban regeneration policies, as is evi-

denced in the Liverpool and Swansea docks

areas in the UK. Hetherington (2007) pre-

sented a case study of such a development in

the case of Manchester, UK, in the aftermath

of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombing

of 15 June, 1996, in which 220 people were

injured and about 1,200 buildings adversely

affected. He noted that the Millennium

Project-funded Urbis project takes peoplethrough the city using entertainment

through interactive displays and engagement

to develop thinking and learning about the

urban experience. Interestingly, he noted that

dependence on this technology has meant dis-

plays have become dated and the experiences

of city life abstract and hence less effective

in the process of knowledge transfer.

Taking these issues of image, space, display

attraction and visitor characteristics together

among other variables, the work of Koran,

Longino, and Shafer (1983) represents an

interesting retrospective look at museums

and the research undertaken within them.

They sought to establish a framework for con-

ceptualizing research in museums through the

generation of a taxonomy of types of exhibit

and related patterns of visitor behaviour.

Thus, they devised a model comprising key

variables of display (the static to the walk-

in), usage of space and differences among visi-tors and behavioural patterns. In many ways

the last three decades have been fulfilling the

research agenda they wished to engender, but

at the same time museums have evolved into

social spaces that shape visitor behaviours

and in doing so manipulate the subsequent

understandings that emerge. Given this, a

theme that is of importance, and much

debated in tourism, namely that of authen-

ticity, perhaps needs to be considered.

Chhabra (2008) examined the curatorial

view of authenticity, having proposed a conti-nuum of authenticity that ranges through

stages of pure essentialism, essentialism/con-

structionism and pure constructionism, but

with intervening phases of negotiation along

this dimension. Based on a survey of 50 cura-

tors, she argues that for curators an accurate

portrayal of the past is that which represents

the authentic, and it is this that should

serve to inform learning on the part of visitors.

Yet she noted that museums do not exist in avacuum, and while visitors are supportive of

an essentialist perspective, the past cannot be

represented in its original form. Drawing on

the issues of interpretation as described by

Ryan (2007), it can be argued that visitors

are dependent on curatorial expertise to

define and prioritize that deemed to be impor-

tant about a time, place or event. However,

any curatorial selection of key facts involves

value judgements, and so a process of selection

derived from a complexity of social, political

and economic actions and values takes place

which selection itself is presented within

the technological, skill and resource base

available to a museum. Consequently, in

Chhabras terminology, all that is presented

is the consequence of a negotiation, conscious

or otherwise, and there is no pure essential-

ist end to the continuum. Therefore, arguably

pure essentialism exists as an abstraction

for purposes of assessment, but has littleother practical significance.

The themes that emerge from the literature

as they relate to visitor expectations and evalu-

ations of museums thus go beyond the obvious

matters of what the objects selected for the

display are and the manner of their viewing.

Why do Visitors Go to Museums? 211


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Issues of interpretation are a key variable, and

indeed object, mode of display and interpret-

ation are closely interconnected, for as every

item is displayed, it helps shape an articulation

of what is considered important and thereby

silences that which is not shown. Additionally,the information provided shapes visitor

perceptions, again thereby condoning

approved interpretations and silencing

others; but in addition to this, modes of

display may evoke not only cognitive but

also affective responses, while the demarcation

of space to different activities within a

museum such as exhibition space, refresh-

ments and relaxation zones, places of contem-

plation and areas of souvenir and otherpurchases all help shape a more holistic

response to a visitor experience. From this

perspective the physical construct of a

museum, especially one constructed on a site

of a natural phenomenon, has a role to play

in the shaping and determination of visitor

assessments. Consequently, the next section

of the paper describes the Earthquake

Museum.

The 921 Earthquake Museum

The 921 Earthquake Museum commemorates

the earthquake of September 21, 1999, in

which 2,146 people lost their lives, 11,443 suf-

fered serious injuries, 44,338 houses were

totally destroyed and another 41,366 homes

were significantly damaged. It has been esti-

mated by the National Ministry of the Interior

that the total damage was approximatelyUS$9.2 billion (National Fire Agency, 2000).

The museum is located at what was the

Guangfu Junior High School in Wufong,

Taichung County, and as can be seen from

the photographs of the site (Figures 1 4),

major damage was done to the school, with

the ground being lifted 23 m in the schools

sports grounds. That no loss of life occurred

at the school was due to the earthquake occur-

ring at 1.47 a.m. The museum thus provides

an immediate impression of the force of the

earthquake as the visitor walks throughpurpose-built displays and buildings that

weave their way through the ruins of the

school. In addition, the centre has a permanent

display of photographs that record the impact

of the earthquake at other sites in Taiwan, an

explanation of how earthquakes are caused, a

description of the Chelongpu Fault, which

runs through Taichung, an audio visual show

of the rim of fire and the fault lines in

the Asia Pacific Zone and an experienceroom where visitors can experience the

degrees of shaking that were caused by the

earthquake.

The museum thus serves to commemorate

the events, to provide data and information

about the earthquake of 1999 and earthquakes

in general, and through its audio visual display

and hands-on displays (see Figure 5) also to

impart knowledge through entertaining

means. In terms of the above literature

review, it might be said there are hot

spaces (the re-enactment of the shaking of

the earth) and warm spaces (the very school

itself, which is represented as a cleaned

building there is no attempt at a represen-

tation of the chaotic mixture of classroom

furniture and school work that must have

been present, but the very twisting of the

building portrays the force of nature). There

are cool spaces (e.g. a place of story telling of

the aftermath of the earthquake throughfigures projected onto curtains) and cold

places (the empty spaces and, arguably, the

displays of scientific data and information

about the earthquake). Hence, visiting the

museum was a key component in the design

of the research.



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Research Method

Following the work of McIntyre (2009) and

the role of exhibits in shaping cognitive and

affective self-learning from visits tomuseums, the first page of the questionnaire

comprised open-ended questions about

museums and 921 Earthquake Museum in

particular. At the end of the first page it

asked for details on how many times respon-

dents had visited museums in general and

921 Earthquake Museum in particular. On

turning the page respondents were presented

with a list of statements about why people

visited museums, and they were asked to use

a seven-point Likert-type scale to show howimportant these reasons are for themselves.

On the scale, 1 represented the lowest

score and 7 represented the highest value.

The third page then asked respondents to

recall a visit to the 921 Earthquake Museum

and to assess their evaluation of the museum

Figure 1 A Classroom.



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using the same items listed on page 2 of the

questionnaire. The final page asked for socio-

demographic data including a self-evaluation

of their household income, e.g. did they con-

sider their household income to be below

average, average or above average? The

Figure 2. Classroom Block.

Figure 3. Another Classroom Block.



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the view that motives for engaging in leisure

pursuits are based on social, intellectual,

relaxation, escape and competency/mastery

motives. Additionally, the design of the ques-

tionnaire sought to differentiate between

those who had visited the museum and thosewho had not. From the viewpoint of assessing

satisfaction, there exists a literature as to the

validity of a single item (e.g. to what extent

are you satisfied?) and the use of multiple

items (e.g. would you visit this museum in

the future? To what extent would you rec-

ommend this museum to a friend?). Several

papers discuss these issues. For example,

Ryan and Cessford (2003) discuss modes of

questionnaire design and conclude that thesingle measure possesses validity. For their

part, Rusbult, Martz, and Agnew (1998)

argue with reference to consumer behaviour

that satisfaction is a precursor, along with

other variables, to the persistence of behav-

iour, and it is this that should be measured.

Of some interest is the study by Dholakia

and Morwitz (2002), who found that the

very act of measuring satisfaction had a sub-

sequent effect on buyer behaviour and that it

encouraged future purchases. For his part,

Hasegawa (2009, p. 2) argues that reliance

on ordinal scales is meaningless, and that is it

is essential to examine the magnitude of the

relation between ordinal values. He thus

proposes the use of probit analysis.

In this study, given that the questionnaire

was shaped on the grounds discussed above,

a single item of satisfaction is used in this

paper, but an importance-evaluation approach

was also adopted. There are several reasonsfor this. First, it generates rich data sets.

Second, the multi-attribute approach to atti-

tude measurement has a proven record, not

only in terms of common usage, but also in

terms of predictive abilities of subsequent

behaviours (see, e.g. Sheppard, Hartwick, &

Warshaw, 1988). Conceptually the approach

also has an appeal, arguing as it does that the

strength of attitudes might be measured as

the product between the importance (cogni-

tive) and evaluative (affective) components of

attitude, while the outcome is arguably theconative, that is, a predisposition to action

(Fishbein & Aijzen, 1975). However, there

are caveats noted by Ouellette and Wood

(1998) who, although finding evidence that

past behaviours were effective at predicting

future behaviour, noted the importance of

habit formation and, from a research perspec-

tive, the importance of respondents being able

to recall accurately past behaviours. This is

an issue that pertains to infrequent patternsof behaviour such as museum visits, and the

questionnaire, as noted, included an item

that asked about frequency of past visits to

museums. Nonetheless, the mode of question-

ing was retained for a further reason because,

as shown in Figure 6, it permits an easily

assessed diagrammatic representation of

results in terms of sources of satisfaction

with a visit to an attraction.

Respondents were derived from the general

public in order to obtain a sample of frequent,

infrequent and non visitors to the museum

derived from a wide regional basis in order

to capture views from non-residents of

Wufong. Students attending a postgraduate

course in research methods at a Taiwanese

university were asked to write to parents and

other relatives seeking completion of a ques-

tionnaire, each student being asked to write

to approximately 10 people. The responses

were received over a period of about 1month. Given the number of students and

responses, the completion rate was

estimated to be about 90%, but it is argued

that the sample is effectively a convenience

sample, and the limitations of this are noted

below.



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Prior to examining the results the scales

were tested for reliability. The alpha coeffi-

cient for the importance scale was 0.83 and

the split half correlations were above 0.76.

The same statistics for the evaluation scale

were 0.82 and 0.83. Using the Kaiser-Meyer-

Olkin test, the sample adequacy was found

to be 0.82 on the importance scale and 0.83

on the evaluation scale. The data thus

seemed appropriate for further analysis.

Indeed, the importance scale proved to be a

uni-dimensional scale with alpha coefficients

exceeding 0.8 if an item was deleted from the

scale (Tukeys test for non-additivity 20.8,

p , 0.001, which might be expected from a

uni-dimensional scale).

The Sample

The sample comprised 286 respondents, ofwhom 137 (48%) were male and the remainder

female. Of the sample, 27% were under the age

of 25 years and 15% over the age of 46 years.

Thus, 56% of the sample was between the

ages of 26 and 45 years old. This is representa-

tive of visitors to the museum once the school

parties are excluded from the visitor statistics.

Hence, the sample is representative of adult

visits to the museum. Over 80% of the sample

had a first or postgraduate degree, and this

reflects the Taiwanese education system

where over 1.3 million annually go on to

some level of tertiary education out of a popu-

lation of approximately 3.6 million between

the ages of 20 and 29 years of age (Ministry

of Education of the Republic of China, 2009;

National Statistics of the Republic of China

Census, 2000). With reference to income

levels, 49.3% indicated they had average

household income levels but a further 44.7%

indicated they possessed above average house-

hold income. Just over a third of the sample

had at least one child under the age of 16

years. With reference to visiting a museum,

just over 18% of the sample had not visited a

museum, but two-thirds had visited the 921

Earthquake Museum.

The Results

The results of an analysis of the data are

presented in the following in four separate

Figure 6 Importance-evaluation Chart for 921 Earthquake Museum.



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sections. The first looks at the attributes of

the Museum and reports the scores derived

from an importance rating, the second assesses

the satisfaction derived from a visit, the

third combines the two in a conventional

importance-evaluation matrix, and the finalsection discusses the results of a cluster

analysis and segmentation of visitor types.

This last section also confirms a conventional

cluster analysis by cross-tabulating clusters

with categories derived from responses to

open-ended questions.

Museum Attributes thought Important

Table 1 shows the attribute importance scores

for the whole sample, and it can be seen that

museums are well regarded for explaining

history and as sources of information, and

are able to meet intellectual needs of finding

out and learning. Indeed, no scores are less

than the mid-point of the scale (i.e. 4.0,

which represents neither important nor

unimportant). Second, the responses were

checked for the existence of statistically signifi-

cant differences between subsamples based on

frequency of visitation, and only two items

were found, a visit to a museum represents

good value for money (F 3.69, df 283,

p 0.026) and a museum is simply a good

place to visit on a rainy day (F 3.78, df

283, p 0.032). For these two items the

mean scores for non-visitors were about

4.16, whereas for more frequent visitors they

were about 4.80. Additionally, there no stat-

istically significant differences in perceptionsof importance when comparing by gender,

but the other nominal data sets of age,

income, level of education and the presence

of children all affected the importance scores.

Consequently, Table 2 repeats the items

shown in Table 1, but also reports the results

of a multinomial logistic regression analysis

that shows the relative importance of each of

these variables for the individual items

(thereby following the advice of Hasegawa

(2009)). In this form of analysis the dependent

variable is categorical in nature and thus thesample was divided into low scorers,

middle scorers and high scorers using

the values of one to three, four and five, and

six and seven, respectively. The advantage of

this technique is that it involves a simultaneous

consideration of all the categorical data and

thus represents a comparative dynamic analy-

sis of the importance of all the data. However,

there are some things to consider in interpret-

ing Table 2. For example, age, education andincome may be interrelated in that, for

example, the higher ones education and the

older one is, the higher ones income is likely

to be. Thus, while income is shown to be a

statistically significant variable when consider-

ing the relationship between the item I am

interested in the displays in the museum, it

may be serving as a proxy for both age and

educational level. However, what Table 2

does indicate is that while the ability of the

socio-demographic categorical data is rela-

tively limited in explaining the variance in

the determined variable (although it should

be noted that these scores do incorporate the

use of an intercept) what is of interest is that

in some instances the socio-demographic

data contribute to predicting correctly respon-

dent membership of determined variable cat-

egorical scores in eight of 14 consequences in

conjunction with other items. Hence, although

psychological aspects are of importance inshaping a reaction to the role of museums as

cultural sources or as places to visit on a

rainy day, from the viewpoint of museum

management it can be seen that generally

socio-demographic factors still have a role to

play. This may be of importance when consid-



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ering specific themes, exhibitions or displays

that may be thought to appeal more to specific

segments of the general population.

Determinants of Satisfaction

From the viewpoint of evaluating satisfaction,

the interpretation offered by the importance-

evaluation figure as shown in Figure 6 is con-

firmed by the data derived from a linear

regression analysis that uses the item ofoverall satisfaction derived from visiting the

921 Earthquake Museum as the determined

variable, as shown in Table 3. Unstandardized

coefficients are used because all the data were

derived from a seven-point Likert-type scale

and thus were homogenous in nature with

Table 1 Mean Scores for the Importance of Museum Attributes and Satisfaction with Visit to

921 Earthquake Museum

Importance Importance Satisfaction Satisfaction

Item Mean SD Mean SD

Museums help to explain our history and

todays world

5.46 1.03 5.35 1.01

I am interested in the displays at the museum 5.45 1.07 5.24 0.98

It is important to find out about our past 5.41 1.11 5.51 1.01

Museums are storage places of our history

and culture

5.41 1.08 5.56 0.96

I want to learn about more about the subject

and displays (earthquakes for 921

satisfaction score)

5.34 1.09 5.34 0.95

I like finding things out 5.31 1.13 5.37 1.18

There are sometimes special exhibitions I

want to see

5.22 1.11 4.99 1.20

A museum is very conveniently located

near me

5.21 1.28 4.75 1.29

A museum is a good place to take children 5.19 1.27 5.27 0.95

I feel I have to visit a museum because it is

the right thing to do

5.19 1.14 5.38 1.06

Increasingly the displays are interactive and

fun

5.13 1.18 5.04 1.05

It is simply a place to visit when on holiday 4.96 1.25 5.03 1.22A museum is a good place to visit with

friends and/or family

4.83 1.27 5.14 0.96

A museum is a good place to visit on a

rainy day

4.57 1.47 4.79 1.26

SD: Standard deviation.



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Table 2 The Role of Socio-demographic Variables in Determining Attitudes to

Attitude Expressed/Measured

Sig. Variable

1

Sig. Variable

2

Sig. Variable

3

Cox & Snell

Interc

Museums help to explain our history

and todays world

Age Income Education 0.2

0.001 0.001 0.012

I am interested in the displays at the

museum

Income None None 0.5

0.05

It is important to find out about our past None None None 0.0

Museums are storage places of our history

and culture

Age Education None 0.1

0.027 0.028

I want to learn about more about the

subject and displays

None None None 0.2

I like finding things out Age Education None 0.1

0.001 0.034

There are sometimes especial exhibitions I

want to see

Income None None 0.0

0.001


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A museum is very conveniently located

near me

None None None 0.1

A museum is a good place to take children Income Age None 0.2

0.001 0.004I feel I have to visit a museum because it is

the right thing to do

None None None 0.0

Increasingly the displays are interactive and

fun

Education None None 16.6

0.046

It is simply a place to visit when on holiday Education None None 0.0

0.15

A museum is a good place to visit with

friends and/or family

None None None 0.1

A museum is a good place to visit on a rainyday

None None None 0.1


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reference to the units of measurement. A

constant was retained, but nonetheless these

variables still generated a coefficient of deter-

mination of 0.402 with a Durban-Watson

statistic of 1.97. The tolerance and variance

inflation factors also indicate little problemwithin the data with reference to issues of

serial correlation and multicollinearity. The

data confirm the contribution made to satis-

faction from a feeling that the museum has

explained the history of the earthquake,

the role of the exhibits, that is, the right

thing to do (which is discussed below), learn-

ing and the museum is a good place to visit on

a rainy day (see Table 3). It will have been

noted that this last variable was the leastimportant of the reasons given for visiting a

museum (see Table 1), but equally it can be

noted it is the item with the largest variance,

thereby possibly accounting for its statistical

significance in this calculation. In short, for

some people the museum provides an interest-

ing place to visit when weather inhibits other

sightseeing activities.

Importance-evaluation Assessments

As noted above, the questionnaire was

designed on the premise of an importance-

evaluation approach, and the mode of ques-

tioning permitted the subsample who had

actually visited the 921 Earthquake Museum

to be separately identified. The conventional

importance-evaluation matrix comprises fourcells, and this process was adhered to. The

top right-hand cell represents the items that

respondents feel are important and are highly

Table 3 Determinants of Satisfaction with a Visit to 921 Earthquake Museum

Model

Unstandardized

Coefficients

t Sig.

Collinearity

Statistics

B SE Tolerance VIF

(Constant) 1.458 0.541 2.694 0.008

The museum helps to explain the

earthquake history and todays

world

0.252 0.072 3.489 0.001 0.789 1.268

There are sometimes special

exhibitions I want to see

0.236 0.063 3.744 0.000 0.762 1.312

I feel I have to visit the museum

because it is the right thing todo

0.236 0.066 3.591 0.000 0.887 1.128

The museum is simply a good

place to visit on a rainy day

0.161 0.054 2.975 0.003 0.898 1.114

I want to learn about more about

earthquakes

-0.188 0.076 -2.481 0.014 0.893 1.120

SE: Standard error; VIF: Variance inflation factor.



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satisfied about. The top left-hand cell rep-

resents items for which visitors experience

low levels of satisfaction, but that are impor-

tant to them, and thus represents an area of

concern for management. The bottom right-

hand cell represents an area of high satisfac-tion to visitors, but which is of less importance

to them. The final cell represents a point of

both low importance and low evaluation.

There is a debate as to where the cross-hairs

that create the four cells should be drawn (see

Oh, 2001), but in this instance the cross-hairs

have been drawn at points that represent the

mean overall satisfaction and importance

scores for all the items to distinguish better

between the relative positions of the items. Itcan be seen that the primary motives of learning

and discovery are very well met in the case of

the 921 Earthquake Museum, although the

item about special exhibits and displays

appears in the top left-hand cell. Reasons for

this are discussed below when considering the

data derived from the open-ended comments

in conjunction with the nature of the museum.

Although the authors would argue there are

special features that apply here in the museum,

the relatively poor position of these two items

might account for the relatively poor position

of the item value for money. In making this

comment it must be reinforced that these are

relative scores and that, for example, the

item displays scores above 5.0 for both

importance and satisfaction, implying therefore

that people do consider displays as impor-

tant and that they are satisfied with 921

Earthquake Museum in this respect. Figure 6

also provides evidence that visitors are adoptinga more holistic cognitive expectation and assess-

ment of museums that is, the primary roles of

the Museum relate to learning, history and

explanationandin thatsense displays form

the subject for the cognitive processes.

Market Segments

Given this observation, a segmentation using

k-means clustering was undertaken using the

importance ratings and produced four differ-

ent clusters, with the data being shown inTable 4. Importance ratings are used given

that importance is a more consistent psycho-

logical rating than evaluation or satisfaction

(e.g. see discussion by Krosnick, 1988,

1989). The first cluster represented 34% of

the sample and scored consistently high

across all the items, implying that all the

listed attributes were important to them.

The second cluster represents another large

group numbering only 92 in total, and essen-tially their interests are primarily intellectual

and knowledge-seeking and the other attri-

butes of the museum matter less to them.

The third group of 13 respondents represent

a small group who generally have little interest

in museums, whereas the final group of 83

respondents (29% of the total sample) tend

to value the museums in ways similar to the

first but with weaker knowledge-seeking

motives and possibly as a group may attributevalue to the museum as a place to visit akin to

a tourist site. Using SPSS discriminant analysis

options showed that 97.2% of all respondents

were correctly allocated to an appropriate

cluster with Wilks Lamba significant at p ,

0.001(signifying that grouping variable was

significant). Some supporting evidence for

this last interpretation was found when con-

ducting supplementary testing. For example,

when examining clusters by the presence of

children under 16 years, chi-squared (x2

15.6, df 3, p , 0.001) was significant and

cluster four had a third more children of this

age group than was the expected figure.

Cluster membership was also statistically sig-

nificant when examining relationships with



17/21

levels of satisfaction, with cluster three having

significantly lower recorded levels of satisfac-

tion than the other two at p , 0.001 (means

of 4.0 compared with 4.6 5.4 for other

groups on visits to museums in general and

visits specifically to 921 Earthquake Museum).

Given the textual data available from the

open-ended questions, the validity of the clus-

ters was tested by examining the choice of

words used by the different clusters. This

was undertaken using the textual analysis

program, CatPac. This program, combined

with its supplementary program Thought-

View, is based on neural network analysisand generates groupings or clusters of under-

lying concepts in a text by analysing the

locations of and interactions between words

within the text after processes of data cleaning

(e.g. reducing plurals and singular terms, or

the active or passive use of verbs to a singular

classification) and the constructs of labels/

statements by the researcher. Its outputs

include word counts, dendograms and percep-

tual maps (Buenz & Guetschow, 1985;

Woelfel & Stoyanoff, 1993). In this study the

word count feature of the package CatPac

was used to compare the different word

usage of the various clusters, with the results

shown in Table 5, which lists the top six

words by frequency of mention. Percentages

are provided to standardize comparison

between the clusters.

There are both differences and similarities

between the clusters. For three of the four clus-ters knowledge appears frequently, thereby

lending support to the contention that visitors

to museums actively seek new knowledge. In

the analysis a distinction was made between

the words interest and interesting the

former being an expression of motivation on

Table 4 Final Cluster Centres

1 3 4 5

Mean Mean Mean Mean

I am interested in the displays at the museum 6.11 5.48 3.92 4.90

I want to learn about more about the subject and displays 5.84 5.42 3.85 4.95

A museum is a good place to take children 5.81 4.72 3.23 5.36

Museums help to explain our history and todays world 6.13 5.16 4.08 5.19

A museum is a good place to visit with friends and/or family 5.77 4.15 3.08 4.76

It is simply a place to visit when on holiday 5.73 4.32 3.00 5.07

A museum is very conveniently located near me 5.90 4.60 3.62 5.39

I feel I have to visit a museum because it is the right thing to do 5.98 4.59 3.31 5.23

There are sometimes special exhibitions I want to see 6.06 4.86 3.77 4.83

Museums are storage places of our history and culture 6.18 5.09 4.31 5.04

Increasingly the displays are interactive and fun 5.87 4.65 3.46 5.11

I like finding things out 5.76 4.96 4.08 5.43

It is important to find out about our past 6.05 5.08 4.31 5.19

A museum is simply a good place to visit on a rainy day 5.13 3.58 3.54 5.23

A museum visit is good value for money 5.11 4.11 2.77 4.88

Bold point indicates the items that generate the composition of the cluster.



18/21

the part of the respondent, and the latter being

interpreted as an attribute of place. Thus,

for cluster two the knowledge seekers

museums are interesting, meaningful

and educational places in which they have

an interest. For cluster four though,

museums are not just places where one can

gain knowledge and where you can

learn, but you need time and they are

places where you can relax. The smallest

cluster seems, from the textual analysis, to be

motivated by a need to take children and,

from the quantitative analysis, museums are

not intrinsically interesting places for these

respondents. For cluster one, one differentiat-

ing word is the importance attributed to

museums being convenient.

Discussion

This final section is divided into three sections,

a summary of the findings, implications of the

results and a note relating to the limitations of

the study.

Summary of Findings

The main findings that result from this study

include: museums are perceived as important

as storage places of history and knowledge;

but they can also serve as good places to take

children (see Table 1). Socio-demographic

variables possess some importance as determi-

nants of visitation, with age and education

having a primary role and income also being

found to possess some significance (see Table

2). The 921 Earthquake Museum appears to

satisfy many of its visitors as possessing inter-

est and aiding learning and knowledge acqui-

sition (see Figure 1). It was also possible to

identify four clusters using the items on a ques-

tionnaire based on the dimensions of the

Leisure Motivation Scale (Beard & Ragheb,

1983), and the differences between the clusterswere supported by a cross-referencing of the

clusters with words used by them to describe

their attitudes towards museums. These clus-

ters may be labelled high scorers, knowl-

edge seekers, less interested low scorers

and museums as tourist sites seekers.

Table 5 Clusters and Commonly Used Words

Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3 Cluster 4

All Important KnowledgeSeekers Little Interest Museums Valuedas a Place to Visit

Knowledge 16.9 Interesting 15.7 Me 14.3 Knowledge 18.0

Interest 16.9 Knowledge 13.4 Reasons 14.3 Learn 12.3

History 12.7 Leisure 10.2 Took 14.3 Leisure 9.8

Convenient 7.0 Interest 9.4 Visit 14.3 Interesting 9.8

Education 7.0 Meaningful 6.3 Children 7.1 Time 11.5

Learn 7.0 Educational 7.1 Bored 7.1 History 6.6

Relax 6.6



19/21

However, given the small numbers of less

interested respondents, one conclusion is

that museums can potentially attract visitors

from the vast majority of a population,

subject to an important caveat noted below.

Implications of the Study

From a conceptual perspective the findings

support a view, contrary to Boisvert and

Slezs (1994) findings, that, even where argu-

ably there is strong common experience as in

the case of the 921 Earthquake Museum,

socio-demographic variables such as age and

education do play a role in determining visita-tion. Equally, the value of exhibits is arguably

reinforced as the findings seem to imply that,

at least in this specific example, the location

and the museum were able to appeal success-

fully across different clusters by combining

the features of being interesting, generating

learning, and yet also being able to enter-

tain although the Tukey scores indicate

associated additivity on the importance scale

and hence a uni-dimensional scale. This

being the case, the clusters based on assess-

ments of importance are degrees of nuance

rather than perhaps degrees of significant

difference, and given the high importance

attributed to knowledge acquisition by the

majority of respondents, this statistical

relationship is to be expected. From this per-

spective the concept of essentialism dis-

cerned by Chhabra (2008) is supported and,

at least in this study, is important for this

museum. However, it is a negotiated essen-tialism and construction can be discerned in

the presentation as noted in the above text,

where potentially hot empathetic places

have been cooled presumably by design in

the case of the classrooms. It was noted

above that Chhabra (2008) argued that gener-

ally the past cannot be represented in its orig-

inal form, and the 921 Earthquake Museum

represents therefore an interesting negotiated

representation. The buildings have, subject to

safety considerations, been left in their original

post-earthquake state, and thus represent theimmediate aftermath of the quake. What, of

course, is absent from this aftermath is the

clutter, debris and remnants of childrens

belongings, exercise books and the like,

thereby arguably sanitizing the site and

perhaps therefore removing the Museum

from the confines of dark tourism (Lennon

& Foley, 2000). Indeed, many of the displays

and interpretative notices relate to issues of

building design and how buildings can with-stand future earthquakes. Such interpretations

explain the use of the word prevention that

emerges in some of the text not analysed in

this paper.

From a practical management perspective

the 921 Earthquake Museum can only be

said to be successful, and much of this is

thought to lie in the nature of the site itself.

However, it is noticeable that some cool

spaces mentioned by McIntyre (2009) are

lacking, such as cafe and souvenir retailing.

These are issues that management might

wish to address given that past research has

indicated that such provision does enhance

visitor satisfaction.

Limitations to the Study

It has, however, been observed that these

implications are subject to a caveat. Intourism studies generally, given the impor-

tance of destination attributes as a reason for

visitation, it might be stated that every piece

of research is bound by the specifics of time

and place, and while one might seek to gener-

alize from results, in essence one does so by



20/21

comparing locations for nuanced differences.

For example, not every theme park wholly

replicates another, and not every seaside

resort possesses the same geography, even

though common features might be found.

The same is found of museums, and the 921Earthquake Museum possesses unique com-

ponents. It was not designed initially as a

museum, and would not today be a museum

were it not for the earthquake of 1999. Its

main features are that of a damaged school,

to which have been added interpretative fea-

tures, so in a sense a museum has been built

around the original school, and the school

remains at its heart. So the study is bound by

the uniqueness and fame of the museum in aTaiwanese setting. From this perspective

attempts at generalization of findings may

therefore be limited. It has also been observed

that socio-demographic variables have a role

to play, and that the sample was thought to

be representative of visitors to the museum

outside school groups; but the socio-demo-

graphic characteristics of the sample are not

those of the wider Taiwanese population as

shown by census data. The means by which

the sample was generated, that is, through

family connections of university students,

implies a potential bias within the sample

population to one that would be more likely

to visit a museum, thereby underestimating

the numbers that would have fallen into the

not interested cluster. The study therefore

can say little about how one can convert a

lack of interest into a motive whereby

museum visitation might result; and, of

course, it needs to be recognized that the sizeof the sample is small. This is not to say that

the study is without interest, as it does reflect

the views of a population that the museum

would hope to attract, and indeed two-thirds

of the sample had already visited the 921

Museum. At the very least it confirms high

levels of satisfaction existed among those

who had made such visits, and contributes to

the literature by confirming that the key

museum roles (as perceived by this sample)

remain the traditional ones of knowledge-

seeking, information acquisition and learning.In the wider museums and tourism literature

where the role of entertainment and a

dumbing down to make museums more

accessible to a non-museum-going public

have been discussed, for example in the criti-

cisms made of New Zealands national

museum, Te Papa (see, e.g. Goldsmith, 2003;

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 2000), such a finding

is not without significance.

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Documents

Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research - Why Do Visitors Go to Museums (Chris Ryan and Shih-Yun Hsu)