Abstract
This paper provides an economic analysis of the survey responses of visitors who were asked to make a “ value for money” (VFM) assessment of a museum visit. The paper first interprets the notion of VFM from an economic perspective, and distinguishes between evaluations made before and after a visit. It then analyses the survey responses of visitors to a major museum in the North of England, using appropriate statistical techniques to identify the economic determinants of VFM rankings by visitors. The final section discusses the implications of the methodology and results for museum management, and for the design of museum visitor surveys.
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The authors are grateful to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which financed the visitor survey on which this study is based, to staff at Beamish Museum who made the survey possible, and to their colleague, Dr Barry Thomas, who was co-director on the original project. Valuable comments have been received from colleagues at Durham and from two anonymous referees. The authors however alone responsible for any errors and omissions.