Stephanie Weaver - Creating Great Visitor Experiences: A Guide for Museums, Parks, Zoos, Gardens & Libraries

Creating Great Visitor Experiences: A Guide for Museums, Parks, Zoos, Gardens & Libraries — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Creating Great Visitor Experiences: A Guide for Museums, Parks, Zoos, Gardens & Libraries" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...54

Creating Great Visitor Experiences

A Guide for Museums, Parks, Zoos, Gardens, & Libraries

An experienceologyGuide

This is the first in a planned series of handbooks applying the eight-step Experienceology process to a variety of businesses. Other books will be targeted to 1) business owners in the retail, hospitality, and service fields, 2) health-care providers, 3) special events, travel, and trade shows, and possibly 4) Web sites.

Visit www.experienceology.com for updates on future books.

Creating Great Visitor Experiences

A Guide for Museums, Parks, Zoos, Gardens, & Libraries

Stephanie Weaver

First published 2007 by Left Coast Press, Inc.

Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 2007 Stephanie Weaver

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

ISBN 978-1-59874-168-1 hardcover
ISBN 978-1-59874-169-8 paperback

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weaver, Stephanie, 1961

Creating great vistor experiences : a guide for museums, parks, zoos, gardens & libraries / Stephanie Weaver.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-59874-168-1 (hardback : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-59874-168-3 (hardback : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59874-169-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-59874-169-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Museum visitors--United States--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Museum attendance--United States--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Museums--Public relations--United States--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 4. Museums--United States--Management--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 5. Parks--Public use--United States--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 6. Zoo visitors--United States--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 7. Library users--United States--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 8. Public relations--United States--Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.

AM11.W43 2007
069.1--dc22
2007004412

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

For everyone who works more than a forty-hour week, making less than they could, because they believe in what theyre doing.

For every institution with small resources and a big mission thats trying to compete with for-profit destinations.

May this book inspire you and help level the playing field.

SECTION 1
The need for change

CHAPTER 1
Competing in an experience-driven world

Life is a series of experiencessome we want to repeat, and some wed like to forget. Perhaps things like this have happened to you:

You walked wearily through an endless hall in a natural-history museum, searching in vain for a bench.

You were having a great time at an art museums restaurantyou got wonderful food and warm service in a fun atmosphereand then you found a dirty bathroom with a cracked, drippy sink.

A salesclerks sour attitude ruined your experience in a national park store, even though they had fantastic merchandise.

Or maybe you sat down at a computer in a library to find a grimy keyboard and a sticky mouse.

Creating Great Visitor Experiences will help you sidestep pitfalls like these and instead create high-quality experiences that your visitors want to repeat. Your visitors have many other ways to spend their leisure time, so your experience must be unique and enjoyable. The nonprofit world is not immune to competition; getting and holding an audience is critical to a museum, park, or zoos financial health. Because people have so many choices, your site has to stand out from the pack by providing a sophisticated, meaningful, and memorable experience. The way to set yourself apart is to understand that, while you are a nonprofit, you are also in the business of creating and selling cultural experiences.

This book takes you step by step through the process of cultivating and maintaining the highest level of visitor satisfaction. I coined the term Experienceology to describe my approach, which combines elements of art, science, and common sense. Experienceology can be used to improve the quality of visitors experiences at any museum, park, science center, living-history site, garden, zoo, aquarium, or library.

Experience adds up

A good visitor experience helps you in two critical ways. First, since your goal is educating the public and serving your community, a positive experience supports learning. By helping to save and make you money, a good experience brings in additional revenue that can be used for public programs and other services.

Second, a crafted experience increases your potential for earning and generating revenue, allowing you to remain financially viable for years to come.

It costs five times more to attract a new visitor than to keep one you already have.

Why you need this book

To court your visitors

To improve your site

This book is intended for any informal learning site that serves the public. Experienceology applies to all kinds of museums and similar places. I will call the people who come through your doors visitors to keep it simple. At your institution you might call them guests, users, or patrons. Ill use the term site to describe your place of business. You might call it your museum, institution, park, heritage site, garden, library, or facility. Dont let the language get in the way.

After reading this book, you may decide to choose another term to describe your visitors. To some, the term visitor sets up an us vs. them mentality from the start, as they are only visiting your site. Some sites now prefer guest, a word most commonly used in the hospitality industry. Patrons is an old-fashioned library word that no longer reflects todays service-oriented libraries. And users has an unfortunate association with drugs. Whatever term you choose, its your attitude toward your visitors that counts, but Ill show you a few examples of how changing terminology can reflect a more visitor-centered approach.

Throughout this book well look at examples from a variety of museums and other businesses around the world. Some will be very similar to your own, others very different. All of them will give you ideas about howand how notto provide great experiences for your visitors.

From an education advocate to an experience advocate

Ive spent my career at the intersection between art and science. My background in film and design, combined with a degree in health education, gave me a unique perspective on nonprofit sites educational roles. Over the years I have acted as a liaison between content expertsdoctors, botanists, or scientistsand the public. I view myself as a translator, someone who distills the essence of material down into tasty bites of (correct) information that the public will enjoy. Over the years Ive been a passionate advocate for education and interpretation at the sites where Ive worked.

Next page

1234567...54

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Creating Great Visitor Experiences: A Guide for Museums, Parks, Zoos, Gardens & Libraries»

Look at similar books to Creating Great Visitor Experiences: A Guide for Museums, Parks, Zoos, Gardens & Libraries. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Dzhin Bryuer

K-PAX IV: A New Visitor From The Constellation Lyra

Maeve Brennan

The Visitor

Hugh Howey

Visitor

Marcella Wells

Interpretive Planning for Museums: Integrating Visitor Perspectives in Decision Making

Seph Rodney

The Personalization of the Museum Visit: Art Museums, Discourse, and Visitors

Beth Hansen

Great Exhibits!: An Exhibit Planning and Construction Handbook for Small Museums

Judy Diamond

Practical Evaluation Guide: Tools for Museums and Other Informal Educational Settings

Our Sunday Visitor

Catholic Bible, Nabre

Ylva French

Marketing and Public Relations for Museums, Galleries, Cultural and Heritage Attractions

Tribute WTC Visitor Center

9/11: the world speaks

Walhimer

Museums 101

Falk

Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience

Discussion, reviews of the book Creating Great Visitor Experiences: A Guide for Museums, Parks, Zoos, Gardens & Libraries and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.