A experiência de visitantes de museus portugueses da região do Algarve

Abstract

Museums are recognized as spaces that contribute to learning. Thus, to study the museum visitors’ perception may indicate paths for managers to act in order to provide positive experiences. The present study offers an integrated approach to understanding the experience of museum visitors. It seeks to extend the theoretical and empirical evidences of the causal relationships between services quality, satisfaction, intention to recommend and effective learning, as well as personal variables of the visitor, named: learning orientation, culture orientation and attitudes. The sample is composed by visitors from two Portuguese archaeological museums, located in Silves and Faro. The exploratory research model is measured based on structural equation modeling techniques. The results indicate that the service quality contributes to explain the satisfaction of visitors, and satisfaction precedes the intention to recommend the museum to others. Learning orientation and culture orientation predicts the visitors’ attitudes. However, the attitude has little expressiveness to predict the satisfaction of museum visitors. The authors thank FAPEMIG for the financial support for the development of this research.