How Much Time Do Visitors Spend in a Cultural Site? An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

This paper examines the determinants that influence the time spent by visitors in a cultural site. This empirical investigation is based on survey data collected at the South Tyrol's Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano (Italy) between June and August 2010. Descriptive statistics show that on average visitors at the museum spend almost two hours, much longer than the length of stay in museums as found in other empirical studies. Empirically, a zero-truncated Poisson model has proved to achieve the best empirical results. The findings reveal that gender, age, income, group type, time spent at the destination, importance attributed to the museum and weather conditions have an impact on length of stay at the cultural site. These findings provide an useful tool to implement management directions around the museum.

Keywords: Time, museum, zero-truncated Poisson, management implications

JEL Classification: C19, D12, L83