Cultural heritage institutions, such as museums and galleries, today face the challenge of managing an increasing volume of unsolicited visitor feedback generated across online platforms. This study offers a practical and scalable methodology that transforms 5856 multilingual Google reviews from 59 globally ranked museums and galleries into actionable insights through sentiment analysis, correlation diagnostics, and guided Latent Dirichlet Allocation. By addressing the limitations of prior research, such as outdated datasets, monolingual bias, and narrow geographical focus, the authors analyze a current and diverse set of recent reviews to capture a timely and globally relevant perspective on visitor experiences. The adopted guided LDA model identifies 12 key topics, reflecting both operational issues and emotional responses. The results indicate that while visitors generally express overwhelmingly positive sentiments, dissatisfaction tends to be concentrated in specific service areas. Correlation analysis reveals that longer, emotionally rich reviews are more likely to convey stronger sentiment and receive peer endorsement, highlighting their diagnostic significance. From a practical perspective, the methodology empowers professionals to prioritize improvements based on data-driven insights. By integrating quantitative metrics with qualitative topics, this study supports operational decision-making and cultivates a more empathetic and responsive data management mindset for museums. The reproducible and adaptable nature of the pipeline makes it suitable for cultural institutions of various sizes and resources. Ultimately, this work contributes to the field of cultural informatics by bridging computational precision with humanistic inquiry. That is, it illustrates how intelligent analysis of visitor reviews can lead to a more personalized, inclusive, and strategic museum experience.
Drivas et al. (Tue,) studied this question.