The Consumption of Museum Service Experiences: Benefits and Value of Museum Experiences

Abstract As museums are becoming more visitor-oriented and facilitating experiences that satisfy their visitors, a deeper understanding of visitor experiences via their personal thoughts and feelings during museum visits are vital. The article reports an exploratory qualitative study that seeks to understand the museum service experience consumption by visitors that are grounded in their own words and actions. The Profile Accumulation Technique (PAT) by John and Less Ross (1995; 1997), as a novel research tool for service experience, was adopted to investigate museum experiences. A sample size of 53 foreign visitors formed the basis for the study, all of whom visited Sabah Museum which is located at Old Palace Hill in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah Malaysia. Findings reveal four benefits gained from visiting Sabah Museum as cognitive, affective, reflective and recreation. Visitors to Sabah Museum are found to be both mindful (education and learning) and non-mindful (recreation and social activities). It suggests that a cognitive approach can no longer be deemed wholly relevant in the museum service experience context. The article adds to the existing literature on museum service experiences. It has important implications for marketing and managing Sabah Museum as service experience consumption place; and contributes to the methodology and theoretical underpinning of service experience research. KEYWORDS: Museum experiencesvisitor's beneficial experiencesprofile accumulation technique (PAT)marketing museum experiences