Visitor Evaluation

An attempt is made to collate and develop psychological research into visitor evaluation. The current state of visitor evaluation research is considered by outlining the literature on four topics; specifically, museums, natural environments, tourist sites, and tourist facilities. An assessment of the problems of much visitor evaluation work is included in this material. In a subsequent section the role of psychology-social psychology in particular—in contributing to improved studies in this area is outlined. A discussion is included of the psychologist's role in stimulating better data collection, more varied analysis, and a tighter hypothesis testing approach to visitor surveys. In particular, it is argued that this area of inquiry holds far more promise for interesting psychological research than might be supposed by an inspection of current market survey practices in the field.