Call for Papers

Andi SMART | Pikakshi MANCHANDA | Cristina MOSCONI
(University of Exeter, United Kingdom)

Keywords: Visitor Intelligence, Audience Research, Visitor Experience, Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics

Obtaining intelligence on visitor motivations and behaviours is an essential activity in the creation and improvement of visitor experiences. Innovative digital technologies provide affordances for the collection and analysis of visitor data that have previously not been possible. New approaches, capitalising on digital technologies, provide rich insights into visitor profiles, behaviour and experience, and help identify target audiences and inform the design of new interpretative experiences. These insights provide opportunities to compliment, and extend established methods for Audience Research.

Key themes may include:

  • Geospatial analysis – data collected using tracking devices, which offer insights into users’ dwell times at areas of interest, and the visitor journey;
  • On/off site visitor surveys can provide psychographic, socio-demographic and experience assessment of visitor segments;
  • Natural Language Analysis – a growing body of data from social media platforms can be analysed using Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools in order to understand visitor sentiment;
  • Speech Recognition/Analysis – speech recognition tools support the automatic transcription of oral feedback recorded at the visitor’s convenience, allowing the analysis of comments;
  • Visual Attention and Fixation – visitor gaze time data collected using eye tracking devices (Pupil Centred Corneal Reflection), which can provide evidence into popular site artefacts;
  • Experiential Analysis – new ways of articulating the visitor experience. This may include experiential interactions, experiential outcomes and emotions.

The aforementioned sources and methods provide an accessible way for Cultural Heritage Site managers to gain a comprehensive picture of their visitor profiles and experience, and assess which aspects require more attention.

This session is open to papers (comparative or case-based studies) focusing on the challenges encountered in analysing visitor data in terms of lack of resources, datasets or digital privacy and data protection concerns, as well as computational approaches for capturing and analysing such data to obtain a better understanding of visitor motivations, interactions and experiences.

Submission
Mind the new guidelines!