Exploring omnivores and univores in art museums

Abstract

This research note makes an original contribution to tourism research by reporting qualitative findings on the experiences and motivations of various art museum visitors using the omnivore-univore and push-pull frameworks. The study sample includes current visitors to two main art museums in Genoa, Italy. 400 face-to-face interviews are conducted to gather data on the definition of museums. The grounded theory approach is used to explore the experiences and motivations of art museum visitors by referring to their definitions. For this purpose, 347 useable definitions are reviewed to identify push and pull motivations by using NVivo 11. Findings suggest that Cultural Omnivores are more likely than Art Museum Univores to describe a museum using push factors involving various intrinsic experiences. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.