Source of useful information
It is important for museums to keep good track of their visitor information. Count them and analyze their origins. This helps to understand which groups are visiting the museum, what kind of services they need, and where improvements can be made.
The Council for Museums suggests two ways for museums to monitor the number and origin of visitors: a simple museum visitor count on the one hand, and a museum visitor survey on the other.
Counting museum visitors
The Collection Council has created a simple form that can be used for a collection census, whether the census is conducted on paper or through the cash system. The form can be accessed here.
The following points are good to keep in mind when counting museum visitors:
- Differentiate between:
- foreign and domestic guests
- children and adults
- those who pay full price and those who pay discounted rates, such as pensioners and students.
- Count separately those who do not pay admission, such as members of FÍSOS, ICOM, and others, e.g., residents of the municipality, members of a friends' association, members of SÍM, or others as applicable.
- It is important to count both the number of school groups and the number of students in each group. It is also good to analyze these groups by grade level.
- For other groups, it is necessary to track both the number of groups and the number of individuals, as well as the origin of the groups—that is, whether they are domestic or international visitors.
- It is appropriate to count those who attend special events organized by the museum. It is also appropriate to count those who attend events hosted by others in the museum's premises—meetings, parties, and the like.
It is best to settle the guest count for each day separately and keep those numbers for comparison.
The Council asks museums for information from their visitor counts in the annual report that accredited museums are required to submit to the Council. It is important that figures between museums are comparable, and therefore the Council publishes these guidelines. Museums that do not charge an admission fee are encouraged to conduct their guest counts carefully, even if some categories do not apply to them.
Museum Visitor Survey
Museums that want to get to know their visitors better can administer various types of surveys to them. In such surveys, museum visitors are asked about everything from their education to their consumption habits, and are also asked to rate different aspects of the museum's activities. The Museum Council had such a survey developed, which was administered at museums across the country in 2010 and 2011. Due to high costs and low participation, the council stopped administering the survey, but it is available for museums that wish to use it. The questions can be accessed here. Icelandic and English.
This survey is based on a model from the Danish Agency for Culture (Kulturstyrelsen) in Copenhagen. The survey can be administered on paper or on a computer. You can point to simple, free survey applications such as QuestionPro and SurveyMonkey.
Inspiration and instructions can be found, for example, at Visitor Studies Association and at National Exhibitions in Sweden.