This thesis examines the role of aesthetic experience of the audience within art exhibitions and its influence on their exhibition making and curatorial decisions of art institutions. This is done by comparing the practices within two case institutions located in Stockholm -Moderna Museet, a public art museum and Bonniers Konsthall, a private art institution. The research questions for this study are: What strategies do Moderna Museet and Bonnier Konsthall use to understand the aesthetic experience of their audience? Do the current visitor surveys used in these institutions capture the aesthetic aspect of the visitor experience? How does this knowledge about the aesthetic experience of the visitor influence the curatorial decisions within the two museums? The material consists of visitor survey questionnaires used in both the institutions as well as interviews that were conducted with staff members of the two institutions. The material is examined using the aesthetic experience theory, in order to focus specifically on the aesthetic aspect of the total visitor experience.  The thesis groups the different strategies used within the two institutions in two categories of formal and informal strategies, based on the formality of their conduction. It further compares the practices of the two institutions in order to examine the difference in the perspective of public and private art museums towards their visitors. By eventually tracing how knowledge collected by the formal and informal strategies reinforces each other, the thesis draws a more complete picture of the role the aesthetic experience of the visitor plays within art institutions and their art exhibitions.

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This thesis presents an investigation into the potential of digitally enhanced exhibition spaces to foster the engagement of children within family groups with museum objects on display, i.e. where physical contact is prohibited. The main focus is on the influence of digital enhancement on visitors’ engagement with artefacts and not on the digital elements themselves. This study has taken the mixed methods approach. It combines ethnographicallyinformed field studies with a design intervention within an overarching methodology of action research. In the review of literature, research from multiple fields including museum studies, interaction design and play research was brought together and examined from the perspective of exhibition design. This led to the development of the Social Dream Spaces Model. This model, which describes how visitors engage with museum objects, was used as the basis for a design intervention aimed at enhancing children’s engagement with exhibited artefacts. In-gallery participant observations were carried out in Bantock House Museum, Wolverhampton. Insights, based on data analysed from the perspective of the Social Dream Spaces Model, were used to develop a prototype of a digitally enhanced space, which was implemented into the existing exhibition. Data gathered in observations before and after the design intervention were compared in order to determine any changes in visitors’ responses to the exhibition. This study demonstrates the benefit of using the Social Dream Spaces Model for designing digitally enhanced exhibition spaces that promote children’s engagement with artefacts and social contact around them. The findings also confirm that designing subtle and nonintrusive digital enhancement can facilitate intergenerational interaction in exhibition spaces.

This thesis explores representations of the Holocaust in the Jewish Museum Berlin and the impact of commercialism on representational choices. Daniel Libeskind’s bold architectural design, which ultimately became the Jewish Museum Berlin, is in many ways a Holocaust memorial. By exploring curatorial strategies in regards to exhibition design and content, this thesis analyzes the debates within the Jewish Museum Berlin over the appropriate manner to represent the Holocaust to the museum-going public in contemporary Germany. This thesis argues that commercialism and the prospects of commercial viability played a significant role in curatorial decisions concerning exhibition narrative. Germany leads the world in acknowledging and exploring their past social crimes but, this thesis argues, an important opportunity for atonement was lost when the administration of the Jewish Museum Berlin privileged commercial success over the presentation of more difficult and uncomfortable, yet socially necessary, representations of the horror of the Holocaust.

This dissertation argues that during the nineteenth century, the journey to London revealed a world undergoing systemic change as industrialisation steadily eroded the traditional rhythms of the countryside in favour of urban modernity; indeed, London is regarded as a synecdoche for the forces shaping the wider world. This work uses tourist narratives to London as investigative tools to examine the ways in which individuals comprehend the modern changes occurring around them, as represented by the British capital, and does so in a comparative fashion, investigating the British Empire, the United States, Britain itself, and continental Europe. In so doing, it addresses two questions: first, whether one’s acceptance or rejection of modernity was predicated upon specific social and national preconditions; and second, whether the idea of nineteenth-century modernity was itself a non-universal construction dependent upon a variety of socio-cultural outlooks. The evidence for this study is drawn from the published and unpublished narratives of tourists from the four different contexts mentioned above, and divided into four chapters to focus upon each group. This study is grounded in a theoretical context which establishes a correlation between the methods used to interpret the city’s spaces, and the methods used to interpret modernity more generally. I conclude that the changes occurring from the interaction between global modernity and local culture were regarded with ambivalence and uncertainty, judgments influenced by London’s impact on the visitors mentioned above. The city gives a physical dimension to the travellers’ imagined fears, benefits, or concerns over future progress. Victorian London is thus one focus for a transformation affecting large segments of the nineteenth-century world, illustrating that modern industrial changes were ultimately perceived as being ambiguous and ambivalent forces.

Archaeology is a field which has been impacted greatly by digital technology; the new technological instruments are developing both academic research and public mediation. Digital archaeology has been available at the museum for some time, but immersive technologies are recent introductions, which offer new experiences for museum visitors. Even though digital archaeology/virtual heritage have been studied for their technological virtues, the learning opportunities presented to the museum visitor has not yet been examined from a visitor’s perspective. In this dissertation, the visitor experience is the basis of analysis for determining how we can critically assess digital exhibitions using immersive technologies. This study examines if and how critical museology can be successfully applied to immersive digital displays; a detailed analysis of two case studies using VR (high immersion) and AR (low immersion) show that digital experiences are fully capable of communicating cultural content and that these multi-sensory technologies can successfully engage users in the creation of knowledge. The extent of sensory stimuli affecting the visitor is not accounted for in current critical museology, therefore the analysis of this study suggests a number of suggestions for future designs of digital displays using immersive technologies.

Today, visitors use social media before, during and after travels to share, create and discuss content with others. This means that the visitor industry needs to profile themselves on social media to communicate their services toward their visitors. Parallel to this development, a creative tourist class has been emerging. This group demands new experiences that differs from a previous more conventional tourism, which is spreading among the public and is marketed more often on social media. This study analyze how the visitor industry experience the digital visitor and the new creative tourist class in Stockholm Archipelago. The result of the study shows that social media is a tool, which allows the people working in the visitor industry to multitask because they can bring it anywhere. Due to the digital visitors high interactivity online, the visitor industry are being challenged on both resources and knowledge. It is also shows that it makes it possible for smaller businesses to market themselves globally and easily reach their target group in a profitable way.

The purposes of this research were 1) to understand what stakeholders in one nature center are "thinking"about the focus of their center and the niche it occupies; 2) to characterize the role of one nature center in its local community; 3) to examine the nature center in terms of established characteristics of a "best" nature center; 4) to compare stakeholder perceptions with perceptions of directors of exemplar nature centers and environmental education organizations; and 5) to characterize visitor and member stakeholder perceptions and motivations in terms of the extrinsic value of ecosystem services, bioeconomics, versus the intrinsic value of nature, biophilia. This research was conducted utilizing case study methodology with mixed method data collection. Ijams Nature Center visitors and members were surveyed concerning the value of nature; structured interviews were administered to Ijams Nature Center employees, nationally recognized nature center and environmental organization directors. Visitors‘ perceptions of nature focused on the natural surroundings of the nature center, providing opportunities to watch wild animals, appreciate nature, and feel at peace. Nature center member perceptions of nature reflected the concepts of stewardship and advocacy fostered by the Center‘s conservation mission, education programs, and preservation activities. Participants shared common thematic concepts for the role of nature centers and the characteristics of a best nature center. A best nature center was characterized as a composite of factors, practices, and perspectives that merge to form a business plan reflective of best practice guidelines. Participants highlighted the unique quality of centers and the passion and vision that guides development and the roles played by nature centers in their local communities, as identified in this study, i.e., education, advocacy, and immediacy. Ijams Nature Center visitors and members valued nature differently in terms of bioeconomics and biophilia, but both groups rated the biophilic value of nature of greater importance, with differing constructs reflective of that value.

Presenting a case study of an American Indian exhibit at the Funk Heritage Center, I critically examine how this museum’s ideologies and preferred pedagogies shape public discourse about Southeastern Indians in the past and present. Using the methodology of Visitor Studies, this public archaeology project illustrates the benefits of incorporating applied anthropology into museological practice through collaboration with museum staff, volunteers, visitors, and American Indians. Operating within the theoretical frameworks of Charles R. Garoian (2001) and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1991), my results imply that inserting archaeological narratives into institutional pedagogy alters a museum’s traditional “performance” of the past by challenging its own authority; ultimately, I show how this process can increase viewer awareness about the politics of display.

Amusement parks are a huge business. Guest experiences determine the success or failure for an amusement park. This report suggests an approach to improve guest experience by managing guest flow. The guest happiness optimization problem is formulated into a visitor routing management model. The constraints for this model include attraction attributes and guest behavior. To build the attraction constraints, their information is first gathered from internet, field studies and surveys, and then input into simulation software. Constraints on guest behavior are set up with a literature study and a guest survey. A two phase heuristic is developed to solve this problem with constraints. Candidate routes are generated with a route construction algorithm in the first phase. Visitor distribution and selection on these candidate routes are determined in the second phase using a mixed integer programming solver. Visitor routes are then recommended to the park’s operator side, for them to distribute to guests visiting on their vacations. Data from Disney Epcot are collected and applied in the case study to implement the methodology in this report. Attraction operations capability is maintained at the current level with no additional cost for the project, while guest satisfaction is improved by ensuring the number and type of attractions they visit. In addition, average waiting time for visitors is reduced by at least 70% in the recommended operation strategy. / text