Motivations and loyalty to visit a community archaeological museum

Abstract

The present study aimed to achieve the following objectives: Establish the motivational dimensions of the demand for community archaeological museums. Determine the motivational dimensions of demand that predict loyalty in community-managed archaeological museums. The research was conducted online with tourists who had visited the Community Archaeological Museum of Valdivia, located in Valdivia, a tourist destination on the coast of Ecuador. The sample consisted of 319 valid questionnaires completed by museum visitors. The techniques employed included Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), which was used for data analysis to better reduce and interpret the motivational variables in our study. Multiple regression analysis was implemented to identify the most critical predictors of visit loyalty. The results reveal four motivational dimensions in community archaeological museum tourism: Environment, relationships, values and cultures, and development. The value and culture dimension are the one that most strongly predicts intentions to return and recommend community archaeological museum tourism.

Keywords

• Museums
• archeology
• community
• motivations
• loyalty
• Culture