Interseasonal public study at the Natural History Museum of Barcelona Spain

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Interseasonal public study at the Natural
History Museum of Barcelona (Spain)
ECSITE ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2008 for science
centres and museums Hungarian Natural History
Museum Budapest, 29-31 May Josep Piqué Anna
Omedes Natural History Museum, Barcelona, Spain
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The Natural History Museum of Barcelona
Pere Vivas
Pere Vivas
Geology Building (150 m apart)
Zoology Building
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Statistics and NHM visitors

• Catalonia Region
  7.000.000 inhabitants
• Barcelona Metropolitan Area
  3.161.081 inhabitants
• Barcelona city
  1.605.602 inhabitants
• Barcelona tourism per year
  12.290.508 visitors
• Foreigners tourist (60 )
  7.374.305 visitors
• NHM visitors from Catalonia
  0.6
• NHM visitors from Metropolitan Area
  1
• NHM visitors from Barcelona city
  1.7

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Aims of the study
Aims of the study

• Get to know our visitors, gender,
• age, country of origin, etc,
• Where the visitors hear about the Museum and its
  exhibitions
• Which exhibitions they visit,
• how long they spend in each
• one of them, and how much
• of this time they are paying
• attention to the exhibit

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Aims of the study
Aims of the study

• Which parts of the exhibition are visited and
  arouse more interest
• Which one of all the variables studied change
  between summer and autumn months

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Exhibitions during the study period

• Geology building
• Geological permanent exhibition
• Rocks Minerals and Fossils (650 m2)
• (Languages Catalan,
• Spanish and English)

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Exhibitions during the study period

• Zoology building
• Zoological permanent exhibition
• The Classification of Animal Kingdom (650 m2)
• (Languages Catalan, Spanish and English)

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Exhibitions during the study period

• Zoology building
• Temporal exhibition Origins (650 m2). The
  origins
• of the universe, of the earth, of life and of
• humankind.
• (Languages Catalan, Spanish and English)

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Collection of data

• Study periods presented
• Summer 2007 1st June to August 31st
• Autumn 2007 15 September to 15
• December
• Long term study
• All days of the week
• Not on free entrance days
• 11 am to 1 pm and 3-7pm

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Collection of data

• Adult visitors chosen at random
• Sample size 313 (0,8 of visitors)
• Spatial behaviour of visitors recorded
• At the end of the visit spoken questionaire 27
  questions
• General questions (6)
• - Specific questions
• on exhibition areas

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Questionaire general information

• Gender
• From place of origin Locals,
• Spanish or Foreigners
• Age 6 categories
• Previous visits one or more
• Visit alone, with family, couple,
• working group, group of friends, others
• How did you get to know about
• the Museum exhibitions friend,
• childhood, TV, press, street
• signalling, tourist information

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Questionaire specific aspects on exhibitions

• Time spent in each exhibition
• Interest aroused by the
• different interaction areas
• of each exhibition

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Visitors sample
No gender difference in the two seasons
visitors
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Visitors country of origin
visitors
In both seasons nearly 52 were foreigners
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Visitor profile age
visitors
Children and youngsters accompanied by adults
are not included
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Type of visit
visitors
Interseasonal stability in each type of visit
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Information gathered from
visitors
Great importance of tourist information (46 of
visitors)
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Exhibitions visited
visitors
Most visitors (summer 76, autumn 90) include in
their visit both the Temporal and Permanent
Zoology Exhibitions
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Visits length
Visits length
minutes
Percentage interacting with exhibition
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Visits length
The permanent Zoological exhibition is the most
atractive one. Visitors spend 35 minutes seeing,
while only 23 minutes for Origins, and 20 minutes
for the Geological Exhibition. Visitors seeing
all the exhibitions spend an average time of 1 h
19 minutes.
Although being a classical one, the visitor is
most attracted by the Zoological Permanent
Exhibition
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Conclusions

• The Museum receives a high number of foreigners
  (52 ).
• This is probably due to the fact that the
  habitants of
• visiting N.H. museums is much more common
  in other
• countries.
• The Museum should take this fact into
  acount and
• consider foreigners when planning
  exhibitions.

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Conclusions

• 2. The number of Spanish non local visitors is
  extremely low.
• This Museum is definitively not an obliged
  visit when
• comming to Barcelona.
• Subjects of exhibitions
• and how we explain
• them should be revised.

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Conclusions

• 3. Tourist information (more than 40 ) seems to
  be the main
• way to reach visitors. Presumably so because
  of the high
• number of foreigners visiting.
• Increase and diversify tourist information

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Conclusions

• 4. Street information is much more useful then
  press
• and TV to advertise the Museum. The Museum is
  
• well know by the locals from their childwood.
• More effort should be made to advertise the
  Museum in
• press and TV.

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Conclusions

• 5. Although very interested by the temporal
  exhibition, visitors
• still prefer the Pemanent Zoology one.
  Temporal exhibitions
• are attractive by the up to date subjects and
  museography.
• The presence of the Zoological collections in
  the permanent
• exhibition arouses a lot of interest although
  the museography
• is still that of XIX century.
• A major renovation in
• the Permanent would
• combine both points
• of attraction.

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Conclusions

• 6. Public is far less interested in Geology than
  in Zoology.
• Probably due to poor education at school.
• Major renovation of the exhibition
• is needed, whit integration of all
• disciplines. Increase in education
• activities based in Geology.

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Conclusions

• 7. There are no differences between summer and
  autumn.

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Acnowledgments Serveis Educatius Ciutart
Thank you very much !