Experience marketing at Polish museums and visitor attractions: the co-creation of visitor experiences, emotions and satisfaction

ABSTRACT

The aim of this work is to verify the relationships between the co-creation of experiences, emotions, satisfaction and behavioural intentions of visitors to museums and heritage attractions. A further aim is to examine the moderating effect that a attractions may have on the above model depending on position on the continuum of consuming experiences. The work verifies nine hypotheses regarding the relationships between the variables and the moderating influence of the heritage attraction context. The research was conducted using the survey amongst visitors to three heritage attractions in Poland (N = 465). Analysis of the relationships between the variables were conducted using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), employing the SmartPLS 3 software. The paper confirms that relationships between co-creation, experiences and satisfaction of visitors depend on the context of the heritage attractions. It has been shown that the appearance of experiences is influenced by participation in their creation.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-creation
• experiences
• emotions
• satisfaction
• museums
• partial least squares

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Marek Nowacki is a professor in the Department of Applied Sciences, WSB University in Poznan, Poland. His research interests relate to the management of visitor attractions, cultural tourism and heritage interpretation.

Zygmunt Kruczek is a professor, Ph.D. in physical culture, Head of Department of Geography of Tourism and Ecology at the Faculty of Tourism and Recreation in Krakow. He specializes in research on tourist attractions, regional aspects of the geography of tourism, tourism promotion and information, President of the Polish Association of Tourism Experts.