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Museology

Museum informatics

Museum International

The digital revolution has affected museums in many ways, both directly and indirectly. A major external change is the rise of user‐written reviews; that is, reviews written by museum visitors and posted on the Internet. User‐generated reviews pose challenges to museums, as they are publicly available and largely outside the control of museums. This article discusses research on reviews of accredited museums in London. Our data set consists of all reviews written about 88 London museums that were posted on TripAdvisor during 2014, a total of 22,940 reviews. Using a technique called topic modelling, we describe 19 themes in reviewers’ stories of their visits. We find that museum visitors pay attention to the ancillary aspects of their visit: queues, cost, food service, toilets, and activities for children. They make fewer comments on the cultural side of the museum experience. However, these cultural aspects do matter and are associated with positive reviews. We argue that reviewers consider museums as part of a wider leisure sector. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of our study for museum management and assess the usefulness of user‐generated content as a source of data on museum visitors.

TripAdvisor Reviews of London Museums: A New Approach to Understanding Visitors