Re-Introducing Visitors: Thoughts and Discussion on John Falk’s Notion of Visitors’ Identity-Related Visit Motivations

Until today museums have tried to identify and segment their audiences based on their demographics. After years of conducting research in the US, John Falk in 2009 introduced a descriptive and predictive framework for identifying visitors on the basis of their motivations, as related to identity. This article summarises Falk’s innovative framework as described in his book Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience (2009), in addition to his presentation at the Visitor Studies Conference at the Victoria and Albert Museum in January 2010. In addition the article draws on the author’s related research case studies from the Courtauld Gallery, the Horniman Museum and the Wellcome Collection in the UK.