The impact of visitor's insight and price elasticity of demand in determining museum ticket prices

Abstract

In this paper museum ticket price is viewed as a sensitive and controversial issue in museum marketing that The visitor's insight and price elasticity of demand are the two factors that have been considered. A comparison of findings from research conducted by Darnell, Gourdian, and Martin with economic and cultural situation in developing countries indicates that discriminatory pricing for domestic and inbound visitors is the best way for determining museum ticket price in these countries. Firstly, because of the importance of cultural sector in most developed countries, which includes museums, and the fact that the bulk of the developing countries' cultural tourists come from developed countries, it is more likely that they have a deeper appreciation of museums as a cultural product than the native population. Secondly, in light of factors that have been explained in this paper (after adding 'distance' factor to previously known factors in price elasticity of demand), museum visitors, inbound visitors in particular, have low price elasticity of demand. This has persuaded museum directors in developing countries to adopt the discriminatory pricing method without fear of visitors numbers or their satisfaction being affected.