Best practices in visitors studies: The permanent laboratory of museum audiences

Abstract

Visitor Studies in museums is a discipline with a history of almost a century. Therefore, it has demon-strated its ability to provide valid results for cultural institutions. Unfortunately, museums have been reluctant to launch research on their visitors as well as to apply the knowledge derived from them. This chapter reviews the causes of this type of attitudes and describes a successful experience: the Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences, which works to propose solutions to these problems and has led to a major change in the way of understanding audiences in Spanish museums