FAMILY TYPES AND LEISURE DECISION-MAKING - A study looking for potential visitors for Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen

This master thesis has two major purposes: (1) to gain a better understanding of how families make decisions regarding leisure activities with their children and (2) to find out what implications this has for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen to reach more families in Rotterdam and interest them for a visit to Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen. The question around which this research was based, is: What are the leisure interests of families currently not visiting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and under which conditions would the new depot be an interesting place for different types of non-visitors to visit? In order to understand the complex process of family decision-making regarding leisure activities, the research focused on three aspects: social class – defined by educational and occupational class - , parenting styles and decision-making processes. General motivations and constraints were also considered. Using SPSS, the quantitative data of the VTO omnibus was used to find patterns in leisure activities in Rotterdam. Interviews were used to create a deeper understanding of how social class, parenting and decision-making inform these patterns. Atlas.ti was then used to code and organize the data in order to find structures. This resulted in insight into general motivations and constraints for parents, but also in two main types of families – which are structured along social class, parenting style and the types of activities they participate in during their leisure time. Family type 1 is of higher social class and engages in a wider range of leisure activities, including cultural activities. They want their children to have fun, but also pay attention to opportunities to learn in their free time. Type 2 families focus mainly on fun and entertainment for their children and do not consider cultural activities to be among those things. For the museum, type 1 families might be in closer range for visiting Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, by making clear the museum is a child-friendly place in their advertising. Making it resemble the more interactive science museums those families are already visiting, might make the Depot an interesting place to visit. Type 2 families will be harder to pull in with fun educational activities, since they do not seek out anything that focuses on education and are mostly led by what their children enjoy. However, the attractiveness of the building’s design might make these families interested in visiting it for its attraction value – like the Markthal. If the Depot manages to pull in families and show that children can have a good time, the children might want to come back.