LOVE (FOR ART) IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS - THE CONSUMPTION OF DIGITAL MUSEUMS SERVICES

Since 8 March 2020, the Italian government closed museums to prevent further spread of COVID-19 outbreak. Therefore, in order to keep active and present in the market, museums developed or prominently showcased a series of digital services. However, it is crucial to understand if the investments made are in the right direction and able to satisfy customers’ needs. In fact, many museums are short of resources and digital services can require large investments. Consequently, a guide of what people want may be useful to museums in future allocation of resources. For these reasons, my thesis aims at understanding what defines the consumer utility of digital museum services. In order to do that, I investigate why people visit museums, what services museums are providing online, what museum services are being consumed online and what services have market potential for growth in the online leisure market. In particular, the research focuses on free services delivered by museums as leisure activities, both in an entertainment and educative sense. The study follows a quantitative strategy with a comparative cross-sectional design and it is developed looking at consumers in Italy, delivering self-completion questionnaires to potential visitors of art museums. Results show that online services as virtual tours, videos and social media provide the greatest utility to consumers, particularly those that present interactive characteristics and give the possibility to be directly involved, enjoying the experience with other people, and have an educational goal, presenting the content within a context to enable the consumer to learn something new.