The Urban Museum as a Creative Tourism Attraction: London Museum Lates Visitor Motivation

Abstract

The urban museum has become a multi-functional institution that transcends the functional display of artifacts. The museum has become, in cities, a hybrid institution that keeps its doors open late to support a wide variety of special events. This study explored London’s “Museum Lates” programs and event characteristics, theoretical views of museums as cultural and creative tourism attractions. Furthermore, the study applied the contextual model of learning to understand visitor attendance motivations. The authors employed an interpretive approach using interviews with two types of participants: event visitors and event coordinators. The findings suggest that attendees possess personal, physical, and socio-cultural motivations for participating in “Museum Lates” events. The characteristics of late events—extraordinary quality and evening-time atmosphere—produce different effects from those of current museum exhibitions held during regular operating hours. “Museum Lates” events can contribute to achieving cultural sustainability, adding a cultural construct to the traditional three pillars of sustainability.

1. Introduction

Given the mission of the museum to collect, preserve, and research cultural artifacts, as well as to use the heritage for educational, study, and enjoyment purposes, the museum plays a pivotal role in shaping the sustainable future [1,2]. Worts [3] argued that sustainability is an inherent part of a museum’s mission, not only to preserve and enhance cultural heritage and its value, but also to contribute to cultural well-being through programs, e.g., expositions, educational activities, conferences, and entertainment events. Sutter, Worts, Janes and Conaty [4] supported museum programs that promote sustainability, such as by adopting socially responsible behaviors towards new citizens and new generations. Recently, Easson and Leask [5] suggested that after-hours events have successfully attracted and engaged new museum audiences and encouraged repeat visits, therefore achieving the event and museum objectives. Barron and Leask [6] explored the potential contributions of “Museum Lates” events in enhancing museums’ future sustainability via balanced use of resources, visitor engagement across a diverse audience, and contribution to the achievement of long-term goals.

Museum Lates events are one of the programs that enhance museums’ competitiveness. They were first launched in Berlin, Germany as a tourism event in 1997, called “The Long Night of Museums” (Lange Nacht der Museen) [7]. Since then, similar events have been held in numerous locations worldwide [8], and several cultural and creative institutions in London have held late special events [9]. For example, various museums have opened their spaces to the public during after-opening hours to host events, such as “sleep-over” programs and DJ parties [10]. Among the many London institutions, this research focuses on the four leading museums: the NHM (Natural History Museum), TATE Modern, Science Museum, and V&A (Victoria and Albert) Museum. As all four museums have commonly used the term “Lates” to refer to the late special events, this research terms them as “Museum Lates” [11,12,13,14].

Despite the increasing popularity of Museum Lates, there has been a lack of relevant academic research on visitors’ motivation and their sustainability. However, some academics have made initial approaches to studying Museum Lates. For instance, Bjeljac et al. [8] focused on demographic characteristics of Museum Lates visitors. Subsequently, Mavrin and Glavaš [15] explored the use of Museum Lates as a promotion modality to attract new visitors. Barron and Leask [6] investigated visitor engagement with permanent collections and activities specifically developed for the Gen Y visitors at a “Lates” event at a national museum. This research contributed to a greater understanding of the relationships between particular visitor groups and museums’ cultural and creative tourism development.

Nevertheless, research gaps exist due to the lack of extant research focusing on visitor motivation and sustainability for attending Museum Lates events. Several researchers have highlighted the importance of conducting motivation inquiries in this context. Tansuchat and Panmanee [16], for example, maintained that the understanding of visitor motivation leads to sustainable behavior comprehension and satisfaction enhancement. Therefore, adequate identification of visitors’ motivations is essential to sufficiently satisfy visitors with different content forms [17].

Even though people may visit the same location, their motivations could differ, depending on the activity or program they aim to attend and on their personal preferences [17,18,19]. With this cognizance, special events bring unusual and diverse appeal to visitors of the creative institutions [20,21]. Moreover, visiting hours may also influence motivational factors [9]. Consequently, the necessity of identifying museum visitors’ motivations for attending Museum Lates has been proposed. Previous literature has shown the possibility of distinguishing motivational factors’ existence for late events as opposed to ordinary activities or daytime visits.

Consequently, this study aims to discover, analyze, and understand motivations for attending late events focusing on sustainable behaviors. An inductive approach seems requisite [22,23] to create a conceptual motivation model of Museum Lates visitors. Some qualitative research attempts have been made to discover new motivational factors using interview guidelines and thematic analysis with conceptual classification. Mainly, Axelsen [17] addressed “visitor motivations to attend special events in art galleries” by adopting a research concept of Falk and Dierking [24]: “the contextual model of learning.” The study takes a multi-method qualitative approach by conducting semi-structured individual interviews with 28 event participants who visited seven separate events at four pre-selected museums as well as a focus group interview (FGI) with two event coordinators of the NHM.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Museums as a Cultural and Creative Tourism Attraction and Sustainability

Several researchers have described the conventional roles of museums, such as [25,26], including collecting and conserving heritage or masterpieces and exhibiting them to the public. There is considerable evidence that museums’ roles have expanded, and the utilization of their space has diversified substantially [27,28,29]. Hooper-Greenhill [30] finds that as society keeps changing, the core values of museums are also transforming.

Consequently, today’s museums have begun to be recognized as multi-functional institutions [8]. Specifically, novel purposes have been incorporated, including education [31,32], mass entertainment [33,34,35], and social interactions [17]. These new functions seem to constitute vital offerings of today’s public museums. Packer and Ballantyne [36] supports this and identify the existence of increasing expectations toward museums as providers of informal learning and leisure experiences, indicating that the institutions constitute educational leisure sites. Mavrin and Glavaš [15] focuses on the institutions’ modernized functions, which are combinations of education and entertainment. Thus, it seems challenging to distill museums’ roles or determine the specific priority of each role, since museums have largely expanded their types of offerings.

Meanwhile, various researchers claim to include museums in the tourism market [37,38,39,40,41]. Tourist and leisure entertainment functions of museums have resulted in some debate concerning whether urban museums are primarily heritage conservation organizations or tourist attractions. For example, McIntyre [28] puts forward a critique of over-commercialization and the obvious entertainment direction of museums’ public spaces. Kotler and Kotler [42] insist that the museums’ function of exploring the cultural and heritage practices of regions that focus on communities is critical. Nevertheless, they also emphasize the necessity of museums being competitive as entertainment facilities by assuming important positions in the creative tourism market. Aalst and Boogaarts [33] identify mass entertainment as museums’ essential extra function. Indeed, the importance of the entertainment function has continuously increased [43]. Jansen-Verbeke and Van Rekom [44] also support museums’ attempts to provide additional attractions within cultural and creative tourism markets.

On the other hand, Pencarelli et al. [1] explore museums’ sustainable management to provide a multi-dimensional model for measuring a museum’s environmental, social, and economic sustainability. Merriman [45] finds that sustainability could offer great opportunities for museums, suggesting new ways to interpret and communicate heritage, reach a wider audience, and provide innovative and practical solutions for managing collections and relationships with local stakeholders. Barron and Leask [6] argue that “Lates” events are seen to contribute positively to the museum’s social and economic sustainability via audience development, with the attraction of non-traditional museum visitors and visitor engagement at the museum both during and beyond the specific event.

The perspectives could be organized as shown in

Table 1. Research on museums as touristic and leisure institutions.

Authors	Perspectives
[44]	The institutions as a part of an urban tourist service
[42]	Leisure activity market
[36]	Informal learning and leisure experiences, educational leisure sites
[46]	Leisure context for majority of the audience
[6,45]	Sustainability for museum or Museum Lates across diverse audiences
[47,48]	Education and amusement
[15]	Education and entertainment
[1]	Sustainable management of museums

.

2.2. Special Events During Late Hours in Museums

Gordin and Dedova [7] refer to Museum Lates as “special events.” A special event has been described as “an external daily program or activity which is either unusually or less frequently hosted” [34]. Special events can also exist across varying locations with unusual and specific aims: “Specific rituals, presentations, performances, or celebrations that are consciously planned and created to mark special occasions or achieve particular social, cultural, or corporate goals and objectives” [49]. Consequently, special events could have considered as unique experiences that are beyond daily occurrences. Diversified special events can be held during the daytime and late hours to enhance unique experiences [10]. Moreover, the traits of late-hour events could be differentiated from those of daytime events [16].

Hudson [50] claims that museums have been forced to engage in the process of continual transformation, which has brought the necessity of marketing and commercial and leisure activities. Therefore, museums have become more competitive by considering visitor satisfaction with creative tourism attractions [37]. Vassiliadis and Belenioti [41] focus on Non-Profit Organizations (NPO) as relevant to commercial fundraising and for-profit marketing by stating that museums are finding the need to employ marketing strategies for funding and profit in the role of economic and tourism institutions. To achieve this, museums frequently hold additional events that are beyond daily exhibitions [8,27,38,40]. These special events can produce commercial effects, such as profit generation [51,52]. In addition to a new source of profit, special events can contribute to building a museum’s image [41], promote marketing [53], and raise funds as an NPO [53].

Overall, special events promote the museum to new and existing customers. Gordin and Dedova [7], Bjeljac et al. [8], and Mavrin and Glavaš [15] report that late opening hours can offer unusual experiences and create new visitors [15]. Bjeljac et al. [8] asserts that the launching of late special events comprises several goals, including popularizing the “cultural and creative tourism and museum complex” and attracting new museum visitors’ attention. Similarly, Gordin and Dedova [7] finds that Museum Lates bring new audiences and contribute to developing novel creative approaches for organizations. Mavrin and Glavaš [15] finds that museum nights aim to build more cultural audiences.

Axelsen et al. [54] also maintains that diversification of museums’ roles and the development of special events are inherently linked. This is because museums desire to attract more visitors, and the increase in demand for museums’ tourist offerings could achieve goals [55]. Visitors also increasingly like to have diverse experiences at museums [56]. Indeed, their senses and experiences are stimulated by combinations of activities during the night [8]. Wilburn [57] demonstrates that museums can create customer loyalty through marketing processes, including Museum Lates. As a result, Museum Lates have developed new visitors and encouraged re-visitation.

Gordin and Dedova [7] identifies Museum Lates as a fascinating experience for visitors, and they are typically innovative and inspirational events. Museum Lates can enhance an audience’s knowledge, experience, emotion, community spirit, and perceptions towards cultural institutions [8]. According to [9], late opening hours seem to create opportunities for visitors to spend time together, as they can often not get together during the working day.

2.3. Museum Visitor Motivation Research

Jansen-Verbeke and Van Rekom [44] states that adequate comprehension of museum visitors’ motivation can help institutions obtain pragmatic insight into the institutions’ role as an urban tourist service. Investigations of visitors’ motivational factors are also crucial because they involve not only expectations, but also behavior patterns and satisfaction [36]. Indeed, accurate identification of audiences’ needs is essential for delivering fulfillment through several services [17].

However, it may appear challenging to simplify museums’ functions and motivations to attend them, since they could differ according to the purposes of particular visits. Accordingly, Smith and Wolf [58] finds that museum visitors can be differentiated according to a range of expectations, enabling optimal shaping of their experience at the institutions. Since the characteristics of exhibitions, daytime special events, and late opening visits may tend to be dissimilar, the corresponding motivational factors might also be diverse [9].

Axelsen [17] identifies distinctive visitor motivations to attend special museum events compared to daily exhibitions. The researcher found that visitors taking part in special events tend to value cultural communication with better engagement and interaction with each other, which might be driven by motivations that differ from those of regular events. Furthermore, the traits of late-hour events themselves could be differentiated from those of daytime events [16]. Indeed, extended opening hours might introduce entirely new motivational factors, such as the enhancement of utility [9].

2.4. The Contextual Model of Learning to Determine Visitor Motivation

Falk [18] demonstrates certain limitations of conventional division methods for understanding visitor motivations. Falk and Dierking [46,59] suggestes a module to sort museum consumers’ learning context, which assists in elucidating different motivational factors in 1992 and 2000. They divided the learning sections into three aspects: personal, sociocultural, and physical context. Axelsen [17] adopts a model to discover museum special event visitors’ motivation.

2.4.1. Personal Context

Axelsen [17] includes five different elements under personal contexts: learning and education, novelty, previous experiences, professional interest, and specific interest. Packer and Ballantyne [36] regard the experience of unique conditions as learning, whereas Axelsen [17] considers it a novelty. Museums offer educational and amusement experiences to audiences with diverse elements Hein [47] and Huang and Lin [48]. Packer and Ballantyne [36] identify self-achievement as an essential motivational factor, which could be a part of education. Considering previous experiences, McManus [60] claims that an event’s memories and feelings also affect the museum visit. In addition, Axelsen [20] asserts that customers’ professional background could bring new audiences from different industries. Packer and Ballantyne [36] refer to museums and galleries as educational leisure sites and concludes that visitors can be motivated by personal and situational factors.

2.4.2. Social Context

Getz and Page [61] contend that art and entertainment are planned events that are social, which indicates that social motivation is important for making visiting decisions. Sociocultural context motivation comprises a combination of the audience, the institution, cultural aspects, and social engagement [59]. Axelsen [17] divides sociocultural context motivations into “social experiences”, “family”, “recommendations”, and “social learning experiences.” Packer and Ballantyne [36] consider spending time with many people from different backgrounds as one category of social context, rather than assigning it to sub-sections. Axelsen [17] vieweS social experiences (friends, partners, and new people) and family as belonging to distinct categories.

2.4.3. Physical Context

The physical context here refers to the surroundings in people’s lives, which includes not only object, but also the construction and “feel” of a venue [59]. Axelsen [17] analyzes physical context in terms of two sub-elements, which are special events and atmosphere. However, he also identified the importance of comfort as one of the physical context motivational factors for visiting museums. Hooper-Greenhill [62] states: “A physical experience using all the senses is called for.” Research has also been performed on the physical settings of events. Nelson [63] identifies the following physical elements: “ambient condition, atmospheric/servicescape, music/aroma, room temperature, props, décor, lights/AV/sound/special effects, costumes, and room layout/functionality.” Kinghorn and Willis [9] identify late-hour openings and venue environments, respectively, as important themes that could bring new motivations to visitors. Getz [34] defines a special event as an external daily program or activity that is unusually held. Axelsen [17] claimes that a special event itself could be a motivational factor for customers to visit museums.

3. Methodology

3.1. Research Aim and Questions

This study intends to explore motivational factors for visitors to Museum Lates in London based on extensive literature reviews [9,17,24,36,44,47,48,58,62,63]. There are five main research questions to probe, which were generated by reviewing previous research.

• How can visitors be comprehended with identity-related motivational factors?
• What are the motivational factors for visitors to visit the Museum Lates?
• How are the motivations different compared with other daily activities and exhibitions?
• How are the motivations different compared with day-time and late-hour visits?
• Why are the Museum Lates significant for museums as multi-functional institutions in enhancing the long-term goal of sustainability?

3.2. Qualitative Methodology Approach

The inductive approach was adopted as an adequate research method to explore the research purpose and questions, since there has not been enough research on Museum Lates [23].

The reasons for adopting a qualitative approach are:

• To comprehend motivational factors as a part of the life-world of social science [64].
• Research inquiries were to be investigated with open-ended questions rather than closed questions [22].
• Probing the complex motivations needed narratives from visitors’ stories [17].

The validity of the methodology is confirmed by [64], who assert that qualitative research can be designed to ask “what, how, when, where, and why” questions, and thus aims to understand “the meanings, concepts, definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and descriptions of things” from an individual’s subjective perspective. Face-to-face interviews were conducted to obtain information from social cues, including body language and vocal intonations [65]. Furthermore, research inquiries were to be investigated with open-ended questions [22] to probe for complex motivations in visitors’ stories [17]. The approach is known to be effective when creative self-expression of the individual is requisite, which can be employed to discern new motivational factors for visiting Museum Lates.

3.3. The Interview Guidelines and Pilot Study

Semi-structural guidelines were prepared before the interviews, based on previous researches; demographic information [66], visiting motivations [17,24], a comparison of general exhibitions and special events [8], and a comparison of visits during public operating hours and in the nighttime [9] where included. Additionally, Falk and Dierking [24] ‘s “identity-related motivation” and Axelsen [17] ‘s “visitor motivations to attend special events in art galleries” were used as the main theories to build guidelines for asking visitors’ motivations.

According to Turner [67]’s demonstration of the necessity of performing a pilot study in advance of actual data collection, pilot studies were carried out amongst a small sample of the researchers’ acquaintances. They had visited Museum Lates before the existing data collection to reduce data quality concerns. In total, three pilot interviews were conducted; then, interview guidelines were adjusted and voice recordings were tested.

3.4. Research Scope and Sampling

After the pilot study, seven events held by four leading institutions (NHM, Science Museum, Tate Modern, and V&A Museum) located in London were selected and investigated. Data were collected at the event sites between 30 October 2015 and 30 July 2016, as shown in

Table 2. Research scope.

Institutions	The Museum Late	Event Date	Number of Interviewees
			Visitors	Event Coordinators
NHM	Lates	30 July 2016	18	2
	After-School Club for Grown-Ups and Silent School Disco	22 July 2016
	Dino Snores for Grown-Ups	5 August 2016
			Total: 20
Science Museum	Lates: Power Up	27 July 2016	5	0
Tate Modern	Tate Tap Takeover	28 July 2016	5	0
V&A Museum	Friday Late (October 2015)	30 October 2015	1	0
	Friday Late (April 2016)	29 April 2016	1
Total			28	2
	30

. Interviews were conducted on two different groups, visitors and event coordinators, to explore both visitors’ and organizers’ perspectives. However, since the main research question was to investigate visitors’ motivations, most of the interviewees were selected as visitors. Moreover, the two targets were selected through heterogeneous sampling and purposive sampling. Purposive sampling is the most commonly utilized, especially when advancing a framework based on individuals’ viewpoints, researchers’ backgrounds, and relevant literature. At the same time, the qualitative sample needs to be both flexible and practical [66]. The NHM employees were deliberately selected when sampling event coordinators. The reason was that this institution hosted the largest number of night events during the study period, taking an essential part of the study (

Table 3. Focus group interview (FGI) respondents’ details.

Code	Organization	Position	Interview Style
EC-1	NHM	Senior Event Coordinator	Semi-structured FGI
EC-1	NHM	Senior Event Coordinator

EC: Event coordinator.

) [68]. For sampling visitors, attempts to explore a similar gender ratio and a wide range of age, nationality, and companions were made (see

Table 4. Individual interview respondents’ details.

Code	Nationality	Gender	Occupation	Age	Companion
R-1	Japanese	M	Student	30s	Friends
R-2	British	M	Working	30s	Friends
R-3	American	F	Student	10s	Alone
R-4	British	M	Working (entertainment industry)	20s	Friends
R-5	American	M	Working	30s	Alone
R-6	British	M	Working (art industry)	30s	Co-workers
R-7	Canadian	M	Working (art industry)	30s	Co-workers
R-8	British	F	Working (art industry)	70s	Friend
R-9	British	F	Working (art industry)	60s	Friend
R-10	British	F	Student	20s	Friends
R-11	Italian	F	Tourist	30s	Partner
R-12	Czech	M	Tourist	10s	Mother
R-13	Czech	F	Tourist	-	Son
R-14	British	F	Working	30s	Son and friends
R-15	British	M	Working	30s	Friends
R-16	British	M	Working	20s	Sister
R-17	Korean	M	Tourist	40s	Family
R-18	British	M	Working	20s	Friends
R-19	Canadian	F	Tourist	20s	Friends
R-20	British	M	Working	40s	Social club members
R-21	Chinese	F	Student (event major)	20s	Friends
R-22	Thai	F	Student (event major)	20s	Friends
R-23	Taiwanese	M	Student	20s	Friends
R-24	British	F	Working	40s	Partner
R-25	Finn	F	Student	20s	Alone
R-26	British	F	Working	50s	Friend
R-27	British	F	Working	40s	Friend
R-28	Chinese	F	Student (event major)	20s	Friends

R: Respondents.

). This was not done to identify themes for analysis, but rather to understand visitors’ motivations and to minimize data quality issues. The duration of each interview with visitors was from 5 to 30 min.

3.5. Data Collection

As briefly mentioned above, the primary data were intentionally collected from two different categories of respondents: event visitors and event coordinators. More in detail, individual interviews with visitors and focus group interviews (FGIs) with field experts were conducted. As shown in Table 2 and Table 3, 30 interviewees participated in total, including 28 visitors and two event coordinators. The number of interviewees was considered to minimize data quality issues, since Saunders et al. [22] suggested that the smallest sample size of a semi-structured interview should be between 5 and 25 to perform data collection until a new perspective is identified.

Before the interviews, all respondents were informed about the study’s purpose and filled out a form for consent for the interview to prevent issues of confidentiality. The documents included consent for personal information, recording, and data utilization. All interviews were recorded; the interviewer wrote the gestures (non-verbal expressions) and the highlighted points. The interviewees were deliberately selected by respondents from 11 nationalities to collect various perspectives at the interview site. The researchers led conversations with the prepared semi-structured interview guidelines (two to three people).

3.6. The Analysis

For analyzing the collected primary data, voice-recorded data were transcribed into text. As the next stage, the text coding was conducted for each interviewee and contextually re-categorized into adequate themes [69]. To be more specific, data were analyzed with thematic networks, which consist of essential themes, organizing, and global themes [21]. The “visitor motivations to attend special event events in art galleries” module of [17], which adjusted “the contextual model of learning” [24], was used as the leading theory for discovering and analyzing motivations to attend the Museum Lates. In qualitative research, meanings could mainly be found from linguistic expression, and not from numerical value [23]. Consequently, clarification of different definitions of a word should be approached sensitively for a clear understanding. The thematic analysis was employed to illuminate the data in the form of text [21].

4. Findings and Analysis

4.1. Contextual Motivational Factors

When asked to explain their motivations in detail, the visitors provided diverse responses. Some expressions were given with different vocabulary with the same or similar meanings. Therefore, the factors were analyzed according to interviewees’ overlaps or new expressions within the record according to the theoretical themes. During the process, this paper detected some similarities and differences in contextual motivational factors compared to the applied theories: the “contextual model of learning” of [46,59] and “visitor motivations to attend special events in art galleries” of [18]. Three different upper themes—personal, sociocultural, and physical context—were matched. However, new themes were found: the combined context and the comparison context (Figure 1). As shown in more detail in Figure 2, the explored motivations were categorized into applicable themes.

4.1.1. Personal Context

Each individual possessed his or her own personal context motivation, and the stated reasons for attending Museum Lates were diverse. Relevant to the characteristics of Museum Lates, different personal context motivational factors other than those suggested by [18] existed. First, entertainment, enjoyment, and recreation seem to be extremely important motivations [36]. Secondly, an additional element would be relaxation, which refers to the anticipation of recovery and restoration with direct mentioning of “relaxation”. Furthermore, “site-seeing” was another crucial motivational factor of tourists.

In addition, personal feelings were mentioned, such as the expectation to “feel special” by spending time at the venue during special opening hours(late opening) with a limited number of people, which gives one a sense of superiority. Moreover, Mokhtar and Kasim [21] maintained “a specific interest in such attraction” as a motivation to visit museums.

Personal context constituted a global theme, with various organizing and basic themes [70]. Moreover, the major theme, “learning and education”, had diverse comments in comparison with “entertainment” according to most of the interviewees. There was a tendency within the visitors’ expectations for experiencing something extraordinary by mentioning “uniqueness”, “something new”, and “something special”, which were thematically analyzed as parts of the “novelty” category. “Previous experiences” was another important theme for Museum Late motivation. As a representative quotation, R-26 mentioned:

“…I was brought here as a child and I had such good memories… that to come back as an adult and spend a night here is truly magical.”

Continuously, “specific interest” was emphasized by several respondents with expressions like “simple interest”, “superiority”, and “professional interest.” Similarly, when event coordinators of the NHM were asked the same question, both EC-1 and EC-2 set “benchmarking” as their priority motivation. Moreover, “personal interest” and “to see if we are going in the right direction” were identified as their motivations. Some participants working outside the art industry during the daytime had specific demands for “entertainment” and “relaxation.” For example, the leisure appeal of museums as after-work rechargers was highly evaluated. Meanwhile, participants working in the art industry highly considered “professional interests.”

4.1.2. Sociocultural Context

As Allen et al. [49] and Hooper-Greenhill [62] demonstrated, sociocultural factors seem to be prominent characteristics of special events in museums because diverse and specified expectations were mentioned. There were differences between visitors who were spending time with friends and other visitors, in particular attaching dissimilar values to social engagement as their visiting motivations [46]. Companions constituted another crucial factor for understanding identity-related motivation. Visitors who were with friends or part of a social club especially emphasized “socializing” with “friends” and “new people” as facilitators.

Within the sociocultural context, expressions describing social experiences were articulated by several respondents, such as to “spend time with friends”, “meet new people with the same interest”, and “family”. In terms of recommendations, expressions such as “invited by my friend” and “introduced by friend” were mentioned. Recommendations were also noted with the direct expression: “my manager recommended.” Visitors distinguished motivations of “recommendations” from acquaintances and “marketing” of museums. Marketing was found to be another important motivation, frequently mentioned with expressions such as “online marketing”, “newsletter”, “e-mail”, “poster”, “local magazine”, and “Facebook page”. Factors consisting of “social learning experiences” were mentioned, as well. Those included “networking”, “to meet the people who were a part of our general professions”, and “sharing knowledge”.

4.1.3. Physical Context

The key findings concerning physical context were the special late opening hours, convenience, and venue (in London), in addition to special events, as determined by [16]. As part of the physical context, participants mentioned the “special events”, particularly the “silent disco” and “sleeping over program”. Moreover, “atmosphere” was frequently mentioned as another crucial motivation. Interviewees also emphasized the expression “late opening hours”; extended opening hours were mentioned by many visitors as their motivation to visit Museum Lates. For example, interviewees repeatedly emphasized the word “night” and also mentioned “especially at night” as motivational factors. Similarly, “after work” and “opening hours” were emphasized as motivations. R-3 described museum visits after work, stating:

“(…) normally the opening hours of museum are very close to when I work, so I don’t get much time to go to museums during the day.”

“Convenience” was identified as another factor, with the supporting statements “limited number of people” and “without tourists”, which were interpreted as “less crowded”. Specifically, “less touristic” and “fewer children” were identified during late hours.

Regarding loyalty toward the “venue”, there were motivations such as “a specific interest in such an attraction”, as well, which was categorized in both physical contexts. A regional venue factor, “London”, was another physical context motivation that was mentioned by several visitors with British nationality. Some foreign interviewees also mentioned the regional factor.

4.1.4. Combination and Complexity

Due to the complexity [18] of the special events and the additional novelty of late hours [15], the motivations were also complex. Combined factors were also indicated by using direct words, such as the combination that R-18 emphasized by mentioning, “my motivation to come to this late event is a set of combinations”; R-19 stated, “it is a good mix, the visiting motivation is not simple”, and R-14 also mentioned, “the reason to come here is mixed.” As museums are considered multi-functional institutions with diverse services and programs, some visitors value different expectations equally. The motivation for museum visits is becoming increasingly complex with the rising complexity of museum offerings [17].

4.1.5. Other Daily Activities and Exhibitions

The respondents compared motivational factors for Museum Lates with those for other daily activities and exhibitions. According to EC-1, Museum Lates have different aspects compared to daily activities:

“The Lates are a great way to open our door to people who are interested in learning more about the museum and what is happening here; day to day, it is a quite different setting (…)”

When visitors were asked if there were differences in motivations to visit ordinary activities and Museum Lates, R-16 stated:

“So, for me, tonight is more about enjoying the space, but not necessarily seeing the exhibitions. It’s a beautiful building, so I’ll have a drink with my sister and catch up in beautiful scenery.”

Several respondents mentioned that daily activities and special events possess a contrast of “education” and “uniqueness”, in which daily activities were motivated by education, while special events were motivated by uniqueness.

4.1.6. Daytime

Compared to daytime visits, respondents stated that “night is special” and compared the different visiting hours in personal, social, and physical contexts, such as “education during daytime, not during the night”, and that “meeting new people” is more expected during night.

“(…) the atmosphere is just not that educational, you know, the lighting is so colorful and the decoration and people talk and laugh; it is just more entertainment, it is not that educational” (R-21).

So, the difference in motivation during nighttime could possibly be situated in all three contexts [9,59]. Better engagement was emphasized as the difference between daytime and nighttime visits by both event coordinators and visitors. Several visitors stated that the late opening hour motivations are distinct from daytime visiting motivations. R-22 describes “late opening hours” as making the event more special:

“(…) I think that’s the main point (nodding). It made the museum night special (…) It is not really common for a museum to be opened during nighttime, so it makes [the event] more special, the event in the nighttime. I think I prefer during nighttime because maybe I am a student, so I after a full day of study or if I am working, you know, [I will] definitely want to do something with my friends and want to be relaxed, yes uh huh (nodding).”

Moreover, concerning the convenience of the physical context, interviews mentioned that there are “fewer tourists during the night” and that “daytime is full of tourists”; they also expressed: “less crowded”, “fewer kids, you must have seen all the kids if you come during the daytime”, and “can focus better.” When the senior event coordinators of the NHM were asked if there was a difference in late events and daytime events, EC-1 answered:

“Daytime events are quite structured, quite short (…) the level of depth of engagement is different. (…) the topics and contents are the same, but running hours and the level of engagement is different”.

4.2. Museums as Multi-Functional Institutions to Enhance the Future Sustainability

The debate about museums’ diversified roles raised a controversy that exists between education and entertainment as motivations. R-7 said:

“Though I came during the night and had drinks, educational and professional reasons come preferentially.” Similarly, there was a mention of the multi-functionality of museums by R-11: “Attracting is important, but education is more crucial.”

Meanwhile, tourist and leisure functions were mentioned by many visitors. For example, several visitors valued entertainment more than education. R-20 stated, “(My motivation is) not education, but entertainment.” Concerning circumstances, it does not seem easy to define which one is superordinate to the other. With the statement, “a museum can be anything”, EC-2 expressed the unlimited potential of museum functions. In terms of the parts of the museum, EC-2 stated:

“I think people’s expectation is constantly growing… some people do not consider, not everyone but, as the same old dusty institutions they used [be], they are much more open, places to talk, discuss ideas… I think people see them as almost like a theme park or a festival, so our events are also almost considered to be in the bracket as well; the field is completely as open as the next, a museum can be anything.”

Some visitors were aware that museums played various roles as multi-functional institutions to achieve future sustainability. Barron and Leask [6] found that the multi-functional roles played by museums build extensive experience of delivering “Lates” events and develop appropriately to meet both visitor and museum needs in order to enhance future sustainability. For example, R-4 stated:

“I guess [the museum’s role is] a part for preservation and a part for utilization, isn’t it? And sort of, yes, comes together as well.”

By attracting new visitors (i.e., Gen Y) to museums with special after-hour events, museums would pursue the balanced use of cultural artifacts to enhance future sustainability.

4.3. Museum Lates as a Motivation

The question of whether or not Museum Lates themselves were visitors’ motivations was not posed. However, several main words could be interpreted as keywords to describe Museum Lates by almost every participant, such as “special”, “cool”, “unique”, “unusual”, “interesting”, and “new.” Moreover, numerous motivations were to experience uniqueness. Tansuchat and Panmanee [16] demonstrated that special events in themselves could constitute a motivational factor for customers to visit museums.

4.4. The Importance of Museum Lates

As determined from the extant literature, developing new audiences in various targeted segments [8], marketing [53], and branding [41] were mainly found as the essential roles of Museum Lates by opening their “door to the people” (EC-1). An issue relevant to the commercial fundraising of an NPO [41] was mentioned by EC-2:

“…um, everything really does with that, um, generating income, generating some revenue for the museum as well through tickets…it is needed for the institution, but we do not expect big profits from the event.”

As Kawashima [51] and Vaughan [52] assert, the rise in fundamental profit from special events is essential for museums.

Distinct factors were also discovered in terms of engagement. Specifically, engaging audiences with the museum and activating engagement [71] amongst different audiences were highlighted by event coordinators and visitors, respectively. Among visitors, encouraging revisitation was the primary effect of Museum Lates, more than attracting a new audience. For instance, R-2 said, “If you don’t have a cool event to make it, the novelty will wear off.” This could be considered alongside cultural visitors’ increasing expectations, as they demand a better and diverse appeal from museums [17].

Both event coordinators emphasized engagement of the audience with the venue and developing different target audiences. When asked to identify the purposes of Museum Lates, the event coordinators stated:

“They primarily started as another way of engaging different audiences that wouldn’t come naturally during the day or on the weekend to do something fun that’s interesting, that’s exciting, for a completely new market segment (…) They are an amazing, more fun time to get closer to the public” (EC-1).

“(…) I would say in terms of the rest of our events. Currently, our objectives are around, as Eszter said, developing new audiences and engaging them with our sites and the collections…I would definitely say, across the events, we are targeting similar but slightly different people to bring into the museum… inspiring people for learning… It is a good hook; some might not be coming otherwise” (EC-2).

Similarly, some visitors mentioned why Museum Lates are essential for the institution. Firstly, R-4 pointed out “engaging different audiences” as a crucial factor. Subsequently, “new audience development” was identified as the primary purpose of Museum Lates from several works in the literature as well as by R-4 and R-15. Museum Lates were also highlighted as a method for encouraging revisitation by R-2 and R-11:

“Cool events are crucial for current museums to hook visitors to come back. Simply drinking and partying can hardly lead to revisiting of consumers” (R-2).

“If [they] always have the same things, you don’t want to come more than once, I think. If you change something and [they] give something new, people would like to come again, maybe” (R-11). R-28 also mentioned Museum Lates as a “marketing” method of museums.

5. Conclusions

Museums’ diversified roles have resulted in complexity in institutional characteristics, which has produced several controversies. Not only education, but also leisure and tourist appeals have become essential functions beyond their everyday tasks. Therefore, visitors and organizers seem to be aware of existing complicated expectations towards museums. Moreover, people generally demand to experience diverse offerings from educational or entertaining museums. Still, they have achieved special appeals of their own, which could hardly be compared to other education or tourism markets. Numerous researchers, including Pencarelli et al. [1] and Merriman [45], have identified sustainable museum management in order to interpret and communicate heritage, reach a wider audience, and provide innovative and practical solutions for managing collections and relationships with local stakeholders. Consequently, museums can be multi-functional creative institutions to achieve sustainability, emphasizing the environmental, social–cultural, and economic dimensions.

This study investigated the motivational factors for attending Museum Lates by collecting and analyzing primary data under three different themes: personal, sociocultural, and physical. The theory concerning “visitor motivations to attend special events in art galleries” [18] adapted from “the contextual model of learning” [24] was applied. The study found that all three themes were linked to each other in discovering visitors’ motivational factors. Overall, the findings of this research matched well with the adopted model and theory. A novel result also revealed that a combined context of personal, sociocultural, and physical context was crucial for visiting Museum Lates.

The findings show that several visitors who expressed satisfaction with a “previous experience” were willing to explore different Museum Lates events of several London institutions. Among them, visitors with loyalty toward Museum Lates were expecting advancement of contents and themes, rather than the simple concepts of drinking and DJ parties. The study found a tendency characterized by a strong demand for something unique and exciting that could stimulate their different senses and desire for novelty. Museums are institutions that exist for society and the public [9,31,72]. Consequently, engagement with the public and community seems fundamental for museums [24,31,70]. Axelsen [17] maintains that social patterns and demands influence recent museum trends. As a result, possessing a streamlined strategic approach to vitalize engagement with society is required for museums [73]. Indeed, beyond the distinct satisfaction of entertainment, education, and socialization, a good combination seems requisite.

One of the main findings was that the extension of opening hours and specified target audiences constituted another motivation of convenience. Museum Lates’ prominent uniqueness provided collaborative activities other than ordinary exhibitions and programs during extended opening hours solely on limited dates. Moreover, among the motivational factors, disagreement existed regarding museums’ priorities concerning education, leisure, and socializing. Comparing visitors’ motivations for Museum Lates with daily activities and daytime operating hours, the study found several differences, such as cultural appreciation, education, entertainment, socializing, and convenience, which differed from day-to-day activities and opening hours. Finally, there were limitations, such as the issue of sample selection. The interviews were conducted mostly in one institution, which was the NHM. During the limited data collection period, the museum offered more events than the other institutions, and specialized attachment toward the venue was found from diverse interviewees.

Nevertheless, this study might bring pragmatic insight into institutions to attract more visitors by enhancing their satisfaction. The study has implications for managing and marketing the museum. The characteristics of Museum Lates enhance engagement, positive word-of-mouth advertisement, and the desire to return in the future. Managers should be aware that museums are an essential attraction for visitors and play a critical role in cultural and creative tourism, providing educational programs and exhibitions highlighting the human–nature relationship and shaping people’s values, attitudes, and behaviors. The determination of markets in which to include museums might be essential to understand the motivation behind visiting Museum Lates. Future research should identify the cultural sustainability of Museum Lates, which preserve, collect, research, and exhibit cultural artifacts.