Touchpoints' role in the museum context: from affect to customer loyalty

PurposeThe goal of the present study is to identify the relationship, based on relational cohesion theory, between the affective visitor response to the touchpoints in a museum setting and the visitor loyalty intentions, namely intention to revisit and intention to recommend the museum.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional survey was run on museum visitors. Data were collected on a final sample including 244 individuals over 18 years old who had visited the museum. Two ordinary least squares regression models were run together with two robustness checks to analyse the data.FindingsResults reveal the significant role of the affective response to touchpoints in explaining visitor loyalty intentions. Specifically, the positive experience with newspapers and magazines, staff and website is related to the intention to revisit the museum, while the positive experience with staff, social media, newspaper and magazines and interactive on-site devices is related to the intention to recommend the museum.Originality/valueThe present work is the first to consider the role of affective response to touchpoints in a museum setting. Moreover, the specific impact of each on-site and off-site, digital and physical touchpoint is assessed simultaneously in a comprehensive model.