EXAMINING THE VISITOR ATTRACTION PRODUCT: A CASE STUDY

An increasing interest in attraction competitiveness has led to attention being directed towards the definition and description of the attraction product, and how visitors consider its different parts. Accordingly, this article first reviews the literature on the visitor attraction product, from which it proposes a model, that of Levitt, consisting of three product components. Secondly, these three components are used to identify a particular attraction's attributes and then to examine their effects on visitors' satisfaction with their experience at the attraction. The data for this study were obtained from 573 usable questionnaires completed by the visitors of a heritage museum located in Northern Norway. The results indicate that the museum's attraction product consists of learning, status, novelty (core), staff service, visual and information (tangible), ancillary features, and easy access (augmented) aspects. The findings further reveal that only ancillary features and learning aspects of the augmented and core product components, respectively, have a significant influence on visitors' satisfaction with their overall experience at the museum, whereas both aspects of the tangible component are considered the most influential factors.