The role of ambiances and aesthetics on millennials’ museum visiting behavior

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to establish a framework for millennials’ museum visiting behaviour and to explore the moderating effects of aesthetics and ambience for visiting art museums. This study uses the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S–O–R) model (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974) in order to confirm the relationship among variables. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected using online surveys from millennial art museum visitors who had visited a museum within three months. In all, 287 responses were collected. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the model. Findings Korean millennial visitors pursue hedonic value rather than utilitarian value when they visit art museums. It turns out that hedonic value accelerates visitor satisfaction and promotes visitor loyalty more than utilitarian value in the art museum setting. Both ambiance and aesthetics play stimulating roles in the art museum context and moderate the relationships among visitor-perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty. Utilitarian values are identified as unimportant elements for young Korean museumgoers. Practical implications Ambiance and aesthetic factors play important roles in promoting art museum visits. An art museum may elevate its atmospheric factors by emphasising the visit’s fun value (i.e. hedonic value) for millennials. Originality/value This study expands on previous studies concerning conceptualization of multidimensional constructs of millennials’ value for experience of arts museums in terms of aesthetics and ambiance. The results also confirm the value of the S–O–R framework in an art museum context.