Augmented reality marketing to enhance museum visit intentions

Purpose This study aims to explore the augmented reality (AR) effectiveness of museum visiting. Design/methodology/approach Based on the AR marketing of the motivation model and the inspiration model, the critical mental process and AR were revealed that could increase museum visits. The mixed-methods approach was adopted to analyze the qualitative research and test the model hypotheses to understand the perceptions of the increasing AR marketing of museum visits. Findings The authors found that inspiration and perceived quality AR are critical to enhancing the attitudinal of museum visits. AR developers can thus focus on utilitarian and hedonic benefits in perceptual augmentation quality to inspire users’ willingness to visit museums. Originality/value This study extended the inspiration model through a mixed-methods approach to investigate how AR technologies encourage and leverage visitor experience to increase museum visit intention psychologically.