2025 Conference – Understanding New Hybrid Audiences. Digital and On-Site Coexistence in Museums

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The COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point in the use of digital channels by museums. During those months, physical visitors were absent, and museums focused their efforts on engaging with their audiences digitally. After the pandemic, we entered a new scenario shaped by both the digital progress made by museums and the ongoing innovations in digital technologies. In 2017, the 2nd Conference of the OPPCC, titled “Understanding the Virtual Audiences of Museums”, focused on analytics and digital metrics in museums. At that time, digital visitors to museum websites and social media followers were the key focus.

Today, visitors also use digital tools during their physical visits to museums: apps, interactives, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, browsing other websites, etc. This creates a landscape where museums must understand visitor behavior in both dimensions—physical and digital—from motivations to the journey and overall experience.

Thus, museum visitor experience unfolds across both physical and digital realms. One helpful model is the visitor journey (User Experience), which includes four stages: before the visit, arrival at the museum, the exhibition and in-museum activities, and the post-visit phase. According to this framework, visitors use both analogue and digital resources throughout their journey.

Museums therefore need new indicators that integrate data from in-person visits (headcounts, profiles, behaviors, opinions, evaluations, etc.) with data from the use of digital tools before, during, and after the museum visit. Today, visitors must be considered as individuals who simultaneously engage with both the physical and online dimensions of the museum.

This year marks the 10th Conference of the Observatory of Cultural Heritage Audiences of Catalonia. We propose dedicating it to the growing hybridization of physical and digital visits.

The conference will showcase models and experiences that enrich the analysis of visitor behavior—both during in-person visits and through their interactions with the digital platforms and tools museums offer. Museums today use digital tools not only for communication —websites, social media— but also to enhance the visitor experience —Wi-Fi, apps, interactives, VR and AR spaces, etc.

This conference aims to contribute to rethinking visitor studies in an increasingly digital environment and to present new theoretical frameworks for understanding and measuring the impact of museum activities on audiences in the digital age. Based on these frameworks, we can redefine information management, establish new strategies based on data from both physical and digital visitors, and develop new evaluation indicators.

Museums are now facing a new visitor profile: the hybrid visitor, who combines physical and digital interactions. To understand them, even small museums can use tools such as surveys, web analytics, or social media monitoring. The data gathered enables the design of products tailored to new needs and the creation of more personalized experiences.

Furthermore, today’s audience segmentation is based on motivations rather than just demographic data, as visitors expect accessible and engaging digital content. A prominent example is the Neanderthal Museum, which combines evidence-based methods —such as surveys and audience segmentation— with strong staff involvement to foster strategic reflection and engage both digital and in-person visitors.

New holistic visitor journey models offer valuable insights for museum professionals seeking to better understand the evolving profiles of digital and hybrid visitors, through integration of the physical, digital, and emotional dimensions of the museum experience.

Experiments such as those carried out by the Bristol Museums have explored how digital content can add value to both in-person and online visitors, as well as the challenges and opportunities of working in digital environments, the methodologies used to connect with hybrid visitors, and the organizational changes brought about by this new approach.