visitor tracking

Julian Bickersteth, Smarttrack and International Conservation Services, Sydney, Australia; and Christopher Ainsley, Shoppertrak, USA

Abstract

Google Analytics provides museums with extensive data around visits to their virtual sites. Physical visits and directional paths which visitors take around museums are currently much harder to monitor. This paper discusses the opportunity that mobile phone Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and TMSI signals provide to allow visitor tracking. The resulting data has potentially great value to museums in understanding how exhibitions and museum spaces are used, in forming exhibition design, assessing the return on investment of interactives, and even profiling visitors. A pilot study undertaken in the retail sector is discussed.

Keywords: visitor tracking, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, TMSI signals