There are no compelling reasons why arts managers should want
tourists in audiences as the source of revenue is largely irrelevant.
Knowledge of audience composition and expectations is, nonetheless,
important if only because who is in the audience will influence the arts
experience offered. A holiday audience at a seaside resort will be
looking for an experience that is different from that of regular, keen,
theatre-goers in their own home town. The arts manager in holiday
areas will often be looking to the tourist market for a significant
proportion of the audiences. Elsewhere, there may be an interest in the
tourist market because arts managers are looking for new sources of
audiences and to push back the threshold from within which audiences
are prepared to travel.