In 2010, I attended my first Museums Association conference in Brighton. I was a new Visitor Experience Manager, keen to learn more, and I vividly remember my disappointment when I realised there was nothing on the conference agenda that spoke to my area of interest. Nothing about front-ofhouse staff, nothing about experience creation, nothing about the nuts and bolts of the visitor operation. Visitor Experience was seen as the way into a museum career, rather than a specialism in itself.

More than a decade later, I’m delighted that this viewpoint has changed. Today, the Museum Association has been part of creating a front-of-house charter of best practice, and Visitor Experience topics make regular appearances on conference agendas and in museum journals. For me, this is thrilling progress; an acknowledgement of how important the Visitor Experience is in ensuring museums really are for everyone. If any doubts do still exist about the value of this discipline, I see it as my job, and the job of my fellow specialists, to shine a light on what we do and keep it high on the agenda.

I wrote this book with the intention of sharing best practice and guidance in delivering fantastic visitor experiences. I was driven by the knowledge that Visitor Experience really is a specialism; it takes skill, knowledge and talent to pull it off.

So, to all my fellow Visitor Experience specialists: I hope you’ve been inspired by the case studies shared in this book to continue developing your own practice. I can't wait to see what you all do.

Now, have you thought about the toilets?