International museums in 2024 collectively experienced a slight dip in attendance that marks a return to normalcy in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, the Art Newspaper reports.
According to the publication’s annual study, the decline suggests the post-pandemic build-back has ended, and institutions can expect to see visitor numbers rise or fall based on typical factors including the popularity of exhibitions, the presence of amenities, tourism patterns, weather, and space constraints.
Among those seeing a minimal decrease in attendance was the world’s most visited museum, the Louvre in Paris, which experienced a 1 percent dip from 2023 visitor levels. The second-most-visited institution, the Vatican Museums in Rome, saw a slight uptick of nearly a percentage point. Many London museums had a thornier time of it, with no clear pattern emerging: Several were down year-over-year, others were up but still below pre-pandemic numbers, while still others had their best years since 2018. The Art Newspaper reports pointed out that British museums’ general reliance on superb branding and commercial acuity, rather than on government and donor funding, stands them in comparatively poor stead when tourism is down thanks to Brexit and other world events, which also seemed to have evinced a shift away from contemporary art and toward more traditional fare.
Main Image: The Louvre, Copyright Dirk Vanduffel