After two years of closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic, visitors have returned in large numbers to museums and galleries around the world, according to a new study by The arts journal revealed.
Every year, The arts journal conducts a comprehensive global survey of the number of visitors to art museums. Data for 2022, which will be released in full on March 27, shows the top 100 museums received 140 million visits, double the amount in 2021 but less than the 230 million visits made in 2019, the latest full year. unaffected by Covid-19.
However, major London museums still have a long way to go to regain the number of visitors they had in 2019. And in many cases, they are performing worse than their international peers.
The British Museum was the most visited art museum in the UK in 2022 and the third in the world. It brought in 4.1 million visitors, more than three times as many as in 2021, when it received 1.3 million. However, that number is still a third lower than its 2019 count of 6.2 million.
The Tate Modern brought in 3.9 million, ranking fourth in the world, but down 36% from 2019. The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) had 2.4 million, down 40%, while Tate Britain got 913,000, down 49%.
The National Gallery was the least successful of the major London museums. It reported 2.7 million visits in 2022, down 55% from its 2019 figure of 6 million. The fall of almost 3.3 million people before Covid is the largest recorded by a museum in our investigation.
A National Gallery spokesperson said The arts journal that “the reduction in international tourism has been a key factor in reducing our number of visitors”. It is among London’s museums most dependent on foreign visitors, who just before the pandemic amounted to 66% of their total. The spokesperson adds that “national figures are close to recovery” compared to 2019.
Meanwhile, many similar museums around the world have shown a much faster recovery. The Louvre Museum in Paris was the most visited art museum in the world in 2022, with 7.7 million visits, 20% less than in 2019. The museum is so popular that it is starting to limit capacity. The Center Pompidou only fell by 8% with 3 million and the Musée d’Orsay by 10% with 3.3 million.
In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art also struggled, with 32% fewer visitors than in 2019, while the Whitney Museum of American Art was down 19%. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) attracted 10% more visitors than in 2019, but had been partially closed that year for reconstruction, so it had fewer visitors than usual.
In Russia, Hermitage Museum numbers were down only 43% from 2019. Although international visits to Russia were almost non-existent in 2022 due to the war, The arts journal understands that the fall was mitigated by an increase in the number of domestic Russian tourists.
China’s public museums are releasing their data later in the year, so it’s possible that big institutions like the National Museum of China in Beijing will see bigger drops than London museums, especially since their attendance has been hampered. by the strict zero Covid policy. and continuous locks.
•The arts journalThe Visitor Figures survey is conducted annually and is the world’s leading authority on art museum attendance. The full list of the top 150 museums will be released on March 27, 2023, along with an in-depth analysis of key trends.
