Visitor numbers to the world’s largest art museums have largely returned to their pre-pandemic levels, according to an exclusive survey by The Journal of Art he found
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused the number of visitors to museums to plummet around the world as institutions closed their doors and people were forced to stay inside. The number of people who visited the 100 most visited museums fell from 230 million in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, to just 54 million in 2020. We have seen a slow recovery since then, with 71 million visitors in 2021 and 141 million in 2022. .
Although the total number of visitors to the top 100 museums was 176 million in 2023, our survey shows that many of the world’s largest museums are now close to their 2019 visitor numbers. The Louvre Museum is again the most visited in our survey with 8.9 million visitors, just 8% below its 2019 figure. The British Museum in London had 5.5 million visitors (7% less than in 2019), the Prado in Madrid 3.3 million (5% less) and the Vatican Museums in Rome 6.8 million (2% less).
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam attracted 2.7 million visitors, the same as in 2019, 654,000 of whom saw its major Johannes Vermeer exhibition.
Other major museums in the world received more visitors in 2023 than before the pandemic. The Musée d’Orsay in Paris increased by 6% compared to 2019, to 3.9 million, and the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, by 15%, to 2.7 million. Both were record figures for museums.
Recently opened museums such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the M+ in Hong Kong and the Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo had their best years. The latter is now the most popular art museum in Scandinavia. London’s National Portrait Gallery and Young V&A reopened to record visitor numbers.
However, some museums are still struggling to attract the same number of visitors as before the pandemic. The National Gallery in London had the biggest absolute drop in visitor numbers of all the museums in our survey: it received 3.1 million visitors in 2023, a drop of 2.9 million from 2019 (down 48%). However, the Sainsbury Wing of the museum was closed throughout 2023, reducing gallery space and the number of entrances. It is scheduled to reopen in 2025.
Tate Britain and Tate Liverpool also performed poorly (both down 40% on 2019, with 1.1 million and 399,000 respectively in 2023), while Tate Modern’s recovery was more tepid (4.7 million visits , 22% less than in 2019), just like the Victoria and Albert. Museums (3.1 million, 21% less).
Chinese state museums usually release their figures at the end of the year, so they were not included in the report.
The Journal of ArtThe annual s survey is the world’s most comprehensive study of museum visitor numbers. The research was conducted by email and phone during February 2024 and uses figures reported by the institutions themselves for the previous calendar year.
The full report, including the list of the world’s 150 most visited art museums, will be published in the April issue of The Journal of Art.
