Two years on, London museums are still missing visitors—what’s happened?

Customer figures for London’s main museums nonetheless lag significantly behind the numbers achieved in 2019, simply earlier than the pandemic. The drop in worldwide tourism is the main issue, with overseas vacationers sometimes representing round half of holiday makers at main nationwide museums. Nevertheless, though most UK residents have resumed museum visiting, even their numbers are barely down.

An outline is revealed by authorities knowledge for all publicly funded museums in England, that are primarily in London. Within the first 9 months of 2022, there have been 23.2 million visits, down 40% on the identical interval in 2019.

Though the everlasting collections of publicly funded museums are usually free to go to, their funds are nonetheless depending on buoyant customer figures: for store and catering revenue, and ticket gross sales for short-term exhibitions.

Enchancment

Analysing the 2022 knowledge, there have been, as can be anticipated, clear indicators of enchancment because the 12 months progressed and the pandemic continued to recede. Within the first quarter, the autumn was 54%, however within the second and third quarters the drop improved to 36% after which 33%.

The Nationwide Gallery is dealing with the slowest restoration. Final 12 months it had 2.7 million guests, down 55% on its 2019 determine of 6 million. It has thus misplaced nearly 3.3 million guests, greater than another museum in our survey. This will come as a shock since in 2022 it mounted two very effectively acquired exhibitions: Raphael and Lucian Freud: New Views.

A Nationwide Gallery spokesperson says that “the discount of worldwide tourism has been a key consider our lowered customer numbers”. It’s among the many London museums which might be most depending on overseas guests, who simply earlier than the pandemic amounted to 66% of their whole. The spokesperson provides that “home numbers are near restoration” in contrast with 2019.

British Museum

The British Museum supplies an attention-grabbing comparability, because it was nearly equally depending on tourism (64% of holiday makers simply earlier than the pandemic). Final 12 months it had 4.1 million guests, down 34% from 6.2 million in 2019, so it has recovered considerably sooner than the Nationwide Gallery.

A British Museum spokesperson attributes the discount to a number of components. The museum has been significantly hit by fewer guests from China. Excessive climate in 2022—a chilly winter after which a scorching summer season—discouraged guests, as did a collection of transport strikes. Additionally the Omicron Covid-19 variant made some folks cautious about venturing to the museum.

Tate and V&A

Tate Trendy, which within the years simply earlier than the pandemic jostled with the British Museum because the UK’s hottest, noticed its numbers fall to three.9 million final 12 months, down 36% from 6.1 million in 2019. Tate Britain did considerably worse, regardless of being much less reliant on worldwide vacationers earlier than the pandemic, with 913,000, down 49% from 1.8 million in 2019. A Tate spokesperson says: “It can take time for home and worldwide tourism to get better, however we now have seen very robust attendance from native audiences.”

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) had 2.4 million guests at its primary website in South Kensington, down 40% from 3.9 million in 2019. A V&A spokesperson factors out that “worldwide visits had been down, with inbound tourism to London nonetheless a way from pre-pandemic ranges, and journey restrictions nonetheless in place for some international locations”. There was additionally much less home tourism final summer season as “folks took benefit of the easing of UK journey restrictions” to go overseas. Till final April the V&A was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays (the opposite surveyed museums had been all open day by day), which presumably led to fewer guests within the first few months of 2022.

Restoration on the best way?

All the main London museums in our survey cited the autumn in worldwide tourism as a major consider a sluggish post-pandemic restoration. The Nationwide Gallery and the British Museum beforehand trusted vacationers for round two thirds of their guests, the V&A for round 38% and the 2 London Tates got here between these figures.

So what are the prospects for this 12 months? The official Go to Britain organisation now predicts that the UK will welcome 35.1 million guests in 2023, down 14% from 40.9 million in 2019. Guests from Europe have largely returned, and tourism from North America is doing fairly effectively, however numbers from East Asia, and significantly China, are nonetheless considerably down.

Go to Britain stresses that its 35.1 million determine was arrived at by balancing plenty of components. “There might be a minority of travellers who will stay nervous about Covid and might be deterred, however many are eager to journey once more; value of residing pressures will inhibit journey for some however most common/occasional worldwide travellers will nonetheless go overseas,” a spokesperson says.

No swift restoration

The worldwide financial scenario will definitely be difficult throughout 2023, which is more likely to act towards a swift return to pre-pandemic ranges of tourism.

With a discount in outward worldwide journey from the UK attributable to the pandemic, it may need been anticipated that museums would have attracted extra native guests final 12 months than in 2019, however this has typically not been the case. Because the pandemic, the British have been extra inclined to go to outside points of interest. And with worldwide journey changing into simpler, there’s pent-up demand for overseas holidays.

The priority now for museums is that they’re being hit by the varied issues dealing with the British financial system: very excessive inflation, rising vitality costs and a threatened recession. Though most main museums have free entry for his or her everlasting collections and it is perhaps thought they’d profit from much less spending capability, the price of native journey to museums, and refreshments when there, is a discouragement to make a go to when occasions are onerous.

With lowered customer numbers, there’s a temptation for museums to counsel that this isn’t fairly as vital a standards of success as had beforehand been regarded. As a Tate spokesman explains: “As a substitute of going again to enterprise as normal, we are actually creating extra environmentally and financially sustainable methods of working—in addition to benefiting from this chance to deepen customer engagement.”

NPG

The one museum that ought to do higher than earlier than the pandemic is the Nationwide Portrait Gallery (NPG), which had deliberate to shut in June 2020 for a serious refurbishment. This closure needed to be introduced ahead due to the pandemic, so it has been shut since March 2020 and is now as a consequence of reopen on 22 June.

Earlier than the pandemic, in 2019, the Nationwide Portrait Gallery had 1.6 million guests (down from highs of greater than 2 million guests a 12 months between 2012 and 2015). With the fanfare of the approaching opening, and pent-up demand to see the gathering, there’s a good probability that the NPG will surpass 2 million guests in its first 12 months. The gallery is due to this fact more likely to be the primary main UK museum to see its customer numbers exceed these from earlier than the pandemic.