Museums Faced a 77% Drop in Footfall Due to COVID-19
The Art Newspaper has published shocking new data this week confirming the disastrous affects of the COVID-19 pandemic on national museums and art galleries around the world.
The polled Museums averaged 145 days extra closure dates during 2020, resulting in a 77% loss of revenue.
The article suggested that the lost footfall equated to “112 years of missed visits and hundreds of millions of pounds in lost revenue”.
London’s Tate Museum was closed for 173 days last year, the British Museum for 208, and the National Gallery for 155.
This data confirms the widespread feeling of a sector that has been hit by a perfect storm of enforced closure, huge revenue falls and a radical drop in visitor numbers.
Growing Redundancies in the Museum Sector
The Museum Associations redundancy tracker reports some 4089 redundancies in the sector at time of writing, most of them due to the financial pressures of COVID-19.
Some 60% of British museums are fighting for their survival, according to Jenny Waldman, Director of the Arts Fund, with many much loved national institutions likely to face permanent closure because of the pandemic.
“Our recent research found that six in ten museums, galleries and historic houses were worried about their survival. Tragically we are now seeing well-known and much-loved museums facing mothballing or permanent closure.”
