The number of museum visits fell by 60 percent in 2020 compared to a year earlier, to 13.2 million. In 2019 that was still 33 million. For this year, the Museum Association expects a further decrease to 9.7 million visits, the sector organization reports in its annual figures.
The association cites the mandatory closure of museums as a result of the corona crisis, the restrictions on the number of visitors allowed and the strong decline in tourism in general as the main causes. The decrease in foreign visits was 82 percent: from 10 million in 2019 to 1.8 million in 2020. The association therefore calls on the outgoing cabinet to continue the emergency support for the museum sector, in this year and in 2022.
Due to the large drop in the number of visits, museums’ own revenues halved, by 250 million euros. That was only partly compensated by emergency support, the association reports: about 149 million euros, mainly from the national government. Larger museums in particular benefited from this, smaller museums have had to draw on their reserves relatively much because they are more dependent on volunteers and support from the municipality.
Catch-22
Museums have had to cut spending to compensate for the decline in revenues: the number of exhibitions fell by about 29 percent (from 2256 to 1605), and the workforce was reduced by about 16 percent: about 6800 employees lost their jobs, including many interns and volunteers. In 2021, further layoffs are expected at about a third of the museums, the association reports.
Smaller museums in particular now have a problem, says director Jan van Kooten in an interview with NRC: they largely run on volunteers, so they received no wage support for staff and had difficulty in making cutbacks. In order to get on top of that, they must still receive emergency support until the next year, he believes. “There’s actually a catch-22 The situation has arisen: the support is disappearing and the reserves have been depleted, but in order to get out of this crisis, museums must be able to invest.”
–
