Over 2 million fewer museum visitors in 2021 compared to 2020

Dutch museums saw a further decline in visitor numbers last year, partly due to coronavirus lockdown measures. In 2021, museums attracted 12.3 million visitors, a fall of more than 2 million than a year earlier, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) calculated. Compared to 2019, when Covid-19 first appeared in December, attendance was down 64 percent.

Museums were closed for months in most cases due to pandemic restrictions at the beginning and end of 2021. Even when the institutions were allowed to welcome visitors again, measures such as a maximum number of visitors per square meter were in place.

Some museums, in the meantime, participated in a trial of COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Tests that allowed them to open earlier, but that involved only a handful of institutions, CBS said.

The biggest decline was seen last year among museum-goers from abroad. Whereas in 2019 there were still 10.3 million, in 2021 it was 1.5 million foreign visitors, a drop of more than 85 percent. CBS noted that since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, fewer elderly and disabled people have visited museums.

As a result of the drop in visitors, museums again suffered significant losses in audience revenue. Last year's total was nearly 99 million, a drop of more than 60 percent compared to 2019.

Thanks to government support, most museums ended their fiscal year in the black, according to CBS. In 2021, funding measures totaled more than 145 million euros, in addition to 156 million euros in donations and other private money. In both cases, this was an increase compared to the previous year.