Visitor numbers below pre-pandemic levels, shows new report

Visitor numbers to museums are still below pre-pandemic levels, according to a report into five year trends in Arts Council England’s Annual Museum Survey.

The report, which covers 2019-2024, is based on data collected through a Museum Development survey of Accredited non-national museums in England.

On average, visitor numbers were down 10%, with 3 in 10 museums reporting that their visitor numbers dropped by a quarter when compared to those prior to the pandemic.

Half of museums saw their visitor numbers drop by more than 10% since the pandemic, while one in four (27%) saw them increase by more than 10%.

However, digital audiences showed positive growth. Three in four museums saw their social media following increase by over 25% since 2019/20, with the average social media following growing by 61% over this five-year period.

The report found that while staffing levels were unchanged, expenditure on staff was up by 32% from 2019 to 2024. A third (33%) saw staffing numbers increase by more than 10% since 2019/20 but 27% saw them reduce by more than 10%.

The report also shows that while opening hours have largely recovered since the eve of the pandemic, they were still down from 2019/20 in more than a third of museums. Similarly, numbers of museum volunteers broadly recovered to pre-pandemic numbers, but 40% of museums reported lower volunteer numbers.

There was further change in museums' engagement with education providers. According to the survey, the average number of education providers museums engaged rose from 11 in 2019/20 to 15 in 2023/24. However, when examining the change for individual museums, engagement was down 12%, with independent museums engaging significantly fewer education participants.

The purpose of the Annual Museum Survey is to gather evidence to help demonstrate the social and economic importance of museums to funders and stakeholders, and to provide museums with data to enable them to benchmark their performance. It is operated by Museum Development South West in partnership with the arts council on behalf of all Museum Development providers in England.

Typically, the Annual Museum Survey will receive over 600 responses from museum sites and over 50 responses from multi-site organisations. The survey is sent to around 1,200 organisations.