Museums face growing competition from ‘slick’ digital experiences

There's a growing gap between what visitors expect from their experience and what cultural attractions are delivering, a new report has found.

Curating Connection: Transforming Visitor Engagement in the Cultural Sector was produced by the digital experience agency Manifesto and explores how visitors engage with cultural attractions.

Based on research with 2,000 UK visitors and 300 sector leaders, the white paper aims to provide a practical blueprint on how to overcome internal barriers and bridge the gap between expectation and delivery. 

The report found that museums and galleries are increasingly in competition with “slick commercial experiences and streaming services”.

It said: “In the past decade, technology and data have transformed how people experience culture Audiences now have endless alternatives: streaming services like Netflix and Apple TV, immersive pop-ups, virtual art experiences, creator-led storytelling on TikTok and YouTube. For younger audiences especially, the 'cultural fix' increasingly happens outside traditional institutions.”

The report also found that museums face internal challenges including “fragmented internal operations, disconnected technology, and risk-averse cultures that create disappointing visitor experiences”.

The report argues that lower audience engagement when booking or visiting a cultural attraction can become a vicious circle, affecting footfall going forward.

This is contributing to lower-than-average visitor numbers in the sector, according to the report, with 2024 figures showing annual visits to regional attractions outside the capital have fallen by 50% since 2018.

Lower engagement is attributed to a combination of pressure points:

• High visitor expectations: Only 30% of visitors remain engaged after a visit, and this is only if their expectations were exceeded during their experience.
• Tightening budgets: Between 2009 and 2019, local authority spending on museums fell by 23%, limiting capacity for innovation.
• Disconnected teams: “When the website promises one thing but staff say another, trust breaks, and engagement fades,” says the report. Only 36% of leaders say teams work closely together across functions and 54% say collaboration happens “with challenges”, impacting the visitor experience.

However the research confirmed that, despite lower footfall, audiences have not stopped caring about culture, with 47% of visitors saying they are driven by curiosity and a desire to learn something new. 

Meanwhile 87% of sector leaders ranked audience engagement among their top three organisational priorities, and nearly half (47%) described themselves as ‘very ready’ to evolve. 

The report found that fragmented internal operations are holding organisations back and innovation is stifled by a “lack of collaboration and courage to make change”.

One in five respondents identified siloes as an explicit barrier to engagement and 26% said they struggle integrating new approaches into existing processes.  

Only 36% of leaders said their teams work closely together, while 56% of organisations said they avoid change without “overwhelming proof”, which could hold back innovation. While 87% of leaders felt they knew their audiences, 23% said they were not using data effectively to make decisions.

The research found that the most powerful tool to improve audience engagement is the experience itself.

Recommendations and return visits account for 37% of all visits – more than search, paid media or social channels – and 30% of visitors stay engaged after a visit, but only if their expectations are exceeded.

“When they’re not, disengagement is silent,” the report said. “Building engagement with audiences is therefore the most important driver to restoring relevance with audiences, and in turn, bringing visitor numbers back.”

Manifesto’s strategy principal consultant for engagement, Lou Barton, said: “The way audiences consume culture today has changed a lot in the past five years. The engagement bar has been set incredibly high by the digital world, but this presents a huge opportunity for cultural organisations to capitalise on audience enthusiasm and keep visitors coming back.”

“This report shows that audiences are ready to connect, but institutions are struggling to evolve. The visitor experience is a mirror of the internal experience. When operations are in silos, the audience feels it. This report provides a practical blueprint for making the internal shift required to close the audience engagement gap.”

Josephine Chanter, deputy director of the Design Museum, said: “Audiences today are incredibly sophisticated, and museums and galleries are facing huge competition for eyeballs and attention. Pair this with the industry being really stretched in terms of resources, and we’re facing an engagement problem.

“At the Design Museum, we see this as an opportunity to innovate. We’re reimagining visitor engagement by leveraging technology and data to really understand our audiences and deliver experiences that consistently exceed expectations across all physical and digital touchpoints. This can’t be done successfully without making sure our teams are aligned internally.” 

Bouncing back

A recent survey by Museum Development England, funded by Arts Council England, indicates that footfall is finally starting to bounce back after a sluggish post-pandemic recovery.

The Annual Museums Survey 2025, published last month, engaged 692 non-national Accredited museums to provide a comprehensive report on the state of the sector in England.

The research found that museums on average have regained pre-pandemic visitor levels, reporting a year-on-year increase in visits since 2021.

Overall staff numbers, and the proportion in full time employment are slightly higher than their pre-pandemic levels, and 70% of museums feel positive about their organisation’s prospects for the next year.

“This progress is welcome but can only go so far, and systemic financial pressures mean there are still obstacles to overcome. However, as demonstrated by the survey, there is value in investing in the sector, as targeted funding is used to maximise outcomes, drive growth, and deliver positive community outcomes,” said Emmie Kell, director of museums and cultural property at Arts Council England.

An analysis exploring visitor figures in museums will be in the January/February 2026 issue of Museums Journal