The Museum Council collects information about the activities of recognized museums in Iceland and submits this information to the Museum Council. Statistics Iceland. Statistics Iceland then processes the data further and also collectsinformation on other museum activities in annual data collection. The report states that the number of museum visitors in general decreased by 45% between 2019 and 2020 at 112 museums and museum activities, of which the number of foreign visitors decreased the most.
If examined the data behind the news, it can be seen that museum visitors to recognized museums and main museums decreased by 71%, Icelanders by 52%, while foreign visitors decreased by 91%, which means that the impact has been proportionally worse for recognized museums and main museums than for all museum activities in the country as a whole.
It should be kept in mind that behind these figures are only 33 recognized museums and main museums in 2019 and 31 museums in 2020. The Museums Council will publish a comparison of the activities of recognized museums in 2019-2021 at the end of 2022.
Statistics Iceland news:
"The number of museum visitors decreased by 45% between 2019 and 2020"
Visitors to museums, centers, exhibitions and related activities decreased by 45% between 2019 and 2020. The largest decrease was in visitors to history museums, or by 54%, and then to art museums, by 47%. Visitors to nature museums also decreased by 29% and visitors to zoos by 21%. Looking at the regions, the largest decrease was in the Northeastern part of Iceland, or by 79%, and in the West, by 66%. Visitors decreased in all regions except in the East, where they increased by 7%, or by over 13 thousand.
The number of foreign museum visitors decreased by 84.9% between 2019 and 2020, while domestic visitors decreased by 21.4%. In 2020, domestic museum visitors accounted for 76.7% of the total number of visitors, while foreign visitors accounted for 23.3%, marking the first time since 2013 that domestic museum visitors were in the majority, while between 2015 and 2019 the proportion of domestic visitors ranged from 33 to 49%. Relatively, the number of foreign visitors decreased the most at art museums, or by 92.9%, and the least at natural history museums, by 65.9%. Domestic visitors decreased at all types of museums except natural history museums.
The number of regular museum exhibition days during the summer also decreased between years. Thus, the number of museums that were open 6-7 days a week during the summer decreased from 104 to 98, while the number of museums without regular exhibition days during the summer increased from 3 to 9.
About the data
Information on recognized museums comes from reports that recognized museums submit to the Museum Council annually. Information on other museums is collected by Statistics Iceland from the museums themselves in an annual data collection.A total of 123 museums, centres, exhibitions, gardens and related activities submitted information on their activities in 2020, the lowest number since 2002. Of these, 112 submitted information on the number of visitors, while 115 submitted the same information the previous year. It is worth mentioning that Statistics Iceland's list of operating museums, centres, exhibitions, gardens and related activities is not exhaustive, but is updated annually based on the information that is available at any given time.
