World's Top Art Museums Still Reeling From Pandemic Shock

With attendance figures climbing up to almost eight million, the Musée du Louvre in Paris was the most visited art museum in 2022 according to The Art Newspaper as well as the museum with the highest visitor number worldwide in 2021 according to the 2021 Museum Index by TEA and AECOM. While the Louvre and many other art museums were able to bounce back from the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, the most popular attractions have yet to reach pre-pandemic levels - with one exception.

In 2022, 3.4 million people visited the National Museum of Korea in Seoul, which moved several times during and after the Korean War and has been housed in Yongsan Family Park since 2005. This marks an uptick of two percent compared to 2019, the only museum in the top 8 being able to improve on their visitor numbers in 2022 compared to before the pandemic. Leading institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom are lagging behind the most when it comes to regaining pre-pandemic attendance figures, with the British Museum, the Tate Modern and the Met still falling short by 34 to 36 percent.

As data from UNESCO shows, there were about 103,842 museums around the world in 2021, around two thirds of which were situated in Western Europa, Canada and the United States. The market size of the museum, historical sites, zoos and parks sector was estimated to be $60.6 billion in 2022 and is expected to rise to $97.9 billion in 2023.