Coronavirus

Louvre visitor numbers plunge 70 per cent

The Mona Lisa by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci in the empty Louvre Museum last Friday. The museum saw a drop of over 70 per cent in visitor numbers last year because of Covid-19 restrictions. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

PARIS • The Louvre, the world's biggest museum, suffered a drop in visitor numbers of over 70 per cent last year as Covid-19 restrictions kept art lovers away, it said last Friday.

Receipts fell by more than €90 million (S$145.8 million) compared with 2019.

The Louvre, which closed for six months during French pandemic lockdowns, saw visitor numbers plunge to 2.7 million last year, from 9.6 million in 2019 and 10.2 million in 2018, which was a record year.

Visits by foreigners, notably from the United States, China, Japan and Brazil, who usually make up three-quarters of total visits, all but dried up, especially during the usually busy summer months.

The museum managed to limit the damage with its blockbuster Leonardo da Vinci exhibition that attracted 1.1 million visitors and ended before the first French lockdown in spring.

It also used the downtime to boost its digital offering, with the number of online subscribers growing by more than a million from 2019 to 9.3 million, and the louvre.fr website registering 21 million hits.

It also found new ways to raise cash, including with the worldwide distribution of the documentary A Night At The Louvre: Leonardo Da Vinci, destined for movie theatres, and Bid For The Louvre, an auction of works by living artists and of "once-in-a-lifetime experiences", which raised €2.4 million.

A live-streamed New Year concert by DJ and songwriter David Guetta, part of a fund-raising drive, attracted 16 million views.

The French government, meanwhile, reported last Friday that income from tourism had dropped by €61 billion, or 41 per cent, last year to €89 billion.

Tourism Minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne called the annual shortfall "a shock", but said France - the world's No. 1 tourist destination - had weathered the pandemic relatively well.

"France has been more resilient than other world destinations," he told France Television, thanks to visitors from neighbouring countries and French people holidaying at home.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 11, 2021, with the headline Louvre visitor numbers plunge 70 per cent. Subscribe