October 2016
Featured in this insight: Culture, heritage & leisure
Terrorism cited as one reason museum footfall is down: According to the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (Alva), one reason why the footfall is down in English national museums and galleries could be to do with the current terrorism threat.
The museum professionals in the survey also suggested that hot weather and programming changes could be other potential factors.
Figures from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) have shown that the amount of visitors to museums has decreased since April. From April to August 2016-17, museums sponsored by the DCMS saw 21,208,193 visitors, in comparison to 22,478,905 for the same period last year.
These figures come despite the fact that the UK has experienced the highest numbers of inbound overseas tourists.
The data has revealed that nearly every national museum and gallery has been impacted by the decline in footfall, with just 36 reporting a rise in footfall.
Some of the museums and galleries which reported an increase were: the National Gallery, the Tate Modern, National Museums Liverpool, Locomotion – the National Railway Museum at Shildon, Royal Armouries Leeds, and Royal Armouries Fort Nelson.
On the less positive side, The Natural History Museum was seen to have lost close to 500,000 visitors, falling from 2.54 million to 2.06 million. Further to this, the Tate Britain fell by more than 100,000 visitors.
The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions monthly data showed that there was a decrease in people visiting Central London attractions from overseas, UK school groups and school groups. This comes even though there has been a rise in visitors to attractions outside of the capital.
The findings also uncovered that satisfaction with local authority museums and galleries has stayed at 46 per cent, which is the same level recorded in 2014.
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