DCMS funded museums show best visitor footfall since March 2020 7 Sep 2022

Although still far from business as usual, the latest statistics for visitor footfall in DCMS funded museums have recovered in the last quarter to a figure not seen since March 2020.

• There were 8,330,356 visitors across (largely national) DCMS funded museums in the period April – June 2022. This is a significant rise from the three previous quarters, where audiences of just over 5 million were recorded, including 5,359,393 in the January – March 2022 period.
• Audiences have not been so high since January – March 2020, when 8,875,428 were recorded: however, museums were still shut for the first time in the last fortnight of this period in the first pandemic lockdown. Normal quarterly visits prior to this point fluctuated between 11 – 14 million.

These figures fit with a picture of declining anxiety about Covid-19, but with growing impact of the costs of living crisis and a long term depression on international visits in particular (see Visit Britain sentiment figures in September 2022 newsletter). Gov.uk