Everywhere in France, museums and monuments are reviving attendance. The return of foreign tourists, with the exception of the Chinese, has a lot to do with it. And even if these good figures are good news for the sector, the Louvre Museum, for example, does not want to return to the record of 10 million visitors in 2018.
From the Covid pandemic, the museums will have learned one thing, the gauges and the reservations on the internet allow a better experience for the visitor, which it would be necessary to be able to extend while the frequentations are again at the zenith. Small and large establishments are announcing very good figures for 2022.
In Paris, the Musée d’Orsay and the Orangerie have 4.2 million visitors, the Center Pompidou 3 million, the Louvre less than 8 million and the Center des Monuments Nationaux 10 million, the Arc de Triomphe and the Sainte Chapelle in head.
In the regions, a new local public, born of health restrictions, has enabled excellent museum attendance, with, for example, a record for the Château de Chambord, visited by one million people, two-thirds of whom are French.
We can be delighted with this good economic situation, which nevertheless hides a challenge, the management of mass tourism. The return of tourists at the end of 2022 to Paris has created endless queues in front of museums, even full slots over several days at the Louvre. Its president, Laurence des Cars, has moreover announced that she does not wish to reconnect with attendance records and that she will henceforth limit the number of visitors to 30,000 per day in order to ensure better visitor comfort, the great challenge for the years to come.