Cour Marly - Louvre Museum - Paris © Jean-Christophe Benoist via Wikimedia
The Louvre in Paris, which is the most-visited museum in the world, will now only let 30,000 people in each day, according to a press release from the museum on Thursday. This is to make sure that visitors are comfortable and that museum workers can do their jobs well. Before the pandemic, up to 45,000 people could visit the Louvre every day. When the Louvre reopened in July 2020 after being locked down for 16 weeks, it did not officially limit the number of people who could visit. However, attendance was down because of the ongoing pandemic and restrictions on international travel.
In June 2022, not long after it was announced that Laurence des Cars would be the next president-director but before she took over on September 1, the museum quietly decided to limit the number of people who could visit each day. Des Car said in a statement, "The very good numbers for 2022 are very encouraging for all of our staff. I hope that people who go to the Musée du Louvre enjoy their time there, especially the 60% of them who are going there for the first time. We are working harder than ever to make the museum a better place to visit and to keep offering a high-quality program and a wide range of live performances that fit with what's going on at the museum.
The Louvre announced its official attendance numbers for 2022, which included the official change in the number of people who visit each day. Last year, it had 7.8 million visitors, which is 120% more than in 2021 but 19% less than its peak of 9.6 million in 2019. The museum said that travel restrictions continued to hurt attendance in the first quarter, but that increased attendance in the last three quarters "showed a strong positive trend." With this change, the Louvre, which is already closed every Tuesday and on three national holidays, will be able to host up to 9.3 million people in 2023. 30 percent of the 7.8 million people who went to the Louvre in 2022 were French. The other 70 percent were from other countries, with 18 percent coming from the U.S. Even though there was a small increase at the end of the year, the report says that there were almost no visitors from Asia. More numbers show that 45 percent of visitors were under 25 years old, 60 percent were first-time visitors, and the Louvre's Friday evening hours helped 225,000 people.
Selena Mattei