Italy. Not all figures are known, but the general trend attests to it: Italian museums broke new attendance records in 2024. The Pinacotèque de Brera in Milan has for the first time in its history exceeded half a million visitors, exactly 545,719, an increase of 14 % over a year. The Colosseum in Rome had already exceeded in October 2024 the 13 million admissions recorded in 2023. The Galerie des Offices de Florence borders on the threshold of 5.5 million visitors, an increase of 3 %. The Barberini Palace, with around 300,000 people having crossed its doors, has a 40 % increase in attendance. That of the Borghese gallery, on the other hand, is very light to stand at nearly 600,000 visitors.
The Directorate General of Italian Museums thus provides for a new splendor year in 2024 after a 2023 assessment which entered the annals of the Ministry of Culture. Never the 25 largest museums and state-owned patrimonial sites that year had hosted as many visitors (57.7 million) or garnered so many revenues (for the first time, the 300 million euros ceiling had been exceeded with nearly 314 million euros). An increase of 34 % over one year and 30 % per comparison with the period preceding the COVVI-19 pandemic. But the balance sheet was not brilliant for everyone. The national archaeological museum of Taranto, despite the richness of its collections, received only 75,000 people against 82,000 in 2016, while the National Museum of Villa Giulia stagnated at around 80,000 visitors. In Naples the attendance of the Capodimonte Museum fell to 174,000 visitors against 252,000 in 2019 and the National Archaeological Museum, after years of growth, had a stop with 553,000 visitors against 670,000 in 2019.
A peak of 36,000 visitors recorded one day in Pompeii
A decline that the exceptional tourist season of 2024 will have stopped. According to the Italian National Tourism Office, the number of arrivals in the peninsula has exceeded forecasts with nearly 72.1 million tourists welcomed (+ 6.3 %). The boot entered the ranking of the ten most sought after destinations last summer, according to the World Economic Forum.
If tourism is perceived as an economic windfall which generates 6.2 % of the country’s GDP and supports an increasingly stagnant economy, the masses of visitors who spill on this fragile heritage are increasingly considered a threat. From Florence to Venice, cities of art try to stem as they can these uncontrolled tourist flows. Latest example, the archaeological site of Pompeii. During the summer of 2024, he attracted a record number of 4 million people, an increase of 33.6 % compared to the previous year. A peak of 36,000 visitors was even recorded during a day. A risk for security as well as people and the site who forced its director, Gabriel Zuichtriegel, to establish a gauge of 20,000 visitors per day since November 15 in order to mitigate the consequences of this overcrowding. This threshold is accompanied by the launch of a new nominal and horodate ticket. Little chances that it is dissuasive, as well as the tax of 5 euros which the visitors must pay for a day also established in 2024 in Venice. But even if it had to be the case, the directors of Italian museums do not have to fear an inflection of the foreign presence. Because attracting nationals remains one of their main challenges: only a third of them visit them regularly.
