A survey conducted by the Network of European Museums Organisations (NEMO) among 600 museums in 48 countries, including 13 in Croatia, shows that 70% of museums are closed due to the pandemic although no case of COVID-19 transmission to visitors has been recorded in such institutions in Europe.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, NEMO has been following the impact of the spread of the coronavirus on museums, the Croatian Museum Documentation Centre (MDC) has recently reported.

Many museums which responded to the latest survey have reported that they are closed for a second time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over 70% of the museums reported they were closed during the period of the survey without definite re-opening date.

“The second mandated closure was decided without consultation and despite existing and well-functioning hygiene protocols that museums developed and implemented in their facilities and while no case of COVID-19 transmission to visitors was recorded in museums in Europe,” according to the findings of NEMO’s second survey. It follows NEMO’s initial survey, report and recommendations about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on museums from May 20201 during the first lockdown.

As many as 88% of the museums covered by the survey reported a visitor drop during the crisis.

“Even during the summer months of 2020, when museums were open again to the public, 5 out of 10 museums reported a drop between 25-75% of visitors, while 2 in 10 museums even reported a visitor drop of more than 75%.”

The drop-in visitors resulted mainly from the drop in global tourism (73%), the discontinuation of
school programmes (64%) and outreach and community programmes in general (50%), and increased safety protocols only allowing a fraction of visitors in the museum at the same time (53%), while a minority of museums (3%) said that they were not equipped to open due to lacking safety and hygiene features.

MDC survey: Most museums in Croatia report revenue losses and drop-in visits

The Museum Documentation Centre also carried out an online survey on the impact of the pandemic on Croatian museums, which has shown that 74% of the surveyed museums have recorded a drop in the number of visitors of 50 to 100%, and nearly two thirds (63%) have seen a drop in revenue of more than 50%.

Of the 162 museums from the Register of Private and Public Museums in the Republic of Croatia, 97 museums (60%) took part in the survey, and data was collected for the period from 1 January to 31 October 2020.

The survey on the impact of COVID on Croatian museums was conducted before the end of the year so that exact indicators could be presented at the annual meeting of the European Group on Museum Statistics, which was held at the end of November.