Visits to Norwegian museums continue to increase

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The number of recorded visits to Norwegian museums exceeded 11 million in both 2015 and 2016. The increase from 2015 to 2016 was just less than 4 per cent.

This corresponds to a rise of more than 400 000 visits from 2015. The numbers are adjusted for five museums that are no longer defined as a museum. In 2016, five museums were taken out of the museum population because they do not have their own collections. Despite the change of the population, the visits still managed to surpass 11 million. Museum visits have increased almost every year since 2007. 

Museum visits

Visits to museums to look at and use the exhibitions and dissemination services in the museums. Visits to open air museums during the opening time of a museum. Persons in the museum area attending other events do not count. Visits to websites do not count.

Over time, there have been more individual visits to museums and fewer group visits to museums in Norway. In 2016, the number of individual visits counted for 79 per cent of the 11.2 million visits in the museums. In 2007, the individual visits counted for 73 per cent. Half of the visitors paid an admission charge in 2016. In 2007, the share of paying visitors was higher, at 53 per cent. 

Reduction in collections

Collections in Norwegian museums include art history, cultural history, natural history, photographic and archaeological artefacts. The collections had a total of 55 million items in 2016, which is 1 per cent less than the year before.

Figure 1. Visits to museums in Norway

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Total visits¹ 9060639 9330587 10193903 10195986 10183842 10548193 10573670 10665595 10944898 10861966 11315283 11217246
Individual visits 6343510 6786383 7409121 7552901 7632755 8070117 7924641 7990023 8207155 8277826 8877709 8884042
Visitors in groups 2717129 2544204 2784782 2643085 2551087 2478076 2649029 2675572 2737743 2584140 2437574 2333204

Figur 2

Figure 2. Collections in Norwegian museums 2016

Consolidation in the museum sector gives fewer museums

This report for 2015 covers a total of 115 museums, all of which remained open last year and had at least one FTE.

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