Remembering the Summer of 2018, many museums worried that the visitor numbers would suffer from the heat. A first impression in July last year showed that most museums between the Alps and Oslo experienced a decline of 10% or more. However, with the official visitor numbers of almost 100 museums reported to EXARC, we see that the so-called shoulder season, before and after the high season, made up a lot of the damage.

On another note, the Dutch National Institute of Statistics recently reported that prices in museums, zoos et cetera in the Netherlands went up by 17% since Summer 2014 while the total inflation in the same period was 7%. EXARC can report the same in open-air museums across Europe over the past five years with entrance fees in 2019 average at 7,62 EUR for adults and 4,83 EUR for children.

Of course, more than before, visitors don't pay the official fees but get some discount, but the trend is clear. On the one hand, museums have to keep up with the changing expectations of visitors regarding standards of visitor service, on the other hand, subsidies have often gone down, so museums must get their income from other sources.