German museums and exhibition centres continue their upward trend. Over 106 million museum visits in 2009
Press release from 11/30/2010
Museums in Germany reported a total of 106,820,203 museum visits in 2009. This represents an increase of 1.9 per cent compared to 2008. The Institute for Museum Research at the National Museums in Berlin, an institution of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, in co-operation with the German Museums Association, has now announced these figures. The results are part of the overall statistical survey of museums and exhibition centres in the Federal Republic of Germany, which is compiled annually by the Institute for Museum Research.
As before, new openings, special exhibitions and events, the expansion of public relations work and the development of the educational programme are an important factor in the number and increase in museum visits. The increase in museum visits in 2009 varied depending on the federal state and the type of museum. For example, the opening of the Museum Brandhorst in Munich in early summer 2009 contributed to the fact that more museum visits were counted in the Free State of Bavaria than in the previous year. The same applies to the museum landscape in Baden-Württemberg, where the reopening of the Porsche Museum led to an outstanding annual result.
For Germany as a whole, there was a particularly significant increase in historical and archaeological museums as well as science and technology museums, followed by specialist cultural history museums and natural history museums.
Visitor numbers to exhibition centres also increased in 2009
The Institute for Museum Research also calculates the number of visitors to exhibition centres that do not have their own collection but predominantly show non-commercial exhibitions of a museum nature. For 2009, 308 exhibition centres reported a total of 6,422,298 visits.
Here too - as with the museums - there was a slight increase compared to 2008, when 6,185,463 visits were recorded. The number of visits to exhibition centres is not included in the total number of visits to museums.
In 2009, museums and exhibition centres together recorded over 113 million visits.
Dr Volker Rodekamp, President of the German Museums Association, comments: "It is very pleasing that the public's interest in what museums and exhibition centres have to offer continues to grow. In 2009, museums in Germany showed 9,272 exhibitions. The exhibition centres reported a total of 1,781 exhibitions, 88 percent of which were art exhibitions."
Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, commented on this on behalf of the museums of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation: "The success of our museums is based on their unique collections as well as on their scientifically sound and visitor-orientated presentations. This is particularly evident in the Neues Museum, which reopened in October 2009. The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin reach millions of visitors every year and offer many a reason to visit Berlin."
Further information and data on the German museum landscape in 2009 can be found in the short report, which can be downloaded from the website of the Institute for Museum Research. There will also be a 96-page publication of the complete results of the "Statistical overall survey of museums in the Federal Republic of Germany for 2009", which contains information on the individual federal states in addition to the presentation of museum visits by type of museum. The annual special topic in this issue deals with the subject of public relations and advertising in the museums surveyed. The publication appears in the series "Materialien aus dem Institut für Museumsforschung", issue 64 (2010) and will be available for download from December 2010. A printed version of the publication can be requested free of charge (Institut für Museumsforschung, In der Halde 1, 14195 Berlin, Tel. 030/8301 460, Fax: 030/8301 504).
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