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Major changes announced at the Louvre Museum

Major changes announced at the Louvre Museum

Now Louvre director Laurence des Cars has decided to hit the pause button and limit daily admissions to 30,000. Before Covid-19, the museum could receive up to 45,000 people on its busiest days.

With 80% of tickets now issued through a booking service, the new policy should stabilize attendance at between 7.5 and 8 million visitors by 2023, the same levels the museum experienced some 17 years ago.

In a statement, Des Cars said he opted for the change “to make the visit a pleasant experience, especially for first-time museum visitors who account for 60% of admissions.” The Louvre, which welcomed some five million visitors in the late 1990s, has been struggling for years with over-attendancewith long lines outside the glass pyramid or in front of masterpieces like “La Gioconda” of Leonardo da Vinci. In recent years, Louvre employees have gone on strike citing “unprecedented deterioration of conditions.”

Although his predecessor Jean Luc Martinez, had implemented important works to improve visiting conditions, Des Cars says that she is “the first museum director to consciously decide to limit the number of visitors”, taking into account not only the needs of the public but also the staff. As a major two-year renovation of the exhibition gallery begins this month, the Louvre will not be planning any major shows, even as Paris will receive around 10 million visitors during the Olympic Games in the summer of 2024.

When she was appointed in 2021, Des Cars had also announced that she wanted to close the museum an hour later each day to attract more local visitors, but this will not happen before careful planning, including talks with unions, according to a source. well informed. The Louvre, which has some 2,000 employees, has promised to hire 90 agents in 2023 to carry out the proposal.

According to Des Cars’ statement, “the state endowment will increase from 84 to 93 million euros, but this is intended to help the museum cope with rising energy costs, which amount to 10 million euros.” He adds that the government has provided €120 million in exceptional aid to the Louvre since 2020.

The 2022 visitor totals confirm the return of tourism in Paris, a trend that is also reflected in ticket sales to other major cultural sites. For example, the Palace of Versailles registered 6.9 million entries last year, 77% of them foreigners, while the Pompidou Center received 3 million. The figures for these two institutions were respectively 16% and 10% less than in 2019, but the results are still better than expected.

Source: Ambito

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