The margins are not huge, but the Van Gogh Museum's attendance figures have been falling for a few years now. In peak year 2006, 1,677,268 visitors still walked through the vistas; in 2010, there are likely to be only 1,432,000. Even the Rijksmuseum, which remains open despite its renovation, with an expected 900,000 visitors, is still far below the figures of peak year 2006, when it welcomed more than a million people. The decline at the old top is offset by a strong increase in visits at science-experiemce NEMO and, of course, The Hermitage, which, with 650,000 visitors in 2010, continues the growth of previous years.
This is evident from the visit figures for the top Dutch museums announced today by the Dutch Museum Association. As the national trend is still positive, the growth in museum visits is therefore mainly in the region.
Museum De Fundatie in Zwolle saw visitor numbers almost double from 70,000 to 130,000, and Museum Kasteel Hoensbroek also recorded strong growth, as did Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
The trend can perhaps be explained by the lack of major crowd-pullers in the main standings. When those do exist, and museums like the Stedelijk in Amsterdam and the Groninger Museum also return to full numbers, the future could look bright despite the recession, the Museum Association informs.
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