Louvre Saw Visitor Numbers Tumble as Olympics Arrived

Paris’sLouvre, the world’s most visited art institution, experienced a sharp drop in attendance ahead of and during the Olympics, which the French capital hosted from July 26 through August 11. Compared with 2023 figures, museum attendance shrank by a stunning 45 percent between July 15 and July 26, the date of the games’ opening ceremony, with just 166,604 visitors arriving. The decline was less marked in the following sixteen-day span from July 27 through August 11, during which attendance fell 22 percent year over year, with a weekly total of 331,759 people—23,644 daily on average—visiting the museum.

Contributing to lackluster attendance in the run-up to the games was the museum’s July 25 and 26 closure, planned to coincide with the opening ceremony and the preparations preceding it. “The museum’s attendance, during this period preceding the opening of the Olympic Games, was strongly impacted by the integration of the museum into the security perimeter set up by the authorities during the nine days preceding the opening ceremony, with restricted access to the Seine quays and the closure of most bridges and certain metro and RER [train] stations,” said a Louvre spokesperson in a statement.

Despite the shortfall, 2024 attendance to date is just 4 percent below that of 2023, with 5,006,071 visitors walking through the museum doors. The Louvre this past January increased its general admission price by 30 percent, from €17 ($18.30) to €22 ($23.70) as costs in the city surged ahead of the Olympics. The price hike, which largely affects tourists, helps to offset the cost of offering free admission to the majority of French visitors, who account for 30 percent of Louvre attendees. Along with daily attendance caps, the increase is part of Louvre director Laurence des Cars’s plan to make the popular museum less crowded, thus providing all guests with a more pleasant experience.