Record increase in visitors to Italian museums in 2023: +22.68%. Colosseum in the lead, the top ten

On the day it reaches one year since its release, 'Musei Italiani', the official app that manages a range of services of state-owned cultural venues throughout the country, celebrates a history of imperious growth. The system has been enriched with an increasing number of facilities and, for those that do exist, up-to-date information is available and, above all, the possibility of purchasing admission tickets online. For ticketing management, 130 of these over 400 already benefit from the direct management system offered by the platform, designed to integrate with any physical cash systems or digital totems on site and free of intermediation costs. An important innovation, it was noted during the presentation at the Ministry of Culture, "if we consider that most of these had never had the opportunity to manage - and therefore set up - an entrance ticket, or did not have any form of e-ticketing or electronic payment on site".

"The app represents a further step in the direction of modernisation and digitalisation, which is one of the objectives set by the European Union," summarises Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano. "In recent years, Italian museums have grown enormously in terms of the quality of their offer. They already had an intrinsic value of course, but to their historical value we have combined the quality of the offer, because a museum must also be usable. Alongside protection, we must therefore put enhancement on the agenda. And the figures show that the system is bearing fruit: in 2023, both visitors and revenue increased almost exponentially. In fact, the growing trend shows, in the Mic's figures, that 2023 closed with almost 314 million euro in revenue and over 57 million visitors, or +22.68% compared to 2022.

406 national museums and places of culture are included in the app, notes the general director of museums Massimo Osanna, 'and of these as many as 130 have the possibility of direct purchase, i.e. without a concessionaire'. This is a small 'revolution' on the part of the ministry in line with Minister Sangiuliano's policy, which noted that many places were free of charge. This 'was not a question of democracy, but due to the fact that these places were not considered. Paying a ticket also means more resources for those museums'. The application is fully financed by the Pnrr accessibility: 'it is one of its ripest fruits,' adds Osanna. "Gradually all museums will be able to enter it, including non-state museums, because it is designed for the entire Italian museum system, which consists of around 4,700 museums."

The Colosseum Archaeological Park with Palatine and Roman Forum is the most visited cultural site in 2023 with 12,298,246 visitors. In second place is the Pantheon, which still had free admission in the first half of 2023 (5,196,106). Third place for the Uffizi Gallery with 5,138,588 visitors. Following in the top ten are: the Archaeological Park of Pompeii 4,087,164, the Accademia Gallery in Florence 2,013,914, Castel Sant'Angelo 1,321,834, the Egyptian Museum in Turin 1,061,157, Reggia di Caserta 934,029, Villa Adriana and Villa d'Este 748,656, Vittoriano and Palazzo Venezia 639,744.

"We are generous with free museums, like on Sundays but also on national holidays, 'young people do not pay' under the age of 15 and there are protected categories. At the press conference, Minister Sangiuliano invited 'fellow journalists' to make a comparison with other European nations. "For the rest, we must charge the ticket', also to 'guarantee resources for the museum itself'. And he closes with a singular example. "I made Elon Musk pay for the Pantheon's ticket, but if he doesn't pay for it, who should?".