Italian museums attract the world: two out of three visitors are foreigners

Italian museums are increasingly speaking foreign languages. In fact, two out of three visitors come from abroad, with a clear prevalence of U.S., British and Spanish tourists. This is one of the most relevant data to emerge from theMidaTicket Big Data and Places of Culture Observatory, the first study in Italy based on a data-driven approach that analyzes visitor behavior. The report was presented this morning at the Egyptian Museum in Turin during the “Big Data and Places of Culture” conference, organized by MidaTicket in collaboration with Rear, in the presence of key players in the cultural sector.

The Observatory, carried out with the analytical support of formules S.r.l. and the scientific curatorship of Professor Guido Guerzoni of Bocconi University, examined a database of 35.7 million tickets and more than 1.5 billion data collected over a two-year period (2023-2024) in more than 200 Italian cultural venues, offering a detailed overview of tourist flows and fruition dynamics.

The survey involved museums (45.1 percent), archaeological areas (3.4 percent), monuments (27 percent), parks, historic gardens and nature sites (7.8 percent), as well as other exhibition venues (13.2 percent), including state institutions as well as private and ecclesiastical entities. The aim is to fill the lack of systematic studies in the field and encourage the adoption of innovative tools for the management and enhancement of cultural heritage.

Italians still prefer physical ticketing, but pay digital

Among the main evidences are those on ticketing policies: it thus emerged that in the two-year period 2023-2024, paying visitors prevailed, accounting for 73.6 percent of the total, according to the study, compared to the national average surveyed by Istat in 2022 of 60.25 percent (the discrepancy, the Observatory explains, is the result of different computational approaches: the MidaTicket sample, for example, includes 184 cultural venues, while Istat 454). Full tickets are the most frequent admission ticket (paid in 71.5 percent of cases), followed by reduced tickets (20.5 percent) and group tickets (7.1 percent). The average full ticket price in the MidaTicket sample is equivalent to about 15 euros, more than double the price recorded in Italian institutions in 2023 (6.9 euros versus 4.1 in 2007).

One of the most interesting aspects concerns the way tickets are purchased. Six out of ten Italians continue to buy their tickets on the spot, but the percentage of sales at physical cashiers has dropped from 71 percent in 2023 to 61 percent in 2024, while online purchases have increased from 25 percent to 34 percent. Electronic payments are also growing steadily, chosen by 73% of visitors. Also interesting is the data on the booking window, or the time between purchase and visit: those who buy a ticket for a museum do so on average 3.7 days before the visit, while for a temporary exhibition the period is extended up to 21 days. The report also shows that weekends remain the peak attendance time (40 percent of the total), while Mondays, the traditional closing day for many facilities, record the lowest visitor attendance (10.6 percent).

However, the analysis shows the extreme fragmentation of Italian pricing policies: tickets for families, children, seniors, journalists, students, teachers, disabled, guides, 18app and more often with different policies from museum to museum.

Who visits Italian museums?

While Italian audiences are shrinking to 30 percent-a sharp decline from the 58 percent found by Istat in 2022-foreigners dominate attendance at Italian museums. Americans account for the largest share (11.3 percent), followed by British (9.7 percent) and Spanish (8.5 percent).

The distribution of weekly visits shows a predictable but not expected concentration of visits during weekends. Almost 40 percent of total visits occur between Saturday and Sunday, another 40 percent are equally distributed between Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, while Monday, when many cultural sites are traditionally closed, is confirmed as the day with the lowest attendance 10.6 percent.

A new tool for the cultural sector

The MidaTicket Observatory is not only a snapshot of the present, but an opportunity for cultural venue managers to adapt strategies and access policies based on hard data. The use of big data could become a key resource for improving fruition and optimizing Italy’s cultural offer, more effectively intercepting the needs of an increasingly international and digitized audience.

“MidaTicket in 2024 became the first ticketing system in Italy in the cultural sector (Museums, Monuments and Temporary Exhibitions) by number of tickets issued,” says Sergio Bellini, CEO of MidaTicket. "An extraordinary achievement that coincided with an important awareness: by analyzing the data we managed, it became evident how it was an information asset of extraordinary value for the national panorama of the world of culture. From this responsibility was born the first ’Big Data and Places of Culture Observatory’ ever realized in Italy. A study developed according to a data-driven approach, designed to return a representative and highly meaningful key to the current scenario, in a historical moment in which an accurate analysis of data is essential for a more conscious, efficient and sustainable management. The goal of the Observatory is to help increase the degree of awareness and knowledge of those involved in the sector, becoming a tool, replicable year after year, that is essential to support the strategic choices of operators of cultural places."

“MidaTicket’s Big Data and Places of Culture Observatory is a listening and dialogue tool at the service of policy makers, cultural institutions, professional communities and businesses in the sector,” stresses Guido Guerzoni, professor at Bocconi University and CEO of formules. “The collection, processing, interpretation, representation and sharing of data can assist the development of innovative strategies, which in the name of efficiency and sustainability can improve the enjoyment, management and enhancement of the national cultural heritage.”

Also participating in the initiative is Rear, which for more than four decades has been working to make cultural venues more accessible, efficient and attentive to the needs of the public. “The experience gained over these decades has taught us that the quality of cultural services depends not only on reception, but also on the ability to understand the needs of visitors and translate them into concrete strategies,” says Antonio Munafò, President of Rear. “For this reason, we have chosen to contribute to the Big Data and Places of Culture Observatory, providing our know-how to support cultural institutions in adopting advanced analytical tools. The goal is to improve the audience experience and make cultural places more connected to the territory and its communities.”

Italian museums attract the world: two out of three visitors are foreigners

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