Schmidt: "state museums can produce a billion a year: must be made more entrepreneurial"

According to the director of the Uffizi, Eike Schmidt, Italian state museums could generate a billion euros a year just with their existing structures, simply by “making them more agile and entrepreneurial,” he said today during an interview with Sky TG 24 on the topic of theeconomy of culture. Schmidt began by referring to the BCG report commissioned last year by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism: a study on the relevance of state museums to Italy’s economy and society, which found that Italian museums have great untapped potential. In fact, BCG estimated that the revenues of Italian museums could reach figures between 800 million and 1 billion euros (compared to the 242 million they generated in 2019, which represents a historical record).

Schmidt, at the broadcaster’s microphones, had his say on how this amount could be generated. “We are already on track,” the Uffizi director said. “Aside from ticketing, in fact, there are still many profitable areas, as is the case of other countries even in Europe: I’m thinking of e-commerce, licensing, merchandising, which so far exists only in more modest forms with us. These services, on the other hand, are not covered by our legislation in this regard, which ultimately dates back to 1992, when at most guidebooks and postcards were sold at the museum, and online sales did not exist.”

According to Schmidt, “the territorialization of responsibilities” is important, and he cites the model of the Umbrian museums, which under the direction of Marco Pierini, head of the National Gallery of Umbria and the Regional Directorate of Museums, are achieving excellent results: “the state museums in Umbria,” Schmidt said, “are a very virtuous model, because they are organized as one big diffuse museum. It would also be a very useful model for the other regions of Italy, because it favors an overall exploitation of collections, simplifying the redistribution of artistic heritage (and resources) in the regions.”

“From World War II onward,” Schmidt explained in conclusion, “the territories were impoverished of many works of art, to move them to the centers and often to warehouses where no one sees them: this follows the logic of the last phase of industrial society; but now, in our digital society, small villages can become attractors for virtuous and green tourism, and therefore the time has come to bring artistic riches back to their places of origin.”

Schmidt: "state museums can produce a billion a year: must be made more entrepreneurial"

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