The average number of staff working in museums is growing, as are the number of visitors.

During 2024, the country's museums recorded a cumulative 51.5 million visitors, representing an increase of 3.1 million compared to the 2023 figures (48.4 million people).

This is the fourth consecutive year with an increase in the number of visits to exhibition venues in Mexico, on the path to a prolonged recovery after the attendance crisis caused by the pandemic, given that in 2020 only 12.7 million visits were reported to the country's museums, less than a fifth of the previous annual figures.

However, the 2024 figure of 51.5 million museum attendees is still below the capacity that museums in Mexico had in the pre-pandemic period, in 2019 for example, when a total of 62.2 million attendees were recorded, and even further behind years like 2017, when attendance was recorded at more than 75 million people.

This is indicated by the latest update of the Museum Statistics carried out by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) , corresponding to the year 2024, based on information provided by 1,203 museums throughout the country, ten more than those reported in 2023 and based on a survey applied this year to 180,903 museum visitors.

Reasons for not attending

Regarding the declines mentioned above, it will be informative to learn about the main reasons a person might identify for not going to a museum.

18.2% of respondents indicated a lack of awareness or promotion of a museum's contents or acknowledged a lack of knowledge about its holdings. Meanwhile, 16.7% of respondents cited a lack of culture or education as their reason for not visiting a venue, suggesting the considerable prevalence of the concept of inaccessibility or exclusion of audiences and perhaps a lack of more effective audience engagement strategies to dispel the image of exclusivity of cultural venues.

On the other hand, 16.2% of people said they simply don't have time to visit a museum , and 14.1% responded similarly: they are not interested, or they lack motivation or are lazy.

Staff working in museums

Among other details, the Museum Statistics show that the main entities with the most museums are Mexico City, Jalisco, the State of Mexico, Coahuila, Guanajuato, and Puebla. However, Nuevo León is the second state with the most visitors to exhibition venues, after the Mexican capital. That is, it has fewer museums, with 48, but receives more visitors than Jalisco or the State of Mexico.

Statistics show that during 2024 , museums in the country , or as far as can be measured with the available information, generated 31,250 jobs , of which 48.4% are directly linked to the institution, that is, by contract, and 15.9% of the operating staff did so through subrogated services, that is, through the provision of external services.

Considering the increase of 10 museums in the recent statistics compared to the previous year, it is worth noting the increase in hired staff in 2024, up from 29,071 to 31,250 people. This increased the average number of staff working for a museum from 24 to 26 in the year-over-year comparison.

On the other hand, 71.1% of museums relied on public resources for their operations, while 11.8% of venues operated solely with self-generated resources, 12.9% operated with private income, and 4.25% operated with mixed resources.

Frequency of visits per year

Returning to the statistics on visits, it is noteworthy that 80.1% of people who visited a museum in 2024 acknowledged that it was their first time visiting a facility of this type.

In contrast, only 7.4% of respondents estimated they had made at least four visits to museums per year.

Also interesting is the section where INEGI considers the length of stay in museums and how this can influence the development of curatorial projects. 56.3% of those surveyed stayed less than an hour , while only 13.7% were able to stay for more than two hours.

Museum visitors in 2024

(Millions of people)

2017: 75.1

2018: 67.7

2019: 62.1

2020: 12.7

2021: 16.4

2022: 37.5

2023: 48.4

2024: 51.5

*** ***

How do people learn about museums?