Approximately 3.3 million guests visited museums and related activates in Iceland in 2023 compared with 3.2 million guests the year before, which equates to a 2.3% increase. In both years, most museum visits were in the Capital region, about 1.9 million.
Historical museums and natural museums were the most visited types of museums in 2023, 1.4 million guests and 1 million guests respectively. The biggest increase between 2022 and 2023 was for historical museums by 12.6%. In addition, historical and natural museums were the most visited museums over the five-year period.
Visitors increased considerably for collection and heritage museums between 2021 and 2022, 129.5% increase for historical museums, 76.8% for art museums, and 122.9% for natural museums. However, zoos only saw a 1.0% increase. There was a major decrease in museum visits from 2020 to 2021, but visits to zoos were more stable.
Foreign guests
Foreign guests were about two thirds of total museum guests in 2019 (64.0%). The year after, when lockdown was enforced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of museum visits decreased significantly with the number of foreign guests decreasing by 38.0 percentage points and became only about one fourth of guests that year.
Between the years 2021 and 2022, the number of foreign guests increased by 183.0% and went over the 60.0% mark again, about 60.9% in 2022 and 62.2% in 2023.
About the data
The museum council has an independent data collection for the recognised museums in Iceland and delivers the data to Statistics Iceland according to an agreement.
Information about other museums, exhibitions, botanical gardens and related activities are collected via questionnaire. The list of museums is not exhaustive and is updated each year in accordance with available information.
In 2022, Statistics Iceland received data from 123 operators out of 134 which equates to a 91.8% response rate. In 2023, 103 operators send in their data out of 138 which equates to a 74.6% response rate. Thereof, only 86 operators made a distinction between Icelandic and foreign visitors in 2022 and 67 operators in 2023.