The Picasso Museum continues to attract visitors, and will close 2024 with a new record: 1.13 million people have passed through its halls this year, 8% more than the previous year. This figure surpasses the highest recorded by the facility to date, which was in 2019, the year prior to the pandemic.
The facility already started the year strong, with the final months of the unrepeatable Miró-Picasso exhibition, which attracted 485,000 visitors to both the museum and the Fundació Miró in the four months it reviewed the relationship between both artists. However, the most visited exhibition this year, with 410,000 people, has been Fernande Olivier, Pablo Picasso and his friends, and the months in which the most significant increase in visits has been noted were between May and October.
It was precisely in May when the museum launched its Picasso Convida campaign, which offers two hours of free access on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday afternoons. Between May and October, the museum received 56,000 more visits than in the same period of the previous year, with another relevant data for the facility: more than half of those who came during these free slots visited the museum for the first time. Initiation into the Picasso universe is also worked on from other spaces, such as activities and visits aimed at schools: this year, 14,000 primary and secondary students have visited the museum.
With these figures and its record of 1.13 million visitors, the Picasso Museum once again stands as the most visited municipal museum. In total, the museums and exhibition centers managed by the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona (Icub) and museums with municipal contributions have received 4.7 million visitors this year, which represents 6% more than the previous year.
This increase has been marked by an increase in visitors to museums such as the Picasso, and also by other factors, such as the reopening of the Centre Martorell d'Exposicions, in the Ciutadella. In addition to Picasso's leadership, the Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria is at the forefront among municipal spaces, nearing a million visitors, with 973,000.
Interest in the past of the Catalan capital has attracted 822,500 people to the Museu d'Història de Barcelona (Muhba), while Montjuïc Castle has received 717,500 visitors, with the exhibition Under the Influence of Gaudí as the most visited, with 169,000 people, followed by Echoes of Memory, with 115,000 so far.
The more than 30,000 people who have visited the exhibitions L'Oceà parla. Noves ecologies i noves economies del mar and 100 IKEA objects we would have liked to have at Vinçon have contributed to the Museu del Disseny having recorded 183,000 visits this year, while the exhibition centers have also closed a good year, such as the Virreina Centre de la Imatge, with a 4% increase in attendance with the exhibition Jeff Wall. Impossible Tales.
And in all of them, 30% of visitors reside in Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia, while the rest come from further afield. Among them, 3% come from the rest of Spain, with Madrid —with 33%---, the Valencian Community and Andalusia —both with 21%--- as the communities that contribute the most visitors.
Internationally, Americans represent 21% of visitors, while 10% are Italians; 9%, French, and 7%, British. In addition, residents of China and South Korea also stand out, with 3% of the total foreign visitors. Thus, Barcelona's cultural offer attracts both local and international audiences, in a context in which the city has identified culture as one of its strengths and wants to use it as a lever to position itself internationally and to attract quality visitors.