national museum-foreign visitors

▲ This image provided by the National Museum of Korea shows foreign visitors participating in a guided tour of an exhibition at the museum in Seoul. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

national museum-foreign visitors

Number of foreign visitors to National Museum hits record high in 1st half

SEOUL, July 17 (Yonhap) -- The number of foreign visitors to the National Museum of Korea hit a record high of 94,951 in the first half of this year, museum officials said Wednesday.

The figure represents a 34.5 percent increase from 70,585 a year ago and a 55.6 percent rise from pre-pandemic levels in 2019, they said.

They expect the annual number of foreign visitors to reach 200,000 this year if the current trend continues.

The museum attributes the rise to its efforts to diversify exhibition content, aligning with growing global interest in Korean culture and an increase in foreign visitors to the country.

However, the number of local visitors to the museum during the same period decreased by more than 300,000 compared to the previous year.

About 1.55 million Koreans visited the museum during the January-June period, down 16.6 percent from 1.86 million the previous year.

The museum suggests that the decline in domestic visitors might be due to a base effect following multiple popular blockbuster exhibitions that attracted large crowds in the previous year.

Despite the decrease in domestic visitors, the museum continues to be a major cultural attraction. In 2023, it welcomed a total of 4,180,285 visitors, making it the sixth most-visited museum in the world according to a survey of 100 museums and galleries worldwide conducted by the London-based Art Newspaper.

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