In the first post-pandemic year, Croatian museums recorded 3,458,338 visitors. Results of the survey conducted by the Museum Documentation Center (MDC) that yielded a response rate of 85% suggest that the visits to museums increased by 35.6% compared to 2021 but are still below 2019 levels when museums had 5,235,765 visitors.

The Archaeological Museum of Istria and its off-site collection at the Pula Arena are again topping the list of the most visited museums in Croatia. The total of 509,778 visitors in 2022 brought the museum closer to 2018 and 2019 attendance levels, reflecting the surge in tourist arrivals to Istria.

Coming in second are the Museums of Hrvatsko Zagorje with 301,508 visitors (13,4% up on 2019), followed by the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum with 259,493 visits (33% up on 2019). This agile Zagreb Museum achieved a 136% increase in visitor numbers compared to 2021 by organizing numerous exhibitions and educational activities and opening its doors to other Zagreb museums, left without gallery spaces due to the earthquake. The Dubrovnik Museums are fourth with 235,526 visitors, while in fifth place is the Split City Museum which, including the Cellars of Diocletian's Palace, attracted 210,103 visitors.

The most significant increase was recorded in visits to permanent exhibitions (from 1,250,073 in 2021 to 2,093,639 in 2022) and temporary exhibitions (from 450,789 in 2021 to 876,245 in 2022). There was a considerable increase in the number of students who paid four times more visits to museums than in the previous year because of the lifting of coronavirus restrictions.

Almost two-thirds of 912,594 tourists that visited Croatian museums and galleries in 2022 (386,116 more than in 2021) were accounted for by the three most visited museums: the Archaeological Museum of Istria, the Split City Museum, and the Museums of Hrvatsko Zagorje. The Dubrovnik Museums, although located in one of the most prominent tourist destinations in Croatia, still do not keep records of foreign visitors.

Interestingly, Zagreb had 22% of all museum visitors, even though almost half of the museums in the city have been closed for reconstruction. In second place is Pula which attracted 20% of the total number of visitors, and Dubrovnik is third with 11.5%.

Despite the excellent results—considering the circumstances in which Zagreb museums found themselves after the earthquake, including the national museums—the fact is that even after a 35% increase from 2021, visitor figures are still down by 34% on the pre-pandemic attendance, or at the levels that Croatian museums recorded ten years ago.

Visitor survey 2022 (pdf)

(Ivan Guberina, published originally in News from the Museum World 187, 21 February 2023; edited and translated by Ivona Marić)