For the fourth consecutive year, we have collected data on museum online visitors. Out of 171 museums entered in the Register of Public and Private Museums in the Republic of Croatia, 77% responded to the survey.

In 2023, the total number of active visitors to museum websites was 5,224,805, as reported by 94 museums, 25% more than in 2022 (99 museums).

The most visited areas of museum websites are online collections, with 559,460 visits (37 responses), an increase compared to 454,499 in 2022; virtual/online exhibitions recorded 84,759 visits (39 responses), 55% less than the previous year. In 2023, the interest in virtual tours slightly increased (748,647 visits, 31 responses); in contrast, online education programs recorded a decline in the number of responses (from 24 to 19) but also in the number of visits, from 76,753 in 2022 to 52,007 in 2023. Live online events dropped from 25,158 to 18,124 visits, not surprisingly considering that in-person contact with people and holdings was allowed after the end of the COVID-19 crisis, which led to the organization of fewer online events.

In terms of tracking website traffic, there are still obstacles to mastering metrics, given that some of the surveyed museums only provided aggregate figures.

The distribution of visits by the type of content offered on museum websites should point to the favorite content or indicate the need to improve the rarely visited content. The statistical overview is not a competition in numbers because from that point of view, e.g., information on working hours and ticket prices would be ranked highest, considering that it is among the most viewed content, one which cannot reveal preferences of museum visitors but can only indicate to their desire to visit a museum.

If the numbers are to be trusted, it appears as if we read museum newsletters the most. Their steady 23% increase, from 20 newsletters reported in 2022 to 26 reported in 2023, is almost tripled by the 67.5% increase in their readership (from 254,592 in 2022 to 782,265 in 2023), as seen in Figure 1; both the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb and the Klovićevi Dvori Gallery stand out with significant readership figures.

It seems that Croatian museums are better at tracking their performance on social media and video platforms because all 132 surveyed museums provided data on user engagement. Just like in previous years, Facebook is almost indispensable—all museums cite Facebook as the (primary) social media platform, and data on views and user activity confirm that it is the most used platform (12,820,115), just like in 2022 when the total number was 18.4% higher.

On the popularity scale, Facebook is followed by Instagram, cited by 79 museums (1,108,688), and the most common combination of platforms are Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, followed by former Twitter (now X), which was cited by only a dozen museums (with total visits and reactions at 43,530, almost half as many as in 2022).

YouTube is the favorite video platform used by 55 museums (42% of the surveyed). At the same time, despite the controversies, TikTok managed to stay in use among eight Croatian museums—three more than the previous year—that recorded 172,141 views in 2023, 87% more than in 2022. Only one museum cited the video platform Vimeo.

However, it is not all about the numbers but about the content and quality of it, something that is not necessarily reflected in (large) numbers. Statistical overviews like this should make it easier for museums to identify online content that could be improved or promoted more. That inevitably raises the eternal question of museum staff and training, and who will take it upon themselves to do this dynamic work when the statistics for 2022 show that only every fourth museum has a PR and marketing specialist, and we do not even have data on the existence of (any) digital museum strategy. In any case, museums have bravely stepped into digital reality, pushed further in that direction by the coronavirus pandemic, and all that remains is for them to get used to virtual reality and use its possibilities to the best of their abilities.

(Tea Rihtar Jurić, published originally in News from the Museum World 215, 19 March 2024; edited and translated by Ivona Marić)