2024-01-16 18:33:23
► “There is also a wide range of free offers”
Françoise Benhamou, cultural economist, president of the Circle of Economists
No, the museum rate is not simply the “posted” rate. In the case of the Louvre, there are numerous possibilities for free admission. Around 40% of people do not pay entry: young people under the age of 26 from the European Union, job seekers, social minimum holders, etc. We could of course imagine another model, a lower “full” price, but there would then be fewer possibilities for free services. Or it would be necessary to compensate by an increase in state subsidies and therefore in taxation…
A specificity of the Louvre, like Versailles, is that the proportion of foreign visitors is very high, around 70%. These tourists are, in any case, ready to pay a high price to visit the Louvre, the most beautiful and largest museum in the world. And I do not believe that the Ministry of Culture is intended to subsidize this type of entry. It seems more interesting to me to keep a wide range of freebies.
Of course, the increase in the entrance ticket to the Louvre is brutal and therefore relatively impressive. Inflation, particularly in energy prices, weighs on the operating costs of large establishments seeking to rebalance their budgets. However, when comparing with the major American museums, the major French museums are not more expensive, rather less even. The entrance ticket to the Metropolitan Museum in New York costs €28, for example. Like it, the Louvre is an immense museum which covers considerable fields both geographically and in time. A visitor can spend an entire day there. The ticket price therefore does not seem exorbitant. As for other French museums, they offer a whole range of prices. At the Mucem in Marseille for example, the entry ticket is around €11.
Finally, do these increases risk constituting a brake on visits for part of the public, also affected by inflation? A study by the Ministry of Culture (Patrimostat 2020) indicates that 4 out of 10 visitors gave up on a cultural visit in 2019 because the price was considered too high. However, I wonder: is it really a question of purchasing power or is it linked to the way people evaluate the pleasure of the visit? Some people are willing to pay a lot of money for a ticket to a football match, but €20 to enter the museum is not worth it.
It would therefore be interesting for the Louvre, which has a large public service, to make a detailed assessment of the effects of this price increase in the next three months. Even if it means making a few corrections. Will it penalize, for example, certain families? In this case, we could imagine setting up a specific price, as already exists at the Musée d’Orsay.
► “Museums have room to maneuver to become more accessible”
Bernard Hasquenophcreator of the information site on museums and monuments Louvre pour tous.
In fact, the trend is towards an exponential increase in prices for all museums. The phenomenon, particularly significant in the Paris region, as evidenced by the increases in entry fees to the Louvre or Versailles, is also being exported to the region – even if the prices remain lower there. Because the major Parisian museums are leaders, the increase in their prices leads to an increase throughout France and normalizes high prices for going to the museum.
This widespread increase has justifications. The establishments are caught by the throat: the State is withdrawing and simultaneously asking them to develop their own resources and ensure access to as many people as possible, even though their costs, particularly energy costs, have exploded in recent years.
However, large museums have room for maneuver that they must exploit to meet this accessibility requirement. It is time, for example, to put an end to the single package policy. In the same way that you can take a carton of milk out of its pack at the supermarket, we should offer differentiated prices to give access to specific areas of museums. It is a technique which would make it possible to attract a wider audience and which, at the Louvre for example, would correspond more to usage: we do not tour it in a single visit.
Those that the increase will affect the most are the so-called “middle class” populations. Those who do not necessarily have the necessary resources to go to the museum but also do not have access to the free admission granted to beneficiaries of social minimums. Of course, the price is not the only trigger for a museum visit, but in the context of inflation that we are experiencing, it is becoming an increasingly important factor.
The restriction of free moments for all also contributes to the restriction of accessibility. At the Louvre, the elimination of the free day every first Sunday of the month, replaced by a free evening on the first Friday of the month, attracts younger and more urban audiences and greatly harms families and people who do not live in Paris. They will now think twice before paying €22 for their entry instead of €15 (price of entry purchased on site; online, the price was €17), or even give it up.
It is obvious that ever-increasing operating costs are forcing museums to increase their prices. It is therefore time to think about political responses, and inter-museum incentive schemes, which benefit cultural establishments and the public. This is a subject that could quickly occupy our new Minister of Culture, committed to making culture accessible to as many people as possible.
#Louvre #Palace #Versailles.. #French #museums #expensive