Paris (AFP)

The Louvre received 9.6 million visitors in 2019, below the absolute record of 2018 (10.2 million), a drop that its management explains by its "voluntarist" policy of managing the influx in summer, for more comfortable visits, with less waiting.

With 10.2 million visitors last year, the most visited museum in the world had recorded a 25% increase compared to 2017 (8.1 M), breaking its own record (9.7 M in 2012). The 2019 figure is the third best result in the history of the Louvre.

"The real change came in the summer of 2019 - June, July, August - where we welcomed on average 20% less than in 2018. That makes 600,000 visitors less. It was proactive. We tried to limit frequentation so that it does not exceed as in 2018 the million visitors per month. We had to declare certain days the museum closed ", explained to AFP the president and director of the Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez.

"We are, he said, the only cultural establishment in the world to take this turning point. We tell people very clearly: we want to work together for a better quality of reception and not to welcome more, always more, because it will not be possible. "

Internet booking, which some 50% of visitors use, is strongly "recommended". "We cannot make reservations compulsory", as is the case for the flagship Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, which opened at the end of October. "We don't have the tools and we don't really want to make it possible," he said.

"The messages that we send (on the internet in particular) is that only the reservation guarantees entry into the museum within thirty minutes, with visiting comfort".

- "The exploit" of the Louvre-Lens -

Mr. Martinez considered that the "yellow vests" effect had little impact on this declining annual attendance: "75% of visitors are foreigners (Americans, Chinese in mind) and therefore, having prepared their trips very far in advance, they introduced themselves ".

"There has been," he also said, "little impact from strikes. Attendance is equivalent" to that of other months of the year "." We managed to open every day, sometimes with a little delay. We don't always open according to what we had planned. 20% of the staff are unable to come. Personal and visitors are limited by transportation. "

The month of November was particularly buoyant, with an increase in attendance of + 14%, under the effect of Leonardo da Vinci. The museum has announced six more late-night openings for the exhibit. The reservation will be open from January 7.

The Louvre's "Nocturne du dimanche", a new free meeting created in January 2019 and offered on the first Saturday of each month, brought together more than 160,000 people in 2019, mainly from Ile-de-France. The experiment is extended to the first semester.

Furthermore, Mr. Martinez welcomed the "feat" achieved by the Louvre-Lens, in Hauts-de-France, thanks to a "public policy" in a culturally disadvantaged region: "for the first time since the opening, they will cross the bar of 500,000 visitors in 2019. The major museums in the region are 200,000 to 300,000 ".

As for the Louvre Abu Dhabi, its programming has succeeded in attracting two million visitors in two years, "an Asian audience which does not yet come to Europe, notably Indian".

© 2020 AFP