EVERY EIGHTH MUSEUM IN THE WORLD COULD BE CLOSED DOWN

According to the studies, conducted by the specialists from UNESCO and the International Council of Museums, in the global context, almost every eighth museum (about 13%) might cease operations after the pandemic-related restrictions are lifted. Many museum organizations, as the experts say, remain quite conservative regarding the use of new technological solutions and multimedia in their practice.

According to researchers, only 5% of the museums located in Africa and on the territory of island states were able to present virtual content and multimedia displays to their visitors. But there are famous archaeological museum of Carthage (Tunisia) and the Cairo Museum (Egypt) in this region.

The reason for such conservatism is associated with the essential characteristics of museum activity, say the analysts. Even operating online, the museums need visitors to replenish their income. And in a situation when about 90% of the total museum fund in the world (more than 85 thousand objects) was closed, organizations began to suffer daily losses.

For the largest museum organizations, damage is measured in millions. For example, the Vienna Museum of the History of Art was weekly loosing from € 100,000 to € 600,000.

Almost a third of museums in Europe were weekly losing up to € 1000, in a quarter of them, such losses reached € 5000, and for the largest cultural centers (about 5%) the damage reached € 50,000 or more.

Calculations, made by Russian experts, estimate the damage to the Hermitage at 2.5 billion rubles. The Tretyakov Gallery was weekly losing about 19 million rubles, and the daily losses of the Pushkin Museum amounted to 2 million rubles.

The financial losses of the US museums, according to the experts from the American Museum Alliance, amounted to $ 33 million per day. The temple complex of Angkor Wat on the territory of Cambodia was even more deplorable. The income of the Khmer civilization monument in April fell to, which is about 0.5% of what it was a year earlier.

The researchers appreciate the prospects of museum business with great pessimism.

Even after re-opening, many museum organizations will need government financial support and will have a lot of additional costs, associated with the provision of antiviral measures for the visitors and employees. In Russia, as it was previously announced by the Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova, many museums will be able to count on opening not earlier than in mid-July.

Despite the fact that large museum organizations suffer the greatest losses, they also have more chances to survive in a pandemic. Many of them are financed by the state, and their closure would entail large-scale reputation losses for the states. In the United States, where many museums are funded by the private individuals, the management has had to reduce the number of freelancers and introduce forced vacations for the permanent staff.