Chinese Museums Dominate 2025 Global Attendance Report

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Museums across China led global visitation in 2025, according to an annual report released by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). The nonprofit trade association, which represents professionals in the visitor attractions and immersive experiences industry across 40 countries, found that Chinese institutions secured 12 of the top 20 spots worldwide.

According to Ocula, TEA recorded a total of 161.4 million visits across its global top 20 museums in 2025, marking a 5.4 percent increase from the same institutions in 2024. Beijing's Palace Museum emerged as the most popular globally, attracting 19 million visitors, an 11.8 percent rise from the previous year.

The report also indicated that Generation Z visitors constituted over half of all museum visits in China. This trend is attributed to these museums' heightened emphasis on technology, including immersive and AI-focused exhibitions.

In contrast, federal museums in Washington, D.C., experienced significant drops in visitor numbers following a 43-day US government shutdown. The National Gallery of Art's attendance, for example, fell to 2.8 million in 2025, a 28.9 percent decrease. Similarly, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History saw a 15.4 percent decline, and the National Museum of American History experienced a 14.3 percent reduction in attendance.

Conversely, privately funded American institutions recorded increases. The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago both saw attendance rise, with the latter reporting a 13.3 percent increase. The only American museum to enter the global top 20 was New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, with its visitor numbers climbing by 4.5 percent to 5.98 million.

Outside of China, the Musée d'Louvre in Paris was the most visited institution, ranking as the fourth most-attended museum globally with 9.05 million visitors in 2025. Notably, the National Museum of Korea achieved the largest percentage increase among the top 20, with its year-on-year visitorship growing by 68.3 percent.

We previously reported:

The Róng Museum of Art in Shenzhen, China, has appointed Freya Chou, Li Jia, and Susanna Zhu to its curatorial team ahead of its 2027 opening.

Source: Artforum

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