Story Views
Now:
Last Hour:
Last 24 Hours:
Total:

% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

Sir, Jo Ellison writes: In January, Jean-Luc Martinez, head of the Louvre, reported a decline of about 2m visitors to the glass pyramid on the Rue de Rivoli, and a loss in revenues of €9.7m. He blamed the attacks as being key… The hotel sector has seen a simple decline: many have reported occupancy rates plummeting by up to 40 per cent. “A night at the museum: Louis Vuitton goes to the Louvre, as Nicolas Ghesquière’s AW17 collection celebrates ‘brand Paris’” March 9.

I sat down with my daughter Alexandra, an art consultant with a M.A. from Christie in Modern and Contemporary Art and the Market, to discuss Louvre’s really horrific decline in visitors. We came to the following (quite preliminary) conclusions.

Since the drop in hotel occupancy rates might have also to do with competition from Airbnb, it could result in tourists not feeling as tourists as usual and therefore not behaving as much as tourists, meaning among other, going less to museums. In order to combat this perhaps the Louvre must launch a campaign declaring anyone who has not taken a selfie at the Louvre as not really having been in Paris.

First that it might be Louvre have catered too much the tourist and in the process forgotten their nationals. There I suggested an invitation to Thomas Piketty and all his fellow countrymen to come and celebrate more often that great Monument to Inequality that The Museum of Louvre represents. (I am not entirely sure Alexandra was 100% with me on that one… perhaps only 99%  J  )

Also, since the drop in hotel occupancy rates might have also to do with competition from Airbnb, it could result in tourists not feeling as tourists as usual and therefore not behaving as much as tourists, meaning among other, going less to museums. In order to combat this perhaps the Louvre must launch a campaign declaring anyone who has not taken a selfie at the Louvre as not really having been in Paris.

@PerKurowski