(Paris) The Louvre Museum announced on Friday an increase in the price of its entrance ticket, six months before the Olympic Games where Paris is expected to welcome even more tourists than usual.
Starting January 15, entry increases to 22 euros ($32), after remaining at 17 euros ($25) since 2017.
This 29% increase compares to inflation of 30% over the same period, according to the INSEE consumer price index.
The Louvre is the most visited museum in the world, with 86,000 m² of spaces open to the public, and 7.2 million visitors in 2022.
Its ticketing business brought in 76.5 million euros ($1.1 billion) last year, according to the annual report. This only covered a quarter of its operating costs, the rest being financed by credits from the Ministry of Culture and by other resources, including patronage.
Opened in 1793 in a former royal palace in the heart of Paris, the Louvre is one of the great tourist attractions of the French capital. It presents extremely rich collections, which range from the civilizations of the Mediterranean and the Middle East several millennia BC to the fine arts of the 19th century.
Visitors come from all over the world to admire, among other things, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (early 16th century), the Venus de Milo (2nd century BC) or Egyptian antiquities in an excellent state of conservation.
In a press release, the museum stressed that “more than one in two French visitors enter for free”. This concerns people under 25, the unemployed, beneficiaries of minimum social benefits, the disabled and their accompanying persons, teachers, and cultural professionals and journalists.
Of the estimated 8.7 million visitors in 2023, 3.6 million of them (or 41%) are expected not to have paid admission.
The museum hopes to finance in the coming years a project to open a second entrance, in addition to the one under the Pyramid inaugurated in 1988, which is now saturated. It would be via the east façade, at the Louvre-Rivoli metro station. The timeline and cost are not known.
The Louvre is also continuing its acquisitions of works. He appealed to patrons in early November to become owners of a Chardin still life, The Basket of Wild Strawberries (1761), which costs €24.3 million ($35.5 million).
Paris hosts the Olympic Games from July 26 to August 11.
