Museums and Galleries: Overseas Visitors

Mr. Peter Ainsworth
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) whether he has made an estimate of the (a) total financial contribution made by foreign national visitors to national museums and galleries in each year since 1997 and (b) proportion of the turnover of those museums attributable to such contributions in each of those years; and if he will make a statement;

(2) what estimate he has made of the number of foreign nationals who have visited national museums and galleries in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Sutcliffe
The number of overseas visits reported by 17 of the national museums and galleries since 1998 are in the table. This is an agreed museum performance indicator.

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|Financial year|Number    |
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|1998-99       |6,053,600 |
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|1999-2000     |6,044,299 |
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|2000-01       |9,348,709 |
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|2001-02       |9,139,763 |
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|2002-03       |9,589,987 |
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|2003-04       |11,805,327|
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|2004-05       |10,882,420|
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|2005-06       |10,912,808|
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|2006-07       |14,256,408|
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|2007-08       |15,179,212|
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|2008-09       |13,907,317|
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The Department does not hold the data for 1997.

The financial contributions and proportion of turnover to national museums and galleries by overseas visitors is not collected centrally.