The Museo del Prado has announced that it is to increase its opening hours to every day of the week in order to improve and expand its cultural activities and thus guarantee its commitment to covering 60% of its budget through self-financing. This new initiative starts with the exhibition ‘The Hermitage in the Prado’, which will be open every day of the week, from Mondays to Sundays, from the day it opens on 8 November. The Museum’s Permanent Collection will also have new opening hours from 16 January.

The Royal Board of Trustees of the Museo del Prado approved the initiative to extend the Museum’s opening hours to every day of the week. This decision falls within the “Current Situation Reaction Plan” that the Museum has set in motion in the light of the ongoing reduction of public funding arising from the present economic circumstances in Spain. It includes a wide-ranging series of actions aimed at improving the service offered to the visiting public and at increasing the Museum’s activities in order to guarantee its financial stability and viability over the coming years.

The new opening hours, which will begin on 16 January, will mean that both the permanent collections and the temporary exhibitions are open every day of the week, including Mondays, which has traditionally been the day off for those of the Museum’s staff who work directly with the public. The Museum will also open on Good Friday, a day on which it has traditionally been closed. With the implementation of this initiative, which also involves adapting the opening hours to take into account the busiest times of day regarding visitor numbers, the Prado will be open 53 more days a year, further consolidating its position as the European museum with the longest opening hours (3,542 hours per year) and making it one of a small group of major international museums that open every day of the week, alongside the Tate Modern and the British Museum in the UK, the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum in Holland, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in the USA.

Image: Museo del Prado

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