The Van Gogh Museum has welcomed its millionth visitor this year, a proud milestone for the museum on the eve of its temporary move to the Hermitage Amsterdam. In 2011, the millionth visitor arrived one week earlier. In comparison with recent years, visitor numbers for 2012 are right on schedule.
Van Gogh Museum. Photo: Michiel van Nieuwkerk
‘Relative to last year, we are seeing a slight shift in the composition of our visiting public,’ says Axel Rüger, director of the Van Gogh Museum. ‘Among all the art lovers visiting the museum, 88% come from abroad and 11% from the Netherlands.’ These are the figures as of the end of July. Over the past five years, the proportion of Dutch visitors to the museum has varied between 9 and 13 percent. A growing share of visitors are tourists from Australia, Great Britain, Russia, Brazil, South Korea and China. Notably, an increasing variety of Eastern European nationalities is represented. www.vangoghmuseum.nl