AMSTERDAM.- The Van Gogh Museum today welcomed the millionth visitor of 2017, more than two weeks earlier than last year, when the museum attracted a record number of nearly 2.1 million visitors. Since 1 January 2017, the museum greeted in excess of 9% more visitors than in the same period in the previous year. Axel Rüger, Director of the Van Gogh Museum: ‘It is outstanding that visitor numbers this year currently exceed the record-breaking year of 2016, and that we continue to inspire people from all over the world. All the more because our visitors rate the museum so highly: the vast majority of visitors give their visit a rating of ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’. It is this visitor satisfaction that really matters to us’.

In addition to rising visitor numbers, online interest in the Van Gogh Museum also continues to grow. The sustained increase in online sales of tickets with a specified start time enables improved visitor distribution. What’s more, with in excess of 1.7 million ‘likes’, the Van Gogh Museum Facebook page now ranks amongst the world’s five most popular museums on Facebook.

Growth in number of Dutch and international visitors
The Van Gogh Museum not only holds great appeal to international culture fans: in the initial months of 2017, the number of Dutch visitors increased by more than 20%. This year, they visited the museum to be inspired by exhibitions including Prints in Paris 1900: From Elite to Street (3 March to 11 June 2017), which focused on fin-de-siècle prints, and Van Gogh Returns (22 March to 14 May 2017), the special presentation of the two stolen works that were recovered close to Naples in September 2016.

More online tickets with start time
Sales of tickets with a start time have risen rapidly in recent months, which has enabled improved distribution of visitors throughout the day. Hereby the museum’s capacity is also put to best use in off-peak periods. In turn, this has resulted in improved visitor ratings: 88% of all visitors rate their time at the museum as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’.

Spectacular growth in online fans
In addition to high visitor numbers, interest in the art and life of Vincent van Gogh has also resulted in spectacular growth in the online fan base. The Van Gogh Museum Facebook page now has more than 1.7 million ‘likes’, an increase of 600,000 since 2016, making the museum one of the world’s top-5 most popular museums on Facebook. The museum’s Instagram page also continues to steadily gain in popularity: it currently has 395.000 followers, and is welcoming thousands more every week.

The website of the museum currently received 1.6 unique visitors in 2017. The number of visits to the online museum shop increased with almost 40% in the first months of this year compared to last year.