Admission fees and attendance in Italian national autonomous museums

Between 2014 and 2019 the annual growth rate of the average admission fees in Italian national museums was 6.2%, 5.7% net of inflation. We guess that this growth rate was due to tariffs of those museums which became autonomous under the process of reform that begun in 2014. In this paper we study admission fees and charged visits in Italian national autonomous museums, in order to reach an explanation as to the main relevant drivers that influenced their evolution. The dataset we use is based on the financial statements of museums, from which we extracted variables for an analysis within a micro-econometric environment. On the issue of tariffs, we reach four main results. First, the increase in general admission fees originates from the new autonomous museums. Second, it is not homogeneous among them. Third, the main drivers of the tariff growth are: the increase in operating costs for activities and services; a price discrimination effect on paying visits, related to the increase of free admissions; the capacity of museums to be attractive to the public, measured by quantity of attendance. Four, the increase in fees is not determined by a reduction of public financial grants. Finally, our dataset allows for the estimation of a demand function. The elasticity between paying visits and admission fees, despite a low absolute value, implies a negative impact of the tariff increase. Paying attendance is affected negatively by free admissions and positively by investments.