Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida broke visitor records in 2023
- 04.01.2024
- Release
The Sámi Museum and Northern Lapland Nature Centra Siida had a little over 68 000 exhibition visitors in 2023. Visitor numbers are back to, and even past, pre-covid numbers.
The past year broke the previous exhibition visitor record from 2019 by about six percent. The increase from the previous year of 2022 was 33 %.
The automatic visitor counter at the main entrance ticked to a record breaking 138 000 visitors overall. This number includes Metsähallitus customer service, tourist info, restaurant Sarrit, and the museum shop Siida Shop’s customers in addition to the exhibition visitors.
Another record broken this year was the daily record of visitors, as in the autumn season we saw a day with over 850 exhibition visitors in a single day, the previous record was thus surpassed by over two hundred.
The overall normalization of the travel industry post-covid, as well as the attractive renewed main exhibition Enâmeh láá mii párnááh – These Lands are our Children, have clearly affected the rise of visitors. The renewed exhibition has now been seen by over 113 000 people since it’s opening June 1st, 2022.
– It is delightful to see that Siida has broken all previous visitor records. An exhibition curated by the Sámi themselves of their own culture clearly speaks to both outsiders as well as the Sámi community themselves, says Sámi Museum Siida’s director Taina Pieski.
– The exhibition also works as a unique lure to the northern Lapland nature. The overall visitor number tells us about the scale of the travel industry in the area. In addition to the exhibition experience there is a need to receive diverse services and specified information about the nature and how and where to travel in it, all under one roof, says Recreational Amenity Specialist Tarja Tuovinen from Metsähallitus.
About 42% of all visitors came from outside of Finland, the ratio between Finnish and foreign visitors is moving closer to pre-covid level each year. Most of the foreign visitors were from Germany and France, but Hong Kong and Australia have now risen in the statistics as well, after a few years absence.
The number of guided tours has skyrocketed since the opening of the new main exhibition. In 2023 there were 400 guided tours, in five different languages, when the previous record from 2019 is 292 guided tours.
Sámi Museum’s Skolt Sámi Heritage House in Sevettijärvi had an overall of 1311 visitors in 2023. The Heritage House was open from June 20th until September 23rd (Tue-Sat, 10-16). The busiest season at the Heritage House was the autumn season with 30% of the whole year’s visitors.