Danish art historian and Tate director Karin Hindsbo wrote in The Guardian about this in March 2026. Starts:
Twenty-five years ago, the UK made the bold and generous gesture of making its national museums free to all.
In the years that followed, this policy proved to be a huge success. It led to a dramatic and sustained increase in audiences. Within the first decade, visits to museums which used to charge rose by 151% – the uplift was 180% at the Natural History Museum and V&A, and 269% at National Museums Liverpool. Is now really the moment to reverse direction by charging international tourists to access our museums and galleries, as ministers are proposing?
She argues that tourists don’t just spend in museum shops and cafes, they also use local restaurants, hotels and transport, fuelling a much wider economic picture that it would be counterproductive to disrupt.
She goes on:
Our national collection itself has also become increasingly international over the years. Tate, for example, has championed a more global story of art – from modernism in Nigeria and surrealism in Egypt, to digital art in Brazil and performance art in Japan. To erect barriers between the art that crosses continents to reach our gallery walls, and the people from the very countries that art was created in, seems like a paradox.
Tate Modern is the most popular modern art museum in the world by a long shot, attracting 4.5 to 5 million visitors every year. By contrast, MoMA in New York, which charges for entry, attracts around half that number.
(General entrance to MoMA current costs $30 excluding concessions so about £22.)
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/29/uk-museum-free-entry-economy-visitors
Also, every year, regular gallery visitors donate roughly £3 million to £6 million directly to the Tate through general voluntary donations, donation boxes, and the optional Gift Aid top-ups added to paid exhibition tickets, so though you haven't seen it, it's happening a lot and that's just one organisation.
