Siida Sámi Museum gets 55143 exhibition visitors in 2022

The Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida had 55 143 exhibition visitors in 2022, which is close to the all time record, said an official press release on Monday.

The number of visitors, however, was affected by various reasons such as the Covid-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine.

Notable about 2022 is also that for the first five months of the year the Siida-building was under renovations and renewal, during which visitors were only able to visit the Sámi Museum’s open-air museum.

Direct comparison, with previous years’ exhibition visitor numbers, is not possible. In 2020 and 2021 the visitor numbers are greatly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, and in 2019 Sámi Museum and Nature Centre Siida had a record breaking number of exhibition visitors (64 000).

When compared to 2021, exhibition visitor numbers increased by 102 %. In comparison to the record-breaking year 2019, there were 14 % less visitors.

The busiest time of year was the summer season, as usual, when just in June-September there were 37 000 exhibition visitors, which is almost 70 % of whole years visitors.

Just under half of the exhibition visitors were Finnish, as the post-pandemic revival of international tourism has increased the number of international visitors in Siida Sámi Museum and Nature Centre closer to the pre-pandemic numbers.

Most of the international visitors were from France (8,5 %) and Germany (8,4 %). These two nationalities have kept the top two spots for years. German tourists tend to visit more during the summer time, while the French favor the winter season.