Greece museum visitors increase by 40 percent

The number of visitors to Greek museums jumped by 41 percent last year compared to 2008, whilst fewer made trips to its archaeological sites, the national statistics service said Monday.

The hike in visitor numbers to 2,813,548 was largely due to the opening of a new Acropolis museum in Athens that brought in over 800,000 people.

Archaeological sites were less popular than a year earlier however with 5,970,483 visits in total, a drop of four percent, the ESYE service said.

Worldwide receipts for museum and archaeological visits reached 47 million euros (64 million dollars), a dip of 2.9 percent, with 39 million euros collected by archaeological sites and eight million euros by museums.

After the Acropolis museum, the national archaeological museum in Athens was the second most visited cultural centre in Greece.

The Acropolis in Athens was also the most visited archaeological site, with one million making the trip, representing an increase of 1.6 percent compared to 2008.

Here is the list of the 10 most visited sites in Greece in 2009:

1. Athens Acropolis 1,087,889 visitors +1.6%

2. Knossos (Crete) 588,996 -3.5%

3. Lindos Acropolis 444,921 -2.5%

4. Olympia (Peloponnese) 328,697 -7.6%

5. Epidaurus (Peloponnese) 263,000 -9.3%

6. Mycenae (Peloponnese) 238,615 -17.6%

7. Delphi (central Greece) 157,270 -23.6%

8. Sounion (Attica) 144,101 -6%

9. Camiros (Rhodes) 126,400 -1.9%

10. Corinth (Peloponnese) 113,602 -3.8%