Louvre Thought Exercise

At the moment I find myself in Paris as my journey across Europe comes to a close. Paris is one of the biggest, most exciting, and beautiful cities I have ever had the chance to be in. It is truly spectacular how it is capable of maintaining its beauty, but at the same time, pump like big cities do. In some ways it reminds me of New York, just far more beautiful, historic, and everything happens to be in French.

Anyway, while I've been here I've had the opportunity to visit some of the most amazing museums in the entire world. I have seen the Museum D'Orsay which houses a humongous collection of Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Whistler, Degas, and Renior. I loved this museum very much and if you're in Paris you cannot miss it. And of course, if you're in Paris and you're checking out some museums, it is an absolute must to go and visit the most famous and most visited museum in the entire world, the Musée du Louvre.

The Louvre houses the most famous piece of art in all the world, The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. It also has the famous, Venus de Milo, which is supposedly a sculpture of the Greek Goddess Aphrodite that was found in 1820 by a peasant on the Aegean islands of Milos. Beyond these two astronomically famous works of art, there is just hoards and hoards of art that fill this museum. It would probably take three very long lifetimes to be able to really see all the Louvre has to offer.

Although I was absolutely blown away and impressed with the artwork and sculptures in the Louvre, I was equally impressed with the actual structure of the museum. The inside was as beautiful as any palace I have ever seen, and its immense size is almost unfathomable. I spent a good three hours there and don't think I left the single wing I entered into. It is truly enormous. At the same time though, it is so beautiful and ornate.

This got me thinking what all of this must have cost the French Government. I learned a lot about the process of making the Louvre and how it arrived at its present state, and wanted to figure out how long it will take for the Louvre to break even (if ever).

• Louvre Thought Exercise

According to the 9th Edition of Frommer's Europe Guidebook, the Louvre recently undertook a renovation known as The Grand Louvre Project that cost an astronomical $1.2 Billion and took 15 years to complete. The book goes on to further cite that there are individual galleries that are constantly being renovated, but that is to be expected. So, to clarify, in this thought experiment, our total cost of the Louvre is $1.2 Billion (the other galleries can be considered in another though experiment at some other time perhaps).

That's a pretty good chunk of change to use on a building. I wanted to learn further about The Grand Louvre Project, because perhaps that would give me insight as to how it was going to be paid for or when they expected to make a profit on the Museum.

According to the Harvard Design School Center for Design Informatics Executive Summary on the Grand Louvre, The Grand Louvre Project was just one of several renovations and projects that were proposed by prior French president François Mitterrand. Other projects that were underway during his presidency were the new Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Opéra des
Bastille, and the Grande Arche de la Défense (collectively known as the “Grands Travaux” or Grand Projects). I have personally had the opportunity to see the National Library and Grande Arche, in addition to the Louvre, and they are spectacular sites to see in Paris as well.

The operation to renovate and construct new additions to the Louvre began in 1981 in which the design phase first started. The chief architect chosen to direct the project was I. M. Pei (the glass pyramid that serves as the entrance to the Louvre is named for him today).

The project was split into two phases. The first phase was renovation of 61,990 square meters. This part of the project also included demolishing 55,000 square meters. Phase two was the addition of 50,000 square meters of usable gallery space. Between 1981 and 1998 these two phases were realized. What a serious undertaking.

Now that we have a thorough understanding of the project, let's see if the money I spent to get in the door this past Friday went to the Louvre or into the pockets of the Director and Curator of the Museum.

• Vital Information

1. It cost 9 Euro to enter the museum
2. It costs 6 Euro to enter the museum between 6pm and 10pm on Wednesdays and Fridays
3. The Museum is open 6 days a week, and is closed on January 1st, May 1st, November 11 and December 25, 2008
4. The hours of operation are from 9am to 6pm regularly
5. The first Sunday of every month is free for visitors
6. Children 17 and under are free
7. Guided tours are 6 Euro a person, but free for children under 12
8. Audioguides are 5 Euro

Okay, here we go:

According to an article published by Bloomberg.com, the Louvre is the world's number one visited museum in the world with 8.3 million visitors annually. First, I want to break down these 8.3 million people by age.

**Click the Image to see it more clearly**
By looking at figures provided by the US Census Bureau for the World Population, I can extrapolate roughly what the demographics of these 8.3 million people would be. Obviously it cannot be perfectly accurate, because you would have to take into account an individual's preference to view art, whether or not they had enough time while in Paris, etc. However, this will give us a very good representation of how these 8.3 million people are composed. These numbers are also represented graphically in the following chart.

So now that we have a sufficient break down of the people entering the Louvre we can figure out who is next paying for what. We will figure this out on a yearly basis, and then we will move forward from the year 1998 to the present to see when or if they have broken even regarding the initial $1.2 Billion investment.

Now, let us find out how many days the Louvre is open. If there are 52 weeks in a year and the Louvre is open 6 days a week, then that totals 312 days. However, it isn't open for four of those days, so that now means it is only open for 308 days out of the year. We're doing great.

**Click the Image to see it more clearly**

Now, if we assume that the same amount of people enter into the Louvre each day on average, we arrive at the conclusion that there is 8.3 million people over 308 days this equals, 26,948 visitors per day that the Louvre is open. Obviously some days will be busier than others, but this is purely on average.

For simplicity sake it will be better to find the average length of a day.

If we know that 4 out of 6 days are going to have 9 hours, and 2 out of 6 days are going to have 13 hours we simply perform the following equation: 4/6(9 hours) + 2/6(13 hours) = 10.333 hours.

Therefore, on a given day at the Louvre, it will be open for 10.333 hours or 10 hours and 20 minutes on average. It is also important to find out the average payment made by a person entering the Louvre, due to the fact that in addition to hours of operation changing, price also changes.

It will be best if we do this average on an hourly scale. In a week, there are five full days in which full price is paid, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. This equates to 45 hours of full payment. On Wednesday and Friday, there are an additional 4 hours each in which the price of entry is reduced. Sunday is a little more complicated.

Remember, the first Sunday of every month is free, so 12 out of 52 Sundays in a year are free, but the others are not. Tuesday is not considered because the Louvre is closed then.

So, we arrive at the following equation for average price paid: (45(9 Euro) + 8(6 Euro) + (40/52)(9 hours)(9 Euro))/59.92 hours = 8.60 Euro. The 59.92 hours is the average length of time the Louvre is open a week, not including the holiday closings. It is divided out to give an average hourly entrance rate.

We can also find out how many people enter the Louvre per hour. By taking 26,948 and dividing it by 10.333 hours, we arrive at an hourly rate of 2,608 people per hour.

Next we need to figure out how many people are aged under 12 and under 17 years of age, due to fees associated with entrance and tours. To do this, we will assume that there is an equal number of people in each age year within each age category. Therefore, there are the same amount of people within the age category 0-19 who are 2 years old as there are 18 year olds.

If we know that there are 2,996,383 people in the 0-19 category, all we do is divide this category by 20 to get an equal rate of people for each year. Therefore, there are 149,819 people in each year. To figure out how many are 12 and under, we multiply this number by 13 (remembering that 0 is included in the count), and the same is done for 17, except this number is then multiplied by 18.

This gives us 1,947,648 people 12 years and under, or 6,324 per day and 2,696,745 people 17 years and under, or 8,755 per day.

• Recap
• Louvre is open 308 Days a year
• 26,948 people visit per day
• An average day's length is 10.333 hours or 10 hours and 20 minutes
• On average, it cost 8.60 Euro to enter the Louvre
  
• 2,608 people visit per hour
• There are 6,324 people 12 years and under per day
• There are 8,755 people 17 years and under per day
  

Now we can start figuring information out. Based on the information we have compiled, it would be best to figure out our estimates on a daily basis.

• Money made on entrance fee to the Louvre per day: (26,948-8,755) x 8.60 = 156,459.80 Euro
• Assuming 35% of people go on guided tours, Money made on guided tours at the Louvre per day: 0.35(26,948-6,324) x 6 = 43,310.40 Euro
• Assuming 35% of people use Audioguides, Money made on Audioguides at the Louvre per day: 0.35(26,948) x 5 = 47,159 Euro
  

Therefore, the Louvre makes 156,459.80 + 43,310.40 + 47,159 = 246,929.20 Euro per day.

Over a year of open days numbering 308, the Louvre will expect to make: 308(246,929.20 Euro) = 76,054,193.60 Euro per year.

There have been 10.5 years since completion of the Grand Louvre Project in 1998. Therefore, based on this information the Louvre has brought in: 10.5(76,054,193.60 Euro) = 798,569,032.80 Euro.

Recall that the amount it took to perform the project was in Dollars. Therefore, all of my figures that are in Euros need to be converted to Dollars. 1 Euro will buy you 1.5756 Dollars as of June 8th, 2008.

With this in mind, I constructed a chart that would show when the Louvre would "break even." According to my findings, the Louvre would have surpassed the $1.2 Billion initial expense at the beginning of 2007.

**Click the Image to see it more clearly**

• Conclusion

The Grand Louvre Project was a huge undertaking for the city of Paris. It was a 17 year endeavor that cost over $1.2 Billion. Since the projects completion in 1998, the Louvre has brought in 76,054,193.60 Euro ($119,830,987.40) per year, based on our gathered information. This means that the Louvre covered its initial operating expense early in the year 2007.

The Louvre is an incredible project and well worth the money and time that was put into it. Walking through it was an incredible experience. If you make your way to Paris, this is one stop you're most definitely going to want to make.