US museum shops suffer from drop in tourists

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Sales at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art's US retail chain of 15 stores, were down about 10% for the last six months of 2001 on the previous year. According to figures just released, the sales at the store inside the flagship New York building were down by 9%, although gift sales via the Internet rose 40%. A spokesman for the museum said attendance in December was still down 25% to 30% from a year earlier, continuing a trend which began in September.

Speaking to the New York Times, the Whitney Museum of American Art, on Madison Avenue, and the Guggenheim Museum said they were forced to make redundancies because of the slump.

In the aftermath of September 11 the New York State Legislature's Tourism Arts & Sports Development Committee recently announced it was forecasting a 14% or 5.4m decline in visitors in 2001. This corresponds to a 12% or $2.1bn decline in tourist spending in the city last year.

•  In 2000 the Metropolitan Museum's gift shops reported sales of $76m.