Impact of COVID-19, the War in Ukraine, and Inflation on Interest in Museums in Poland

Abstract

This article quantifies the factors that affect interest in the topic of museums in Poland from 2018 to 2022. The article analyzes the time series of web queries related to museums. For the years 2018–2019, an additive time series decomposition model is prepared to define the trend and seasonal variations. The results provide an inaccurate forecast for the remaining period, which indicates a change in already existing tendencies. Therefore, a comprehensive econometric model is created that includes indepen-dent variables describing the pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine, and inflation. The results of both parts of the study confirm that there is a growing long-term trend in interest in museums. The interest is cha-racterized by significant seasonality, favoring the summer period, the Night of Museums, and several bank holidays over Christmas and the winter period. The pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and inflation had a direct negative impact on the measured value. The former also contributed to the flattening of the growing trend. Although the latter two factors are statistically significant, their impact is not as high as in the case of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the seasonality pattern remains stable throughout the analysis period.