Museum Card (Museokortti in Finnish) is a card that you can use to visit over 300 different museums in all over Finland and pretty much all the best museums are included. It was introduced in 2015 and has been very popular since. If I have understood correctly, the idea came from the Netherlands, although their yearly pass seems to be for citizens only. A quick search shows that at least Belgium also has a country wide pass, and then there are also different types of museum passes in many cities.
The price for a new Museum Card is 74 euros and it is valid for one year starting from the first use. With that price you can visit over 300 museums for free, although there might be an extra charge for some special exhibitions. If you renew the card before expiry, it will cost 69 euros for another year, starting from the expiry date (prices from January 2022). The card can be purchased online or from any participating museum. Getting the card posted to an address outside Finland is also possible.
After introducing the Museum Card, visitor numbers in museums have risen significantly. It seems to be a real win-win idea: museums get more visitors and more income and card holders can make more museum visits with a smaller price. You don’t need to think that much if the visit was worth the price and it is easier to make just a short visit. It is also possible to visit the same museum several times during the card validity, the only restriction is one visit per day.
The Museum Card incomes will be shared to the participating museums. The share per visitor is of course smaller than with a regular ticket price, but it is still considered to be beneficial to the museums, as the visitor number have risen so much. One possible downside might be the increase in single ticket prices, but I’m not sure if the prices have gone up more than they normally would.
I have had a Museum Card for 3.5 years now and during that period I have made 47 museum visits with the card. In addition I have visited five free museums and had zero visits in museums that require a regular ticket purchase. Not that I would avoid museums that are not included in the Museum Card, but it tells about its vast validity.
Normal price of those 47 visits would have been 572 euros, but instead I have paid 254 euros for the Museum Card validity for four years. In other words, the average price of one museum visit would have been ~12 euros, but I have paid the average of ~5.50 euros per visit. Customers can see their museum visits by logging in to the Museum Card website, but I have also kept score myself.
For example visiting only the 4-5 top museums in Helsinki will already cover the Museum Card price. If you’re planning a visit to Helsinki, with or without a Museum Card, some of the top museums choices are: Finnish National Gallery Ateneum, National Museum of Finland, Amos Rex, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Suomenlinna museums, Finnish Museum of Natural History and Sinebrychoff Art Museum.
So, in addition to saving money, I have visited quite many museums that I probably wouldn’t visited with the normal ticket price. Maybe I have even learned something on those visits!
Museum Card website in English: https://museot.fi/en.php
