Museo del Prado director Miguel Falomir announced at a press conference unveiling the museum's 2026 exhibition schedule that the institution does not need more visitors, stating it is comfortable with 3.5 million annual visitors and fears becoming "over-saturated." Falomir cited concerns about circulation around iconic works like Velázquez's *Las Meninas* and Bosch's *The Garden of Earthly Delights*, and emphasized improving visitor experience through optimizing entrances, reducing group sizes, and enforcing photography bans. The Prado, last expanded in 2007, is significantly smaller than the Louvre, which topped 2024 visitor figures with 8.7 million.
This matters because it signals a major shift in museum strategy away from growth-driven expansion and record-breaking attendance, which has been a dominant trend for decades at institutions like the Met, MoMA, and the Louvre. Falomir's stance prioritizes quality of visit over quantity, challenging the conventional metric of success in the museum world and raising questions about sustainability, visitor experience, and the limits of cultural tourism.