The museum registered a slight increase in visitors last year, reported DN, and the loss was mostly caused by higher pension costs in 2011. Interest paid on considerable bank deposits reduced the loss, wrote DN, but the museum on Oslo’s Bygdøy Peninsula nonetheless ended with a deficit after also recording a loss in 2010. The surge of interest is warmly welcome at the museum, which is owned by a private foundation and receives no public funding. Newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) reported in July, before the film premiered in August, that the museum dedicated to Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl’s famous voyage on the raft Kon-Tiki recorded an operating loss last year of nearly NOK 1 million. That’s helped attract a record number of visitors, just as the film sets attendance records of its own. The museum also was ready to roll out new programs timed to the film’s release and has been promoting and showing the original documentary that actually won an Academy Award nearly 60 years ago. Museum officials had hoped for positive effects from the film and can now confirm a steady stream of visitors and higher admission revenues. The Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo is enjoying a stream of new visitors following release of the new Kon-Tiki film. The interest it’s set off among the public is resulting in a badly needed burst of visitors at the museum that had been operating at a loss for the second year in a row. Not everyone agrees that the new film “Kon-Tiki” should be Norway’s candidate at the Academy Awards in Hollywood, but Oslo’s Kon-Tiki Museum is riding high on its wave of success.

Thor heyerdahl museum