However, Dunedin City Council attractions that have relied more upon tourists have had a greater struggle.
Ara Toi group manager Nick Dixon told this week’s community and culture committee meeting that dealing with fallout from Covid-19 had made 2020 challenging and presented a chance to "understand our base Dunedin audience".
Cr Lee Vandervis said there had been a dramatic reduction in visits across the board.
However, community and planning group manager Nicola Pinfold said the effect was less severe on facilities or attractions that traditionally had strong support from the local population.
More than 200,000 people visited the city’s libraries in the final quarter of 2020.
That was well short of the more than 275,000 visits recorded in the corresponding quarter in each of the previous two years.
However, the numbers were building in the last months of the year - more than 50,000 people visited the libraries in September, about 60,000 in October and about 70,000 in each of November and December.
The Dunedin Public Art Gallery had showed signs of recovery, experiencing a gradual rise in visitor numbers recently.
Attendance improved from about 14,000 visits in September to about 18,000 in December.
But last summer was particularly strong for the art gallery, which attracted more than 25,000 visits in both December and January.
The report for the community and culture committee highlighted a lack of visits to the city by cruise ships in the last quarter of 2020.
However, the Ralph Hotere exhibition at the gallery had been popular.
Visitor numbers for each were down 37% in the final quarter of 2020, compared with the corresponding period in 2019.
December 2020 visitor numbers at Toitu were up on October and November because of the Pixie Town exhibition and photo opportunities with Santa.
The Olveston Historic Home had a sharp decline in visitor numbers.
Visitor numbers in each of November and December would normally exceed 3000, but were less than 1000 for those months last year.
The home adapted its product to a domestic audience by running murder-mystery evenings in December.
