Museums exorbitantly cash in on their popularity

As the summer approaches, the difficulty of booking tickets to visit public museums has skyrocketed. This has led to scalping and high-cost third-party reservation service providers.

When official channels for reservation fail, people have no choice but to pay exorbitant prices to businesses to make reservations on their behalf or pay even higher prices for organized tour services in order to enter the museums. This clearly contradicts the original intention of the nation's requirement for free access to museums, and there have been widespread complaints from the public. Therefore, it is necessary to streamline the ticketing mechanisms of museums currently.

In 2021, the total number of registered museums nationwide reached 6,183, with 5,605 museums offering free admission, accounting for over 90 percent of the total. The imbalance between supply and demand has resulted in museums being extremely difficult to access, with tickets booked up in seconds after reservations open.

The fact that people are willing to visit museums demonstrates the strong cohesion and centripetal force of traditional culture. As the guardians of these treasures, museums should provide better ticketing services.

The relationship between individual reservations and group tickets for tour groups needs to be handled properly. Currently, many individuals are unable to secure reservations on their own and are forced to join expensive tour groups for visits. There is significant profit potential in the transition from free reservations to costly tour group sign-ups.

This has even become a source of revenue for some travel agencies and is linked to the museum's own interests, as many group tickets include paid services within the museum.

Should tour groups be allowed to continue? If so, to what extent? This consideration should not solely be based on the museum's operational purposes but also on benefiting society more broadly. Especially with the explosive growth of student trips during the summer, museums should allocate more quota for free admission.

THEPAPER.CN