While museums and historical sites tend to draw scores of visitors, they have been largely ignored by locals. Although this phenomenon can be attributed to a host of factors, governments can adopt some viable solutions to restore people’s interest in local historical attractions.
There are two underlying reasons why people do not visit local museums. First, people tend to think that museums are boring and thus not worth visiting. This stems from the fact that history in generally perceived as tedious and things associated with history often fail to attract the attention of the masses. Another reason for the low number of visitors to local museums is their lack of appeal. These buildings typically do not have trained staff to educate visitors about the items on display, causing them to quickly lose interest after entering museums. In addition, the collection of exhibits in local museums tend to remain unaltered due to a meager budget for operation, rendering curators unable to purchase new exhibits. The Women’s Museum in Hanoi perfectly exemplifies this situation. For years, the poorly curated exhibits have been the culprit of the low rate of local visitors to this museum.
In order to increase the number of local visitors to museum, states must take the following feasible measures. First and foremost, the way that history is taught in school must be overhauled. For instance, graphic should be incorporated into history lectures in order to make them more vivid, which may kindle students’ interest in history and encourage them to visit museums. Another solution is for governments to allocate more funding to museums. This investment can be used to finance the acquisition of exhibits and hire professional docents to take the visitors on a guided tour and this may dramatically boost the appeal of museums.
In conclusion, the low rate of local visitors to museums can be ascribed to various reasons and the government should implement the proposed solutions to alleviate the situation.