Foreign visitors find barrier to entry at China’s museums, which may translate to losses for tourism industry
- Visitors who cannot pre-book through Chinese apps – requiring a WeChat account and ability to read Chinese – are locked out of many attractions
- While locals may have greater access to museum-hopping and other activities, obstacles may affect China’s soft power abroad as well as tourism, say analysts
The National Museum of China, which houses the richest collection of Chinese cultural relics, has long been a top attraction for domestic and overseas tourists.
This and other similar systems were developed during the Covid-19 pandemic when there were no international tourists in China. The museum’s English website provides a link for bookings, but it is now defunct.
Other popular tourist attractions, such as the Shaanxi History Museum in China’s ancient imperial capital, have similar issues. While its website advises visitors to book their visit through either WeChat or a link to an online ticketing system, the latter leads nowhere.
China’s technological revolution has made life for its own population more convenient than ever before, but that added ease may now be inadvertently skewed towards the domestic population – to the potential disadvantage of foreign tourists – and those issues are showing up in museums.
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Most major attractions in China require visitors to make advance appointments through mini-programmes, which means visitors must have a WeChat account and a grasp of how it works, as well as basic Chinese language proficiency, to plan their trip.
