Hong Kong Palace Museum Cuts Free Wednesday Tickets Due to Low Turnout
The Hong Kong Palace Museum will no longer offer free tickets every Wednesday in July due to a decrease in turnout rate to 35% in the past six months.
The director of the museum, Louis Ng, stated that Wednesday is the quietest day and to avoid wasting tickets, more than 120,000 tickets will be offered to the underprivileged every year in the future.
The museum will also host several exhibitions, including a portrait painting exhibition in December and an archaeological exhibition in September, in addition to an exhibition with 52 masterpieces borrowed from the British National Gallery in November.
The West Kowloon Cultural District chief executive, Betty Fung Ching Suk-yee, reported that the operating deficit has been slashed by a third in the past fiscal year, thanks to better cost control, improved leasing income, and more commercial sponsorships.
The HK$21.6 billion budget offered by the government, which was planned to be used by the end of this year, will now be sufficient till 2025.
Fung stressed the need for more sponsors for exhibitions and explained that the cost recovery ratio of M+ and HKPM is 45%, which is better than many museums worldwide.
Ticket sales on average can only cover half of the total costs of about HK$200 million for staging an exhibition.