On January 27, the Beijing Palace Museum held an advisory meeting on introducing some of the new tourism measures. According to the museum's director Shan jixiang, the Beijing Palace Museum intends to implement new measures, including control the daily tourist volume of 80,000, internet presale tickets enjoy half price in low season, prohibit the use of amplification equipment by tour guides from April 1, 2015, etc.

The Daily Volume of Visitors will be Strictly Controlled at 80,000

The Beijing Palace Museum is a museum with the largest volume of annual visitors in the world. Although the measure of Monday closed was put to effect in 2014, the volume of annual visitors was still amounted to 15.25 million. The daily volume of visitors is less than 50,000 on average, but it is an uneven distribution. Among them, in 2014, there are 42 days with more than 80,000 people and 7 days with more than 100,000 people; During the summer vacation, the average daily number of visitors is more than 70,000, and in October 2 and 3, there are more than 140,000 visitors on every day.

According to Shan jixiang, the palace museum staff will try their best to create conditions to meet the needs of visitors, but at the same time, it needs to ensure the security of visitors, ancient buildings and cultural relics. Meanwhile, reflecting on the Bund Stampede and Yunnan Weishan Ancient City Fire, making an appropriately restrictions on the number of visitors is necessary in the peak season. So, based on years of information monitoring measurements and visitor reception experience as well as make a balance of museum’s cultural function and the protection of ancient buildings and cultural relics, the Beijing Palace Museum will implement the new measure of controlling daily volume of visitors at 80,000.

Shan Jixiang also revealed that, after the strict implementation of this limiting measure, the daily ticket sale information will be promptly informed on the Palm Forbidden City Network Platform and Tiananmen Square relevant information massage bar. In addition, Mr. Shan also called for tourists and travel agencies to take the form of online ticketing.

Online Ticket Booking

Through the online ticket booking, visitors can make reservations in advance, direct admission with ID cards, reduce waiting time as well as avoid tickets sold out in peak season. On the other hand, in terms of the Forbidden City, it can adjust on-site response plans in time based on the pre-sale situation.

The Forbidden City was piloted three days network reservation with half-price in 2014, which got a good result. Inspired by this, the Palace Museum will implement preferential policies for online presale tickets at half price in the off-season from November 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016 (Excluding the New Year's Day and Spring Festival Holidays; the Palace Museum online ticketing is only 20 Yuan but excluding Hall of Clocks & Watches and Treasures Hall).  

Other Relevant Rules

In recent years, in order to ensure the quality of tourists’ visiting, smoking and have been banned altogether in the Beijing Palace Museum. Meanwhile, motor vehicles are prohibited walking through in open areas, even the national guests don't have this privilege. In addition, from April 2015, the Forbidden City will prohibit tour guides using amplification equipment to avoid interference with other tourists’ visiting.