Illustration: Liu Xiangya/GT

Just as the Spring Festival holidays came to an end,MKsport a city museum in Huai'an, East China's Jiangsu Province, made a bold decision that sent ripples through otherwise tranquil cultural institutions: Starting from February 10 it would no longer close on Mondays and embrace a year-round, no-rest operation schedule. The move not only is a response to the growing cultural demands of the public but also provides a pioneering model for the next development of cultural institutions nationwide.  

The Huai'an Museum confirmed the decision with the Global Times on Tuesday. According to the Department of Social Services at the museum, more than 1,000 visitors visited the museum on Monday, the second opening Monday after the new policy.

Other museums such as the Yinxu Museum and Xi'an Beilin Museum have also adopted this measure. This is a positive response to the booming demand for museums in China. In recent years, many museums have been struggling to cope with this demand, with advance bookings often selling out quickly, leaving a highly tense supply-demand balance between visitors and museums. Some of the most popular museums such as the Palace Museum and National Museum of China in Beijing have become hotspots for scalpers, driving up ticket prices online. As a result, museums have been extending their opening hours, offering nighttime visits, and increasing the number of themed exhibitions to meet the growing demand.

During this Spring Festival holidays, museum visits nationwide reached a new high. According to statistics from the National Cultural Heritage Administration, from the first to the seventh day of the Chinese New Year, museums across China received more than 72 million visitors. The average daily visitor count increased by 12.84 percent year on year, exceeding 10 million visitors per day. Museums in the provinces of Shaanxi, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong each received over 5 million visitors.

For decades, the "Monday closed day" tradition has been the standard operating procedure for museums in China. Its purpose is clear: to provide time for staff to rest, exhibit maintenance, and facility repairs. However, with the exponential growth of public interest in cultural experiences, this model has increasingly shown its limitations, according to Chen Lüsheng, a renowned museologist and curator of Museum of University of Science and Technology of China.

One of the most common complaints comes from visitors who travel from other cities only to find their chosen museums closed due to scheduling conflicts. Local residents, too, often face frustration as weekends and holidays, when they are free to visit museums, become overcrowded, diminishing the quality of their visiting experience. The elimination of closed days aligns with the public expectation that museums should function as more than static "cultural palaces" and should instead be dynamic, inclusive public spaces that serve the community's evolving needs.

In recent years, museums across China have been innovating to attract a broader demographic and enhance visitor experiences. Initiatives such as "night tours," summer holiday extended hours, and interactive digital exhibits have been widely embraced. The elimination of closed days represents a significant extension of this trend, marking a new level of commitment to public service and accessibility.  

Chen did not avoid the challenges museums face by canceling the traditional closed day. With no closed days, museums must adopt new maintenance strategies, such as staggered closures of specific sections or nighttime maintenance schedules. Operating the entire year also requires careful planning to ensure that employees receive rest and can maintain their well-being. Flexible scheduling, increased staff recruitment, and efficient rotation systems will be essential to address this. If the initiative to remove closed days is implemented, museums must strike a balance between operational expansion and preventing staff burnout, as the latter could compromise the quality of the visitor experience.

However, not all museums may have the resources or capacity to follow Huai'an's example. Smaller or underfunded institutions may struggle to maintain year-round operations without additional support. Chen suggested that changing the closed day of different museums is also one of effective measures to integrate overall museum resources for one city or province. Following the elimination of closed days, museums should meticulously plan their next steps to maximize the benefits of expanded operations while mitigating potential drawbacks. 

Innovating curatorial approaches and enriching exhibition content are some of the fundamental ways to meet the public's cultural demand. The Huai'an Museum planned a series of folk celebrations that fit its temporary exhibitions about the Chinese New Year, which garnered positive feedback from visitors. An array of special activities has also been organized across various museums, including fossil excavations at the Shanghai Natural History Museum and nighttime sky observations at the Shanghai Astronomy Museum.

Canceling closed days is just one way to improve cultural offerings. With this as a starting point, more museums can use digital technology and other innovative methods to create new tourism experiences and attract more visitors.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. [email protected]