Admission Fee

Should museums and art galleries be free of charge for the general public, or should a charge, even a voluntary charge, be levied for admittance?

The recent decades have witnessed an increasing concern about applying entry fees to museums and art galleries. There are those who contend that museums and art exhibitions are places for cultural inheritance and charging an admission fee would discourage people from visiting them. Conversely, a staggering number of individuals claim that an admission would benefits museums’ maintenance work. In this sense, whether a charge levied for admission is beneficial or detrimental is yet to be ascertained.

First and foremost, being deemed a place for preserving and transmitting cultural history, museums aim to attract a large number of visitors in order to widely spread the culture. Oddly enough, local inhabitants are deterred from entering those museums that with an entrance fee, irrespective of the value that the museums possess. Time and again, it is a documented fact that the number of visitors to museums charging admission fees decreased; needless to say, the mission of spreading local culture to the next generation would be hindered. As a result, the necessity of having these museums and galleries would be doubted which could lead to the closure of these cultural inheritance’s places.

From another stance, it is acknowledged that the maintenance cost poses a gargantuan burden on governments. With the help of an admission, museum curators could allocate this revenue to sponsor the maintenance cost, which tremendously minimises the financial burden of governments. Interestingly enough, a remarkable observation coming from research findings is that visitors are willing to pay for maintenance rather than an entrance fee without noticing the purpose behind. As a result, a voluntary charge would favour museums or galleries’ maintenance work.

By and large, it is fair to assert that a charge should be levied for museums’ maintenance work. On the basis of my observation, it is pivotal for visitors to fathom the reason behind the charge in order to lure individuals to visit and to spread the preserved culture. In addition, a voluntary charge would be an appropriate option for museums which might opt for not charging an entrance fee.