Initiatives to bring about an increase in the number of visitors to the museums

Response to parliamentary question on museum admission

Question

Response

1. Acting Minister Lawrence Wong: The suggestion for free admission to our museums is an initiative which the National Heritage Board (NHB) has been carefully studying.
2. Over the past three years, NHB has granted free admission to the permanent galleries of our National Museums to various segments of our population – Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents who are students, teachers, full-time National Servicemen and senior citizens . These groups currently enjoy free admission to the permanent galleries of NHB’s museums all year round. In addition, NHB also offers 15 open house days annually where all visitors are able to visit both the permanent and changing exhibitions of NHB institutions free of charge. Many of these open house days are synchronised with our national holidays.
3. Starting from 2011, NHB has also offered free admission for Singaporeans and Singapore PRs to the permanent galleries of all NHB institutions for the month of August in celebration of our National Day. Piloted in 2011, NHB will continue to offer this in August every year.
4. These initiatives have brought about an increase in the number of visitors to the museums. But we have also noticed that there are relatively more visitors when there are special programmes in the museums. So visitorship is also driven by the quality of programming, and this requires significant resources to sustain. Otherwise, as we have observed in some European countries which offer free admissions, visitorship numbers can still taper off after an initial phase. We are therefore continually reviewing our strategies to ensure that we take a sensible and sustainable approach which maximises the visitor experience in our museums.
5. I would like to assure Ms Janice Koh that NHB will continue to study visitor habits and our admission policies, so as to reach out to all Singaporeans and deepen appreciation for our shared heritage.