IELTS Essay # 111 - Nowadays museums and historical sites are mainly visited by foreign tourists instead of locals. Why is this happening? What can be done to get locals to visit museums and historical sites more?

Essay # 111

Nowadays museums and historical sites are mainly visited by foreign tourists instead of locals. Why is this happening? What can be done to get locals to visit museums and historical sites more?

It cannot be denied that local people do not visit cultural establishments like museums and historical monuments as much as tourists. The main reason for this is that they don’t find any novelty in these places to visit again and again. Therefore, a probable solution can be to upgrade or revamp such places for attracting more people.

It usually happens that parents or schools arrange for children to visit the historical sites in the city when they are young. This may be because teenagers and adolescents do not find such places very fascinating as compared to happening spots like cafes or clubs in the city. Therefore, after the initial visits, neither do children nor their parents visit the historical monuments anymore. It is only people from out of town who feel like exploring these cultural places. For example, a local resident of Delhi, would have visited The Qutub Minar only once or twice in his lifetime. In contrast, people visiting Delhi from other states, or abroad would be very eager to see and learn about that place, and click photos. Same can be said about museums, where the exhibits rarely change. So after seeing them once, the locals won’t be interested in going there again.

The concerned authorities should come up with innovative ideas to encourage locals to visit museums and historical sites. A very effective solution can be to organize public events on different occasions like festivals, public holidays, or even weekends. Events like a cultural quiz related to that particular monument, a talent competition for kids, or even a small-time fair on its anniversary can help attract locals to such places. Similarly, bringing new attractions in the museum and holding a temporary viewing event will make people curious to visit. For instance, on the occasion of International Artists Day, an Arts Museum in London brought famous American paintings from the US for a 10-day period. A number of locals flocked to see the exhibit who otherwise wouldn’t have visited the museum, only because there was something new for them to see, that too for a temporary period.

Therefore, to conclude, I would like to say that since the problem of locals not visiting museums and historical sites is because they’ve already seen these places before, it would be a good idea to organize new, different kinds of events to make them visit such places often.

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