The entrance to the Forbidden City, also known as the Palace Museum, is a vast space often seen filled to the brim with tourists anxious to buy tickets. But that scene might soon disappear as the museum is considering closing down ticket booths and moving all ticket sales online.
The museum has announced a plan to expand the sale of online tickets on a trial basis in July and plans to phase out the sale of paper tickets by the end of October.
Currently, tourists can purchase tickets online in advance, while also being able to buy paper tickets at the entrance.
People line up for a security check before entering the Palace Museum. /VCG Photo
According to the plan, there are three steps to phase out the sale of paper tickets. Starting in May, the museum will allow the online sale of tickets for every single day after an upgrade to its online ticket selling system. From July to October, a trial run will test the feasibility of online sales of tickets, but tourists will also be able to buy tickets at the entrance. Tourists can also buy tickets by scanning a QR code at the entrance. A full online system will be implemented in the last 10 days of October, effectively ending the sale of paper tickets.
Various platforms will soon provide visitors more options to purchase tickets online. The Palace Museum is now developing its own ticket selling software. Payment methods will also include Alipay and WeChat, according to the plan.
VCG Photo
The Palace Museum began selling tickets online in September 2011. Currently about 50 percent of its tickets are sold online, with up to 70 percent booked online during holidays.
The proposal for an online system was firstly mentioned in 2015. However, netizens expressed their split views towards the plan. Young people welcomed the plan for the reason of convenience, though some said it is unfair to people who are not accustomed to using the internet, for example the elderly or people from rural areas who do not know how to get online or are unable to use online payment methods.
Visitors crowd the entrance of the Palace Museum. /VCG Photo
Aiming to solve the potential problem, the museum is to set up special measures to help those who are unable to get tickets online by guiding them to a service counter, where they can complete the online process.
The Palace Museum also started to set a daily visitor cap of 80,000 on June 13, 2015. The cap was triggered 32 times in 2015, 48 times in 2016, and 10 times in 2017.
The plan also said that by May 2018, the museum may offer tickets for different periods throughout a day, in a bid to avoid over-crowding.
