Many of the world's finest museums open their doors to the public free of charge. The National Museum of China in Beijing, the most-visited museum worldwide last year when 7.55 million visitors streamed in, has been free since it reopened in March 2011 after renovation. The National Museum of Natural History in Washington, ranked fourth with 7.1 million visitors last year, is also free. The British Museum, with 6.42 million attending last year, has been free since it opened to the public in 1759, except for temporary suspensions such as during the two world wars.

Many have extended opening hours at least once a week. The Louvre in Paris is open until 9:45 pm on Wednesdays and Fridays. The British Museum is open until 8:30 pm on Fridays.

Hong Kong has partially adopted both measures: ad-hoc opening-hour extension for very popular exhibitions, and free admissions for some museums. During an exhibition about artist Claude Monet at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum last year, the museum was open for two more hours until 8 pm on selected days for about five weeks. The exhibition attracted 240,000 visitors in nine weeks, about a third of the Heritage Museum's total footfall - 787,000 - last year.

Starting from Aug 1 last year permanent exhibitions of five museums in Hong Kong - including the Hong Kong Museum of History and Heritage Museum- are free to visit.

But the Hong Kong Science Museum, which draws the most visitors among all museums in the city, still charges a fee, despite this being reduced to HK$20 for a standard ticket. So does the Hong Kong Space Museum.

The Science Museum staying open until 9 pm on weekends and public holidays, the longest hours for a Hong Kong museum, does much to account for its impressive visitor numbers, registering 1.23 million last year, a drop from 1.58 million in 2014. The history museum trails behind it, recording 1.03 million visitors last year, while the city's 14 public museums altogether received 4.65 million visitors last year.

Good museums can be tourist attractions. The ones in Hong Kong certainly make the grade, with excellent permanent exhibitions, and ties with leading institutions to bring home rare exhibits. This year alone, people here can enjoy exhibits from renowned museums including Louvre, the British Museum and the Palace Museum in Beijing.

The exhibitions are educational, interactive and family-friendly. And Hong Kong people are shrewd enough to seize the opportunities. I saw packed rooms with enthusiastic crowds, and had to avoid stepping on someone's toes whichever direction I turned, when I visited the Claude Monet exhibition at the Heritage Museum last year, as well as at the one featuring six mummies from the British Museum at the Science Museum this year, and the legend of Hong Kong toys exhibition, invoking different generations' fond memories of toy stories, at the History Museum.

Public museums provide an important public education service to encourage people's curiosity, spark discussion and inspiration, and create shared experience by schoolmates, friends, couples, all-age-group parents and children.

Longer opening hours at Hong Kong's public museums on designated days, and free admission to the permanent exhibitions of the Science Museum and Space Museum, will further motivate residents, especially young people, to pay regular visits. They are likely to encounter fewer hassles in peak times, because visitor flow will be more evenly distributed. The loss in ticket fees can be offset by gains from the expected increase in visitors checking out fee-charging, high-quality, special exhibitions such as the Monet and mummies displays.

Museum visits can open the mind and nourish the spirit. By providing more easy access to public museums, the city invests in its residents and young people, and itself stands to benefit from an educated populace.

(HK Edition 08/07/2017 page9)