As travel restrictions are imposed nationwide to curb the spread of COVID-19 outbreak, many museums have offered online exhibitions and virtual tours to anyone from the comfort of their homes.

The National Administration of Cultural Heritage issued a guideline on February 27 to encourage museums to turn to digital approaches and open cultural products and services to the public during the pandemic.

Cultural creation products of Nanjing Museum [Photo/CFP]

Over 30 famous museums in the country including the Nanjing Museum and Suzhou Museum followed the call and promoted their exhibitions on major platforms. Guides and educators for those institutions took on the new role as a presenter online and boosted the sales of cultural products.

As an example, Jiang Han, head of cultural creations at the Suzhou Museum, revealed the history behind relics in great details, boosting the online sales to nearly 80,000 yuan. Jiang said livestreaming service allows netizens to better understand the design concept and materials for cultural products so they can know deeper the relationship between relics and creations.

With offline cultural activities affected by the pandemic, the booming ‘cloud tours’ also show the promising prospects of digital exhibition in the cultural industry. The Nanjing Museum held two virtual tours that gained 1.55 million views. The museum’s curator Gong Liang said the online exhibition proves to be very attractive for the easy access.

Cheng Yi, deputy curator of the Suzhou Museum, said most of online visitors were young people in their 20s. Virtual tours not only provide the public with a new way to explore the museum but also fresh ideas for developing digital platform of cultural relics. In the future, the Suzhou Museum will host regular virtual tours to meet the needs of the public.

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