Forbidden City explores culture market success

The Palace Museum [File photo]

The curator of Beijing's Palace Museum said at a forum in Hubei Province that the landmark palace grosses 160 million yuan (US$25.61 million) a year.

Shan Jixiang, curator of the Palace Museum, known to most as the Forbidden City, said there are 1,807,558 cultural relics in the museum. About 93 percent of these are considered "precious" cultural relics.

Shan said it will take 100 years to display all of these items based on the current areas available for exhibition in the palace buildings.

He also said compared with other famous foreign museums, China's tourism merchandise lacks good development. He said in recent years, the Palace Museum has been trying to help visitors "bring Palace Museum culture home," by producing more than 6,000 souvenirs representative of the Forbidden City.

"People love them," he said. "We made 160 million yuan income from them."

In 2020, the Forbidden City will celebrate its 600th birthday. Shan said he hopes the palace will be around for the next 600 years.

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the center of Beijing. According to latest updates from a Monday press conference, the Forbidden City will test a new policy from September 12 - 14. Visitors can enjoy half price tickets after 2:00 p.m. if they buy the tickets online. This policy is meant to alleviate huge crowds. Peak hours are usually 10:00 a.m. - 13:00 p.m.

The Forbidden City faces problems in peak season and in the off- season. In summer, more than 70,000 people enter the palace. This number once reached 182,000. However, in the off-season, there are only 20,000 visitors each day. In order to balance these numbers, Shan said they will allow specific groups like teachers, medical workers, police officers and students enter the palace for free the first Wednesday of each month from November to April.