Palace Museum Plans to Sell All Tickets Online

With the increasing presence of historic relics and paintings in Beijing's Palace Museum, flocks of visitors have been standing in long queues for hours just to get a glimpse of the items on display.

As a means of tackling complications resulting from the crowds of spectators, Shan Jixiang, head of the Palace Museum, recently revealed that the museum plans to cancel ticket windows and replace them with online tickets.

More ticket channels, such as online booking and two dimensional codes for cell phone users, have been developed in response to the fast growing number of visitors.

However, experts warn that shutting down ticket booths and substituting them with a digitalized system may deprive access for people above mid age to the museum.

"Even though we're opening more online channels for visitors to book tickets, I don't think we should have closed all the ticket windows considering those people who aren't accustomed to the online system," said Liu Simin, deputy director of Beijing Tourism Industry Association.

According to Liu, the tourism industry in China is very diverse. Many people don't arrange their trips scrupulously in advance. The complete digitalization of the ticket system is unfair to those people.

The Palace Museum has set a restriction on the maximum number of visitors at 80,000 people per day during the weeklong National Day holiday starting from Oct. 1, 2015.