A standing bronze statue is moved into a cabinet for an upcoming exhibition at the Shanghai Museum ahead of the inauguration of a new venue in Pudong New Area. The statue, unearthed from the Sanxingdui Ruins in Sichuan province, demonstrates the high level of civilization in Sichuan some 3,000 years ago. LIU YING/XINHUA

During the recent Spring Festival holiday, China witnessed a notable surge in domestic tourism, with record-high expenditure spent on domestic travel.

Liu Jieyi, spokesman for the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, emphasized at a news conference on Sunday that the surge reflects the significant consumption potential of the Chinese people, driven by a desire to enhance their quality of life, and is poised to become a strong driver of economic development.

The surge in tourism coincided with increased demand to visit museums during the holiday, leading to challenges for many individuals in securing tickets.

Museums have become a widely discussed topic, prominently featured during the provincial two sessions in many regions. Statistics from the National Cultural Heritage Administration revealed that last year, museums in China welcomed 1.24 billion visits, surpassing the 2019 pre-pandemic figure of 1.23 billion.

"The popularity of museums has not only recovered to the state before the pandemic, but also surpassed it," said Pan Shouyong, a museum expert at Shanghai University.

Further bolstering museums, progress has also been made in cultural heritage protection, archaeological studies and talent cultivation in this area, with China seeing "major progress made in the cultural heritage field in the last year", Li Qun, director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, said at a national conference held in Beijing in January.

Pan worked with cultural heritage professionals at a seminar in February to evaluate the performances of museums in the last year, and has issued lists of the most influential museums and exhibitions based on their popularity.

Hang Kan (second from left), head of the Yungang Research Institute, discusses methods of restoring wall paintings at the institute in Datong, Shanxi province, last month. ZHAN YAN/XINHUA

"Museums have become one of the most important tourist destinations for Chinese people," said Pan, explaining that people's demand for visiting museums surged last year, especially during the summer vacation when families flocked to museums.

"More than 200 of the 6,565 museums in China faced challenges of how to accommodate a great number of people in a short time. As a result, people might have found it difficult to book tickets," said Pan.

Moreover, people have become more demanding about the quality of exhibitions, and their themes have often been discussed online.

A highlight of the exhibitions last year was An Epic of Chinese Jade for 10,000 Years at the Nanjing Museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

"The exhibition was well-acclaimed and popular. Jade has a long history in China and is distributed in places such as the Liangzhu city ruins near Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang province, and sites of Hongshan culture in Northeast China. This display showed them together and covered the development of Chinese jade from 10,000 years ago. It means researchers at the museum did a lot of research on the subject," said Pan.

Visitors are increasingly pursuing an immersive experience when visiting museums, according to the expert.

"The China Grand Canal Museum in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, has been extremely popular. It's not known for its exhibits, but for its interactive activities. You can also find many visitors, and not limited to young people, wearing traditional Chinese costumes at the museum. The trend has been followed by people at other museums, becoming a ceremonial and popular way of visiting museums now," said Pan.

However, he pointed out the uneven popularity of museums in China, saying except for the more than 200 popular museums, others, even some at the national or provincial level, did not see a significant growth in visits last year.

Archaeologists preserve and restore sculptures at the Dazu Rock Carvings in Chongqing in January. DU LIANYI/CHINA DAILY

Protection efforts

Officials and experts have illustrated attempts to protect cultural heritage across the country. A major one was the start of the fourth national census of cultural relics in November.

According to Zhang Wenrui, director of the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, this census is being conducted 12 years after the previous one.

"Since the relics are often located out in the open or buried underground, they may have disappeared or changed due to the influence of human activities. As a result, the census is important to provide a reference for our future protection efforts," said Zhang.

According to Deng Chao, director of the artifact and historical site department of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, this census is different from the previous three as publicity departments at different levels have jumped on board this time to help the cultural heritage authority accomplish the tasks.

All ancient architecture, sites, tombs, cave temples and carvings made before 1911 will be covered in the census.

At the same time, efforts to crack down on criminals threatening the safety of cultural relics and heritage sites have been intensified.

"The number of criminal cases related to cultural relics has dropped by 43 percent, from 2,300 in 2020 to 1,300 in 2023. And the number of accidental fires at heritage sites decreased from 15 to five in the past four years," said Chen Peijun, director of the supervision department of the National Cultural Heritage Administration.

He stressed the role of technology in protecting such sites, and said all key historical and cultural sites under national-level protection will be installed with satellite remote sensing for monitoring and law enforcement by 2026.

"Shandong and Zhejiang provinces and Shanghai have started monitoring with satellite remote sensing. Other provinces should follow suit and cooperate with natural resources authorities to promote the sharing of such technologies," said Chen.

Wang Wanfu, a deputy to the 14th National People's Congress who is also deputy director of the department of conservation research at the Dunhuang Academy, proposed to establish a National Key Laboratory on the protection of cultural heritage.

"China has abundant cultural heritage resources of various types, which face threats from the environment and others," said Wang on the sidelines of the second session of the 14th NPC. "As a result, I hope to establish such a laboratory to gather top professionals so that they can study and tackle the bottleneck problems in the protection of cultural heritage and support the development of this industry."