The former director of the British Museum, one of many institutions in London that offers free admission, recently suggested that foreign visitors should pay a £20 ($25) admission fee, a move he said could help raise extra funds.
“The money has to come from somewhere,” Mark Jones, who served as interim director last year, told The Sunday Times June 30th.
Jones told The Sunday Times While museums should be free for British taxpayers and foreign visitors under 25, visitors from abroad should pay general admission fees to institutions such as the British Museum and the Natural History Museum.
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“British people place great value on free entry to museums – it’s our tradition,” he said. “People who support museums as taxpayers should not have to pay to visit them.”
Jones said the ticket price of “about £20” would also reduce crowding at the exhibition and the time visitors had to wait to get in.
“The museum is so busy that people can’t get the experience they deserve; pushing through the crowds doesn’t allow you to see the collection in its best light,” Jones told The Sunday Times.
The former director of the Victoria and Albert Museum also said the extra revenue could be used to increase staff wages and reduce ticket prices for special exhibitions.
Last December, the British Museum announced a controversial £50 million ($63.3 million) 10-year sponsorship deal with BP, which will fund the renovation and redisplay of the museum’s permanent collection. According to BP, the total cost of the London museum’s “extensive renovation” is between £400 million and £500 million. independent.
Jones was appointed interim director last August after the British Museum admitted in September that more than 1,500 objects in its collection had been lost, stolen or damaged, prompting the resignation of director Hartwig Fischer in August. Nicholas Cullinan was appointed permanent director in March and Jones left this month.
In an interview with Jones The Sunday TimesHe also said the institution should share the long-disputed Parthenon Marbles with Greece.
“If we wanted to find a way to have a partnership with the Greeks on the Parthenon Marbles, we needed to find a way to finance it,” Jones said.
