By AKARI UOZUMI/ Staff Writer
January 30, 2024 at 07:00 JST
Visitors to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
HIROSHIMA--The city-run Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is moving to introduce an online ticket reservation system to alleviate chronic congestion, particularly on weekends, officials said.
Tickets are currently only sold over the counter at the museum. The new system is expected to be in place by mid-February.
Visitor interest in the museum surged after the Group of Seven summit was held in the city in May 2023. Long lines to get in are the norm at weekends.
As its name implies, the museum located in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is dedicated to documenting the city’s destruction by atomic bombing in World War II.
Visitor numbers to the museum this fiscal year that started in April 2023 reached 1.27 million by the end of October, exceeding the total for fiscal 2022, according to the city government’s peace promotion division.
In August, when the summer heat was oppressive, visitors often had to wait up to two hours to enter the facility, generating a raft of complaints to the municipality.
Tickets for entry in and after March will be sold online.
Other steps under consideration include: extending the opening and closing hours by one hour to accept visitors with advance reservations and relocating some of the exhibits to the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, which is also located in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Officials have proposed installing automatic ticket machines inside the museum.
Visitor numbers swell in August because the city holds an annual remembrance service for the tens of thousands of people killed in the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing.
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