Hiroshima City government installs automatic ticketing machines in Peace Memorial Museum, will trial shortened tour route next month
Jul. 30, 2024
by Keiichi Nohira, Staff Writer
On July 29, the Hiroshima City government installed automatic ticket machines in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (located in the city’s Naka Ward) as a measure to mitigate visitor congestion in the facility. This fiscal year’s visitor count is to this point outpacing fiscal 2023’s record-high number by 20 percent. Sometime before the end of August, the city government plans to offer on a trial basis a shortened route allowing visitors to depart the museum after taking part in the Main Building tour.
Two ticketing machines have been placed in front of the ticket office at the museum’s entrance hall on the first floor of the East Building. The ticketing machines offer sales of same-day tickets through touch-panel screens with instructions in both Japanese and English. The machines also come equipped with an audio-guidance function. At present, tickets can only be purchased with cash, but cashless payments using QR codes will be possible starting later this year, in November. The expenses through fiscal 2028 related to the ticketing machines are expected to total around 25 million yen, including system maintenance and operating fees.
Ryuta Domitsu, 48, a company director who was visiting the museum from Kagoshima City together with two other family members, was able to enter the museum smoothly using the ticketing machines. “I bought the tickets easily by simply following the instructions,” said Mr. Domitsu.
In addition, the shortened tour route will enable visitors to leave from the exit in the Main Building’s gallery area, after entering the museum through the East Building and viewing the Main Building’s exhibitions, where actual A-bombed materials such as A-bomb victims’ belongings are gathered in displays. The route will be open on a trial basis during the period August 1–31 (excluding August 5–7). A typical tour has visitors touring the exhibitions in the Main Building and then returning to the East Building to learn more about the global nuclear situation.
The number of visitors to the museum in fiscal 2023 reached 1,981,782 people, marking a record high since the museum first opened. Through June 2024, a total of 612,732 people had visited the museum, a 21 percent increase over the same period last fiscal year. As visitors are expected to be concentrated between August 10 and 18th, around the traditional Japanese Obon holidays, the Hiroshima City government is asking people to schedule visits to the museum at different times, if possible.
(Originally published on July 30, 2024)
On July 29, the Hiroshima City government installed automatic ticket machines in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (located in the city’s Naka Ward) as a measure to mitigate visitor congestion in the facility. This fiscal year’s visitor count is to this point outpacing fiscal 2023’s record-high number by 20 percent. Sometime before the end of August, the city government plans to offer on a trial basis a shortened route allowing visitors to depart the museum after taking part in the Main Building tour.
Two ticketing machines have been placed in front of the ticket office at the museum’s entrance hall on the first floor of the East Building. The ticketing machines offer sales of same-day tickets through touch-panel screens with instructions in both Japanese and English. The machines also come equipped with an audio-guidance function. At present, tickets can only be purchased with cash, but cashless payments using QR codes will be possible starting later this year, in November. The expenses through fiscal 2028 related to the ticketing machines are expected to total around 25 million yen, including system maintenance and operating fees.
Ryuta Domitsu, 48, a company director who was visiting the museum from Kagoshima City together with two other family members, was able to enter the museum smoothly using the ticketing machines. “I bought the tickets easily by simply following the instructions,” said Mr. Domitsu.
In addition, the shortened tour route will enable visitors to leave from the exit in the Main Building’s gallery area, after entering the museum through the East Building and viewing the Main Building’s exhibitions, where actual A-bombed materials such as A-bomb victims’ belongings are gathered in displays. The route will be open on a trial basis during the period August 1–31 (excluding August 5–7). A typical tour has visitors touring the exhibitions in the Main Building and then returning to the East Building to learn more about the global nuclear situation.
The number of visitors to the museum in fiscal 2023 reached 1,981,782 people, marking a record high since the museum first opened. Through June 2024, a total of 612,732 people had visited the museum, a 21 percent increase over the same period last fiscal year. As visitors are expected to be concentrated between August 10 and 18th, around the traditional Japanese Obon holidays, the Hiroshima City government is asking people to schedule visits to the museum at different times, if possible.
(Originally published on July 30, 2024)
