According to some media reports, the four folk art museums in Guangzhou, Guangdong province have received few visitors even during the tourist season. A reporter who visited one of the museums saw only five visitors during the entire morning hours he spent there. It seems the way such museums promote folk art has become obsolete, because tourists today prefer interaction and "firsthand" experience to feel the importance of a place, says an article in People's Daily. Excerpts:

Museums showcase folk art so that modern people can appreciate their beauty and understand social development. But museum authorities today cannot attract visitors by only displaying key elements of folk art; they have to make efforts to revive the art forms.

The folk art museums in Guangzhou draw few visitors because they are in places which are not well-connected by public transport and their exhibits are presented in ways that people find boring. Usually the objects are exhibited with a paragraph of dull introduction, and the interactions are limited to lectures and other on-an-off activities. It is a pity that the fine collections receive little attention despite being well-protected.

The curators of the folk art museums need to learn a lot about how to promote the establishments to attract more visitors. Folk art in itself is a big treasure trove not properly used to educate visitors about their importance to social development.

In a market-oriented society, a museum has to take the initiative to study visitors like an enterprise that wants to "sell" its products to potential "buyers". Folk art can be made exciting and interesting if museums know how to not only tell but also to sell their stories. For instance, they could try to promote the exhibits through multi-media and 3D technologies, which are widely used by museums in advanced countries to make the experience more interactive for visitors.

The opinions expressed on this page do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily 08/13/2014 page9)