The Essay Topic: Many museums charge for admission while others are free. Do you think the advantages of charging people for admission to museums outweigh the disadvantages?
Answer
The Essay : It is true that entry to several museums is charged and yet others allow visitors at no cost. Certainly this practice has merits and demerits.
Firstly, charging for admission into museums brings money to cover the business overheads, such as personnel wages, equipment maintenance, electricity and water bills, amongst others. Furthermore, a well maintained museum will attract more tourists and thus more people can increase their awareness. Secondly, an entry fee will restrict visitors who are not genuinely interested in history and culture. Besides, with free permission, miscreants and rogues may enter and mar the sanctity of the place. For example, entry to the National Museum of History in New Delhi is priced and one can see only sincere visitors there.
On the contrary, price of tickets to enter a museum could prove detrimental to people and museums. The poor but worthy people could be discouraged to visit the museum and be deprived of useful information and knowledge freely. Nevertheless, museums whose primary objective is to educate the masses, would face challenges in the effective upkeep of the property, in the absence of funds.
To conclude, while many museums levy a fee for visiting others do not, however, I opine that admission fee for entering a museum has more advantages since it facilitates its maintenance as well as restricts entry of unserious people. Nonetheless, this could have a negative impact on poor albeit keen people, by making it unaffordable to them.