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SINGAPORE: Singapore citizens and permanent residents will get free entry to all national museums and heritage institutions from May 18. They include Asian Civilisations Museum, National Museum of Singapore, Peranakan Museum, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore Philatelic Museum, Malay Heritage Centre and the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall. The National Heritage Board (NHB) is hoping to draw in the crowds with new hands-on activities and story telling is one way it hopes to engage the visitors. In the past 10 years, it has seen a three-fold increase in visitor numbers from 1.1 million in 2003 to 2.8 million in 2012, and NHB said increasingly, visitors want to do more than just walk around the museums. Director of corporate communications at NHB, Cheryl Koh, elaborated: "Actually museums are really interactive places. We have grown to become more engaging as well. We are no longer just dusty places that we put dusty artefacts around." This year's Children's Season exhibition will coincide with the start of free entry. Making traditional snacks like Ang Ku Kueh is one of the highlights of the Children's Season exhibition. There will be many more hands-on activities at the National Museum of Singapore. Other museums will hold exhibitions and activities for children till end-June. Since the government announced plans for free entry during the Budget this year, the National Museum has received about 20 per cent more enquiries from the public about its programmes. On average, it gets about 30 calls a month. Ms Koh said NHB isn't setting visitor targets but it is closely monitoring visitors' response. "In engagement, we will see from the numbers, when people come and sign up for our programmes when they visit our museums. We will then see whether they are engaged. If they don't sign up for programmes, our programmes have no sign ups at all, then we will know that we are not moving in the right direction and perhaps we will have to do a tweak," she said. With free entry, NHB said it hopes more will use museums as a platform to bond and reflect on Singapore's heritage and history. - CNA/fa http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singap...4.html?cid=FBSG