From Ancient Marvels to Modern Innovations: Trip.com Spotlights Current Museum Trends for International Museum Day

SINGAPORE, May 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Museums hold the power to freeze time. Wandering through these tributes to the past, visitors are transported across history, from imagining the lives of our prehistoric ancestors and marvelling at the vibrant creativity of contemporary artists, to anticipating the innovations of the future.

While museums like the Louvre Museum, the Palace Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art continue to draw significant interest from global travellers, this International Museum Day on 18 May, Trip.com – a leading one-stop travel service provider – unveils some of the major current trends that museums are shaping around the world.

Rising museum trends: Innovative installations and use of technology

Increasingly, museums are using innovative installations and technology in their exhibitions to elevate the visitor experience, and blend the past and the future in a dynamic way.

The monumental installations that have been conceived as part of the Guardians of Time exhibition at the Guimet Museum in Paris, sponsored by Trip.com, provide a brand new iteration of Chinese culture and mythology by bringing together art and technology. From April 2024 to February 2025, works by Chinese artist Jiang Qiong Er take over several emblematic spaces of the museum, including its façade and its ancient Asian art collections, creating a captivating journey and a visionary reflection on time.

This exhibition takes place during the China-France Year of Cultural Tourism. Furthermore, as global tourists flow into Paris for the upcoming Summer Olympics, the exhibition will offer a unique experience for them to get a deep dive into the resonance and convergence of different cultures.

The façade of the museum building is a contemporary reinterpretation of the Chinese grottoes of Mogao, Yungang, and Longmen through the installation Origin. Twelve mythical creatures conceptualised with the help of artificial intelligence stand guard on the windows and at the top of the main entrance. Each of them celebrates the Year of the Dragon, and represents core philosophical and humanistic values such as peace, inclusion, and care for nature.

A gigantic net is suspended above the museum rooftop in the Her Voice – Bravery installation, where the stories collected from 60 diasporic Chinese women are embroidered using a new “women’s script” inspired by nv shu, the now extinct secret female script developed by peasant women in Hunan, China over 3,000 years ago. The poetic words of these women tell of their life experience, aspirations, agonies, and courage.

Digital developments are further helping museums around the world to reach a broader audience. Age-old museums take on a new life with virtual and augmented reality experiences, digital access, and streamlined booking procedures.

As one of the top attractions for international travellers to China, the Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum in Xi’an offers a VR film to complement the visitor experience. Sitting in a 360° rotating chair with a VR headset, visitors can witness the terracotta warriors come back to life and exercise their might on the battlefield to found the first centralised dynasty in ancient China.

The museum collaborated with Trip.com recently to launch a platform for integrated overseas service, which includes allowing visitors to access a mini digital museum to learn about its renowned collection even before the trip and offering more convenient online booking and payment options for inbound travellers.

Trip.com is leveraging its global user network and leading product capacity to open up new avenues for museum partners to engage and welcome knowledge seekers far and near, unlocking fresh opportunities as these museums leap into the future.

A museum for tomorrow: Looking to the past for a sustainable future

Responding to the pressing environmental challenges faced by our planet and our society, museums are using immersive exhibits, interactive displays, and state-of-the-art installations to engage visitors in thought-provoking conversations about our relationship with the natural world.

From 27 January to 23 June, the National Museum of Singapore is holding a special exhibition “Plastic: Remaking Our World” to chart the material’s meteoric rise in the 20th century, its environmental impact, and cutting-edge solutions for a more sustainable way of using plastics. An immersive film installation contrasts the long-term formation of oil with the rapid generation of plastic waste, whereas an interactive space recreates a home full of objects to illustrate the pervasiveness of plastics in our daily lives.

Meanwhile, “Story of the Forest”, one of the museum’s permanent exhibitions, takes visitors on a tour across the virtual and visual landscape of Singaporean history through the stunning 3D display created by the renowned Japanese digital art collective teamLab. Inspired by the museum’s treasured William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings, the exhibition invites visitors to interact with the animated wildlife of the Malay Peninsula in the nineteenth century up close.

With its rapidly expanding tour and ticket offerings around the globe, Trip.com is dedicated to connecting travellers with captivating exhibits, engaging programmes, and the opportunity to discover the world’s cultural heritage. Whether it’s exploring ancient civilisations, marvelling at masterpieces, or listening to new voices, Trip.com actively works with museum partners around the globe to expand their reach and keep memories alive for generations to come.

About Trip.com

Trip.com is an international one-stop travel service provider, available in 24 languages across 39 countries and regions in 35 local currencies. Trip.com has an extensive hotel and flight network consisting of more than 1.7 million hotels and flights from over 600 airlines covering 3,400 airports in 220 countries and regions around the globe. Trip.com’s world-class 24/7 multilingual customer service, as well as additional centres in Edinburgh, Tokyo and Seoul, help to ‘create the best travel experience’ for its millions of customers worldwide. To book your next trip, visit trip.com.