Heritage Malta is encouraged by the response to its Membership Scheme, which has attracted over 100 people since its launch last December.

The concept is a new approach aimed at boosting the number of local visitors to museums.

"For decades, free admission was offered to museums one day a month but few people used to turn up," the manager of public programmes Pierre Cassar said.

Faced with the fact that it had to offer schemes to all EU nationals without discrimination, a new scheme was drawn up.

"The idea is to encourage locals to visit museums, rather than to promote it as a discount ticket for foreigners wanting to visit all the museums," he said.

The scheme offers several benefits, the main one being free, unrestricted entry to all Heritage Malta museums and sites for 12 months, except for the Hypogeum, for which members get a 50 per cent discount.

It also offers discounts from the museum shops, a subscription to the Heritage Malta newsletter, invitations to public lectures organised by Heritage Malta, e-mail information on public events and discounts on special exhibitions.

There are now three museum shops (at the Roman Domus, Rabat, the Archaeological Museum in Valletta and at Vilhena Palace in Mdina). These are being run by a consortium following a public tender and others are planned, the next being one at the Inquisitors' Palace.

"The experience at the museums is improving all the time. We now offer guided tours at almost all the sites in Maltese and English and there are also bilingual interpretation panels. Visitors can also borrow gallery sheets with a summary of all the panels, in six languages including Chinese."

The latest project involves multi-lingual audio guides that are available for no extra cost at the Armoury in Valletta and at St Paul's Catacombs in Rabat.

Others are planned for the Hypogeum and the Palace State rooms.

The strategy seems to be paying off. The total number of paying visitors at Heritage Malta sites in the 12 months between October 2004 and September 2005 rose by 2.52 per cent to 1.149 million.

Membership of the scheme costs Lm12 for an adult, Lm8 for a senior citizen and Lm20 for a family unit with an unlimited number of children aged up to 17.

"It would cost Lm30 for an adult to visit the museums just once. Imagine when you factor in those museums that are worth visiting more often, such as the Fine Arts Museum where we have temporary exhibitions every four weeks, or the Archaeology Museum where we also have exhibitions. Even if you went to three or four exhibitions every year it would be worthwhile," he said.

"We also have many people who are entranced by the atmosphere of the temples, for example, and who go there regularly to meditate, as well as painters inspired by the setting."

Enrolling is kept as simple as possible. Photos can be taken at the Heritage Malta headquarters in Merchants' Street and the card given within minutes of filling out the application. Mr Cassar is also trying to make arrangements for applications to be possible at local councils or at Maltapost counters.

In the meantime, Heritage Malta also launched a Volunteers Programme encouraging people to give a minimum of 10 hours a week on various duties.

For further details call 2295 4000.

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