The role of museums as cultural heritage institutions tasked with securing and preserving cultural relics cannot be weakened, an official said.

Liu Yuzhu, director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration and a national political adviser, stressed on March 3 that Chinese museums, especially those built on ruins or around ancient architecture, should stay the course.

Liu also pointed out that museums should maintain a level of elegance and not devolve into vulgar market fairs and commonplace entertainment venues so as to elevate the cultural IQ of the general public.

Visiting museums is an increasingly popular activity in China.

There has been an annual increase of about 100 million people visiting museums nationwide over the past three years, Liu said.

Over 40 percent of the 415 million people who traveled in China during the Spring Festival holiday this year stepped into museums, according to China Tourism Academy.

He described Chinese museums as currently enduring “growing pains”, adding that the country’s museums are tackling capacity limitations amid booming demand.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the National Cultural Heritage Administration have been working to implement two top-level suggestions separately concerning revolutionary cultural relics conservation and strengthening reform of cultural relics preservation, Liu said.

Liu added that a dozen provincial government bodies and institutions are studying ways to improve cultural heritage preservation, and more talent should be recruited to join efforts in this field at the municipal and county levels.

Earlier on the afternoon of March 3, Song Jirong, a national political adviser and deputy director of the Palace Museum in Beijing, said that the museum is working with universities to build China’s first “medical school of cultural relics” and develop talent to protect and restore national treasures.