The topic of museums and historical sites has sparked debate, as many of them are proposing virtual tours and online access to their collections. In my view, the benefits of this step go far beyond its drawbacks, since it is significant to create a new meaning of art rather traditional one.
On the one hand, offering virtual tours and online access to museums and historical sites comes with several advantages. Firstly, providing visitors with such services can encourage people, especially young generations, to know more about other cultures. This is because people can visit different monuments without the need to travel or spend huge amounts of money. For example, the Louvre Museum offers online tours that allow people worldwide to explore famous artworks without travelling. Secondly, selling online tours can help authorities gain more profit to repair and maintain historical sites. In this way, this step can bring many benefits, such as encouraging young visitors with tight budgets to enjoy virtual tours and collecting more profits.
On the other hand, providing people with online tours may bring some disadvantages. This can be explained by the harm that the internet can cause to such significant artworks, as online tours can expose them to piracy. As a result, they may become available online and lead to social chaos among individuals, since it seems unfair that some people spend money to visit them while others can access for free. Moreover, online tours can be filmed with poor-quality materials, which may cause a loss of their significance and importance, which in turn can lead to a decline in their popularity and cause them to be neglected by the public due to the poor materials used to promote them online. Therefore, offering e-tours and e-access can lead to some drawbacks and harm museums and historical sites.
In conclusion, although virtual tours of museums and historical sites may cause some disadvantages, including privacy violations and inequality, I strongly believe that virtual tours of museums and historical sites have crucial and important consequences that can benefit societies as well as public authorities.