Sze Cheng
AMT 101: Introduction to Travel Industry
Professor: David Schoenberg
Title of work: Second essay—Attraction
June 2, 2006
People look for various scenic attractions and entertainment alternatives to fill up their
leisure time. When they travel, they tend to visit their favorite historical scenic spots or carry
out certain recreational activities. Therefore, scenic attractions are vital to tourists and for
local government to attract tourists. A country’s tourism industry, flourishing or not, depends
not only on how good its tourism plans and facilities are but also how attractive are its scenic
attractions.
I like visiting museums. And of course the well-known famous museum in the world,
the Metropolitan Museum of Art (it is widely called Met), is my cup of tea. I had a chance to
visit there last week. It is located on Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street in Manhattan. It is one of the
largest and most comprehensive art museums in the world. It boasts to have a collection of
nearly three million objects from every known artistic medium, and from nearly every cultural
era. More than five million people visit the museum each year, making it one of New York’s
most popular attractions. Like other people, I was attracted by its vast collection of arts. It
was a good experience to visit there. At my first glance of the museum, the outline of the
museum was a piece of antique in itself. The building is huge. The architecture was so
outstanding compared to other buildings within the area. Many people were sitting on the
stairs outside the museum and enjoying the sunshine. After the security check, I bought a
ticket and started to explore the museum. Most of the time, I browsed the museum by myself
as I enjoyed watching arts alone. However, due to my strong interests in certain art
collections, I followed the guided tour of Arts of Ancient Egypt and Impressionism Paintings.
The Met has 19 exhibition rooms. My journey started from the Egyptian art on the
ground floor. It had 36,000 objects from 5th millennium B.C. to A.D. 400. It also had a
miniature of an Egyptian tomb. The most valuable pieces in the Met's Egyptian collection are
a set of 24 wooden models, discovered in a tomb in Deir el-Bahri in 1920. These models
depict, in unparalleled detail, a veritable cross-section of Egyptian life in the early Middle
Kingdom. The most amazing part in this exhibition room was the Temple of Dendur. It is a
large sandstone temple, and situated in a large room, partially surrounded by a reflecting pool
and illuminated by a wall of windows opening onto Central Park. The Temple of Dendur is
one of the Met's most enduring attractions. After the Egyptian art, I went to see Greek and
Roman art. Displayed are the arts of Greece, Rome, Etruria, Cyprus, and Greek and Roman
settlements until the 4th century, including marble, bronze, and terracotta sculpture, vases,
wall paintings, jewelry, gems, glass, and utilitarian objects. Afterwards, I reached the Arts of
Africa, Oceania and the Americas. The collection ranges from 40,000-year-old Australian
Aboriginal rock paintings, to a group of fifteen-foot high memorial poles carved by the Asmat
people of New Guinea, to a priceless collection of ceremonial and personal objects from the
Nigerian Court of Benin. I like African arts a lot, and I was so happy to see so many African
arts at once.
On the first floor, the Met has the special exhibition which was “Hatshepsut: from
Queen to Pharaoh.” Hatshepsut, was the first important female ruler known to Egyptian
history. The room displayed many of her sculptures and earrings and rings. It’s hard to
believe that there could be a female ruler in ancient Egypt. I gained more knowledge about
Egyptian history after attending the exhibition. My fifth stop was Modern art. It displayed
American and European paintings, works on paper, sculpture, design, and architecture
representing the major artistic movements since 1900. Artists included Picasso and one of my
favorite artists Paul Klee. After Modern art, I visit European sculpture and decorative arts. It
contained European sculptures, wood works and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and
jewelry, tapestries and textiles, and horological instrument. After that, I came to the Robert
Lehman Collection. It had paintings, decorative arts, and old master drawings along with
Italian paintings from 1300-1500. My seventh stop was 19th century European painting and
sculpture. This galley displayed European paintings, mainly French Romanticism to post
impressionism. Major groups of works included Degas, Manet, Cezanne, Monet, Pissarro,
Renoir, and Van Gogh. Impressionism paintings are my favorite. I was so excited to see
many famous impressionist paintings. I like European paintings, so I went to the next room
which was European paintings. It displayed many masterworks by European artists including
El Greco, Holbein, Ingres, Jan Van Eyck, and La Tour and among others. After appreciating
numerous art objects, I came upon the photography section which displayed 19th century
French, British, and American photographs, and photographs of world wars. My last stop was
Chinese art. It contained Monumental Buddhist sculptures, 5th to 15th century ceramics,
Bronze Age jades, ritual vessels, and Han through Tang luxury objects. It also displayed
tomb figurines, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing paintings, and a Ming furniture room. It
reminded me of the Chinese history I had studied during high school.
The Met is one of the finest museums in the world; it attracts millions of visitors each
year. As per what I saw on that day, there were around 500 people in the museum and most
of them were tourists. Some of them were group tours, some of them came with their families,
and others were individual visitors like me. The ratio of tourists to locals is 8:2; while the
ratio of children to adults is around 2.5:7.5. It took me five hours to visit the Met, included
break times in the cafeteria. I spent the most time in Egyptian, Greek and Roman art and 19th
century European painting and sculpture. I felt tired after the visit, but it was still worth being
there since I got the chance to appreciate so many priceless arts.
There were so many staff people in the Met. They were all friendly and polite to
visitors; most of them came with smiley faces and were enthusiastic in helping visitors. They
were helpful to me as I lost my way in one of the exhibition rooms, and they gave me clear
instructions to escape from the “maze.” In addition, they provided good customer services.
For example, a Chinese lady had communication problems at the recorded guide desk, and
then a staff member came up to her and solved her problem in Chinese language. At the
information center in the middle of the central lobby, they have different language counters to
help visitors with language problems, such as Italian, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese,
German. and so on. They contributed a positive experience to me and other visitors because a
sound customer service is essential in tourism industry. Without good customer services, no
matter how attractive the destination is, tourists cannot be retained and the organization will
not expand in the long run.
Diverse cultures influence our lives. The United States is a melting pot and New York
City is a microcosm of the country; its diverse culture is characteristic of the city. Every race
has a different culture, values and beliefs; therefore, it is worth understanding other cultures
apart from ours to avoid misunderstandings. The trend nowadays is: people are attracted by
different cultures from different countries. The Met contains huge priceless arts of different
countries from ancient times; it helps us to understand human history in the past. The more
cultural and historical perspectives we gain, the more important will be the information that
we leave to the next generation. Furthermore, the museum shops contain a variety of products
from apparels, such as ties, scarves, and fine jewelry, to watches, music multimedia, and
educational material, in addition to books and kids’ stuff. It provides a nice shopping
environment and experience to visitors as shopping is the number one activity of tourists. Due
to all of these, I would highly recommend the Met to other individuals.
A good attraction should be easy to access. The Met has this advantage, it is located
in the heart of Manhattan and the building itself is huge, no matter inside or outside. It
provides enough spaces for tour coaches to stop by. Moreover, The Met is very wise to locate
next to another famous attraction, Central Park; it is very convenient for group tours to visit
two attractions within the same area. The Met is suitable for all market segments. It displays
massive amounts of arts from ancient times. And it has great educational value to different
ages of people. For instance, children and students need to know more about the past; it leads
them to learn more about human history. Compare to children, adult are mature enough to
understand and cultures. Furthermore, it is a perfect place for people who are addicted to
history, cultures. Over all, the Met has been very successful in building its reputation and has
sufficient charm to attract visitors from all around the world because of its cherished art
collections along with good marketing and management.
A successful attraction also depends on government subsidization. Indeed, the Met is
operated through a partnership between the City and the museum’s trustees. The City owns
the museum’s buildings in Central Park and provides the heat, light, and power. The City also
pays for nearly 50 percent of the museum’s cost of maintenance and security. In this regard,
the Met spends its capital on marketing itself properly and attracting different groups of
people to visit the museum.