The free charge of admission fee has been adopted by many museums around the world. European countries such as The United Kingdom and France have even introduced the concept of free admission to the public that could serve larger areas and bigger audiences. Although the concept of free admission is already introduced to Taiwan, most of time the policy is not promoted by the central government or the local governments. Instead, they leave that for each individual museum to decide. In 2008, the New Taipei City Government started to promote the free admission policy in municipal museums, including Tamsui Historical Museum, Gold Museum, Yingge Ceramics Museum, Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology, The Lin Family Mansion and Garden, and Wulai Atayal Museum. These five museums and one garden are a larger scale case in Taiwan. This research has chosen four museums supervised by the Cultural Affairs Department of New Taipei City Government. They are similar in size and the amount of government subsidy, including Tamsui Historial Museum, Gold Museum, Yingge Ceramics Museum, and Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology. Through document analysis, interviews, and questionnaires, this research attempts to study the current situation and impact of the free admission policy of the municipal museums of New Taipei City and the audience response to it. Based on these results, this research also proposes suggestions for the policymaking and further studies. The research shows that after the implementation of the free admission policy, the number of museum visitors has increased significantly. Most of the visitors are female, half of them are married, and ages are 18 to 34. They are either students or employees in the industry, commerce, and services organizations that have university education, with monthly salary below NT$ 30,000. They live mostly in New Taipei City and second mostly in Taipei City. Because of the free admission policy, the number of domestic group visitors and foreign visitors has greatly increased. Most visitors are infrequent visitors. Their motivations to visit museums is to accompany friends and family members and to enhance their knowledge. The majority of visitors do not shop in the museums; they usually make purchases in the streets outside of the museums. Regarding to the admission policy, most visitors support the free admission policy. The amount of price that they are willing to pay for the admission is less than NT$ 50. Each museum differs in how it operates and what type of visitors it attracts. The reasonable suggests that each museum should develop different marketing strategies based on the features of the museum and its visitors. They can design activities that best suit the visitors¡¦ need, cooperate with transport companies and stores nearby to provide travel packages, and make good use of the volunteers to help the museum to operate effectively, so that the museum can provide the best service for the visitors and achieve a most cost-effective outcome.

Introduction This master ́s thesis focuses on the financial situation in a number of museums located in Stockholm, Sweden. In particular the study focuses on external financing and sponsorship and which means that are given to meet the conditions surrounding financial support. The aim of the study is to increase the knowledge of how the financial situation for museums looks like and how the interaction between cultural and economic capital shows. Theory The theoretical framework for the study is based on the theory of cultural economics and Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural / economic capital and his concept of space. The study used Bruno Freys terms Superstar Museumsand thetotal experience. Method The main method for the study was a comparative method, but a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods were also applied in the study. Interviews were conducted with informants from a number of the museums and data from all the selected museums was collected and compared. The material also consisted of a variety of written material, mostly annual reports, but also news articles, reports and official documents. Analysis & Results The material shows a wide range of factors defining the economic situation of museums in Stockholm. A large part of the income comes from public fundings for the public museums. The private museums are more dependent on incomes from admission fees and external financing. For many of the public museums the market based rents for the building is an issue that causes economic distress. Conclusions Many museums work with sponsorships and have a positive view on external collaborations, at the same time the majority of the museums report a low revenue from sponsorships. The legal framework makes it more difficult for public museums to work with external financing and the taxation system aggravates sponsoring in museums. The free admission reform was both criticized and applauded and divided the private and public museums.