Beijing is to restrict visitor numbers at heritage sites during the Olympic Games next year in order to protect vulnerable ancient buildings.

Shu Xiaofeng, director of the Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau, said heritage departments would monitor visitor numbers at ancient buildings during the Games, and plan in advance to protect heritage sites.

But bureau officials would not respond on Monday to questions on how many visitors are expected to visit sites such as the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and the Summer Palace during the Olympic Games.

Experts have calculated that the appropriate daily number for the Forbidden City at 30,000, and the maximum number at around 50,000.

But more than 114,800 tourists visited the Forbidden City on May 1, the first day of China's week-long Labor Day holiday.

Shu said that no major maintenance project would be started at heritage sites in Beijing's urban area next year so as to avoid inconvenience for tourists.

Beijing plans to invest 600 million yuan (US$77.92 million) in repairing and protecting ancient buildings in the next five years, but there will be no major maintenance projects in the urban area next year, and all the projects will focus on ancient buildings in the suburbs.
 
Last year, a Beijing resident filed a lawsuit against the Forbidden City for failing to lower admission price and clearly notifying visitors that many of the Forbidden City sites were closed for renovation.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony, the grandest hall in the Forbidden City, has been closed for renovations since January 2006 and will reopen at the end of 2007.

A maintenance project on the ancient Confucian Temple and Imperial College, the most extensive ancient maintenance project in Beijing in the past 50 years with an investment of 8 million yuan, was expected to be completed before the opening of the Olympic Games, said Shu.

All heritage sites would have Chinese and English signs and introductions before the Games, he added.

(Xinhua News Agency May 22, 2007)