On the afternoon of August 4, Beijing Olympic City Development Center held an expert seminar on the operation and management model of the Beijing Olympic Museum, with the 15^th anniversary of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games around the corner. The participants discussed the grand vision for the high-quality development of the Beijing Olympic Museum, new thoughts, models and mechanisms of the Museum’s future operations as Beijing works to build up its reputation as a Summer and Winter Olympic City and the City of Museums in the post-Games era, and the new ways of utilizing Olympic cultural legacy. The attendees included Han Zirong, member of the Party Leadership Group of the CPPCC Beijing Municipal Committee and head of the Beijing Olympic Museum’s coordination and leading group, and Fu Xiaohui, secretary of the Party Leadership Group and director of Beijing Olympic City Development Center.

The Beijing Olympic Museum is an important cultural legacy left by the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. After the conclusion of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, the Museum is being renovated and upgraded in accordance with the Beijing Development Plan for the 14^th Five-Year Plan Period. The speakers at the seminar included Liu Chaoying, head of Beijing Museum Society and former head of Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau; Han Yong, senior academic advisor to Beijing Museum Society, chief expert of Beijing Cultural Heritage Development Service Center, secretary general of Beijing Foundation for Cultural Heritage Conservation, and former director of Capital Museum; former head of China National Film Museum Chen Ling; Ren Hai, professor and doctoral supervisor of Beijing Sport University; He Xinhui, professor and doctor of the School of Journalism and Communication of Beijing Sport University, vice secretary general of the Specialized Committee for Sport Films and Television of Chinese Collegial Association for Visual Art; Yan Min, culture and tourism industry architecture director of Tencent; Li Shiran, general manager of Tencent Beijing Cultural Heritage and Museums; and Zhang Dan, lecturer of the School of Humanities of Shanghai Normal University and Doctor of Information Management Science of Renmin University of China. The attendees put forward constructive suggestions and recommendations regarding the Museum’s mission positioning, operational model, institutional innovation, and the empowering role of technology.

Mr. Liu Chaoying introduced the current development state of the cultural heritage and museum industry, and said that with growing attention from the government, society and media, museums should provide high-quality public services, and still need to overcome many barriers and bottlenecks regarding their operational systems and mechanisms. He suggested that the Beijing Olympic Museum, as the only museum dedicated to the Summer and Winter Olympic Games in the world, should actively explore a new operational model that suits its positioning as a national first-class museum. It may learn from other museums outside Beijing in such aspects as commercial operation, the involvement of council funds and the introduction of commercial exhibitions to “pilot” the “socialization” of some functions. It should also strengthen the study of existing policies, extensively solicit opinions, and strive to make breakthroughs. It should formulate written suggestions on the basis of investigation results, submit them to the Municipal Government as a reference for policy-making, and explore a new path for the development of Beijing Olympic Museum and even the museum industry as a whole.

Proceeding from an analysis of the social value of museums, Han Yong shared the advanced operation and management concepts and good practices of excellent museums at home and abroad, and suggested that the Beijing Olympic Museum should first consider the historic significance of the Olympic Games for human civilization and society, for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation before setting its mission. He proposed that the museum operation should be understood from the “three-in-one” system of government, society and individuals, and draw experience from the operation of other museums that involves the council, funds, membership and volunteers. It should explore the possibility of establishing a “socialized” operating mechanism to improve public services, including venue services, cultural and tourism services, educational and training services, study tour services, and external exchanges. At the same time targeted services should be provided for professional groups. It should attach great importance to academic research and strengthen academic, professional exchanges and training. It should fully realize that the Bird’s Nest, as the main venue of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, is itself a “museum of ruins.” It should strengthen interaction with the Bird’s Nest, and launch brand forums for Olympic museums. On the basis of the physical museum, it should build a smart museum that can serve the visitors all day long.

Combining with the operational practices of China National Film Museum, Chen Ling proposed that the Beijing Olympic Museum should define its own position and strengthen its Olympic characteristics. It should strengthen the linkage with other Olympic venues in the Olympic Central Area and plan with them as a whole. It should strengthen academic research, and mobilize universities and colleges with Olympic research strength to provide it with intellectual support, and their research results can provide support for the Museum to constantly update its exhibition contents. It should strengthen functions while optimizing the functional framework to form a more reasonable organizational framework and personnel ratio that are conducive to development.

Ren Hai pointed out that the International Olympic Committee interpreted Olympism as a philosophy of life, and emphasized that sport was to promote the physical health, mental health and socio-psychological health, corresponding to the three dimensions of “body, mind and community.” He suggested that the Beijing Olympic Museum should play an important role in the dissemination of, education on and research of the Olympic spirit and sport’s connotative value, and should especially strengthen the interaction with elementary and secondary schools, to give better play to its educational function for the youth. At the same time, it should step up in summarizing and releasing the Olympic legacy. In the future, it can hold forums and other activities to strengthen international exchanges, set up special funds to attract social forces to participate in research, and work to consolidate the advantages of the Olympic Central Zone, to produce synergy for the dissemination of Olympic culture.

He Xinhui pointed out that the Olympic themed museums are different from general-purpose museums in that they take the harmonious development of body and mind as the philosophical basis and should meet the public needs. Therefore, the Beijing Olympic Museum should further blend into the overall space of the Olympic Central Area, and create a new type of urban public space. As an important supplement to school education, the Beijing Olympic Museum will play an important role in the education of sport science among the youth, improving the physical health of all and raising public awareness of health. The Museum should become an important part of the global sports organization communication system and help Beijing strengthen its external communication. It may consider setting up internal research centers to promote the digitization and sharing of the data of the Beijing 2008 and the Beijing 2022 Games.

Dr. Zhang Dan suggested that the Beijing Olympic Museum should become a comprehensive museum with functions of the culture center, science and technology museum, library, archives, and art gallery. It should create more scenario-based experiences to restore the scene of the Olympic Games and deliver a more immersive visitor experience. It should build an interdisciplinary system of Olympic studies, and turn the periodic study of the Olympic Movement into a regular study.

Yan Min put forward suggestions on the new model of intelligent operation of the Beijing Olympic Museum from the perspective of technology empowerment. Through the immersive convergence technology, the Museum can realize online and offline integration, expand the physical exhibition hall with limited space into infinite virtual space, and curate and set up exhibitions free from the time and space constraints. It can thus provide the audience with a new integrated viewing experience with rich and diverse forms, a stronger sense of participation and immersion, and more interactivity and fun. At the same time, it will play the role of publicity and education on a wider scale. It should design games-like exhibitions, interactions and reproductions of Olympic scenes in such a way that the visitors, especially the youth, can interact with the exhibits with the help of VR/AR, virtual experience, gesture recognition, voice recognition and other technologies. It should explore the use of artificial intelligence technology to create a “digital human” as the ambassador of Beijing the Summer and Winter Olympic city, to provide customer service and tour guide service, and act as the narrator and the personal travel assistant for visitors, and more vividly tell Beijing’s stories with the Olympic Games.

The seminar was attended by Wang Kun, a deputy-director-level official of Beijing Olympic City Development Center, officials from relevant departments of the Beijing Olympic Museum, and members of the research group on the operational and management model of the Beijing Olympic Museum.