Scotland's newest museum attracts 500,000 visitors in just 6 months

LONDON, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Scotland's newest museum, the VA Dundee, welcomed its 500,000th visitor Sunday, hitting the milestone six months earlier than expected.

Scotland's first design museum, which opened last September, has vastly exceeded original visitor estimates which forecast it would take 12 months to reach half a million visitors.

People from Dundee and across the world have flocked to the riverside museum to watch its exhibitions and events as well as enjoy the stunning architecture of a building designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma.

Surveys commissioned by VA Dundee found that beyond the greater Dundee area, around 36 percent of visitors came from other parts of Scotland, 17 percent where from the rest of Britain and almost one-in-10 visitors came from overseas.

The study also showed that the opening of VA Dundee has given its home city new confidence, with 84 percent of attendees saying the launch festival positively impacted their perception of Dundee.

Director of VA Dundee Philip Long said: "Amazingly we have welcomed half a million visitors to the museum in a little over six months, our inaugural exhibition has been seen by almost 100,000 people and crowds of over 22,000 turned out to take part in our opening celebrations.

"VA Dundee is flourishing as a hub of creativity and learning and it's wonderful to see so many people enjoying it, with many returning time and time again."

So far 375,000 visitors have explored VA Dundee's Scottish Design Galleries, which tell Scotland's international design story. These galleries have attracted exceptionally positive visitor survey responses, with 94 percent saying the overall experience is very good or good, a figure which rises to 100 percent for Dundee visitors.