With the advent of summer holidays, popular haunts in the city are filling up with vacationers. The grounds of the Kerala State Science and Technology Museum (KSSTM), for instance, which had fallen rather silent in March thanks to the end-of-year examinations, are now again thronging with life. The vacations have increased the footfalls in the Museum’s planetarium and various galleries.
Each day brings in not less than 1,500 people, said KSSTM officials.
“We have a lot of families coming in now,” said KSSTM director Arul Jerald Prakash. “During the academic year, it is usually groups from various schools that come on study trips here. These have now been replaced with families. We even have people coming from different parts of the state as well as Tamil Nadu.”
This has driven up the Museum’s daily collection to a minimum of Rs 20,000, the director added.
“On Mondays, we are closed and Tuesdays are usually slow days which brings in around Rs 20,000,” Prakash said. “It peaks on the weekends, when we see the maximum crowd and the collection also touches some Rs 30,000 on an average.”
Another favourite haunt in the city that is seeing the annual influx of visitors is the Museum and Zoo. Weekdays, zoo authorities said, bring in an average of 4,000 people a day. This number can go up to 7,000 during weekends.
“The highest collection for a single day this season was Rs 2,75,280 on April 7,” said an official. “The KTDC outlet has seen a record daily collection of Rs 83,000 as well,” he added.
These numbers are set to swell as the summer wears on, the official said.
