SYDNEY -- What a difference free admission and a multimillion dollar renovation can make. After decades in the doldrums, the 194-year-old Australian Museum in Sydney -- one of the Asia-Pacific region's oldest Western-style museums -- is humming with visitors, drawn by the lure of its new look and a blockbuster dinosaur exhibition, "The Tyrannosaurs -- Meet the Family."
More than 230,000 visitors have poured through the doors of the museum since it reopened after a 15-month revamp on Nov. 28, double the rate before it closed. Museum Director Kim McKay calls it an "extraordinary" response in the middle of the pandemic, particularly given that the 30% of visitors who normally come from overseas have vanished because of pandemic-related immigration restrictions.
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