Private museum owners from across the Kingdom departed on an exploratory trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to experience ongoing developments in the field of heritage museums and explore possibilities for further development in the area.

“A delegation comprising 34 private museum owners began a 5-day exploratory trip to the UAE this week to explore the Sharjah and Dubai experience in the field of heritage museums,” an official at the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA), which organized the trip said on Tuesday.

He added that the purpose of the visit is to acquaint owners of the private museums with leading experiments in the field of heritage museums in the UAE and the ways to develop them.

“It also allows them to touch the advantages of tourism development and the meaning of preserving cultural heritage through exploring experiments and applied models that describe the optimum utilization of private museums,” the official pointed out.

He further underlined that the trip also aims at informing them on the proper ways of preserving heritage items as well as perfect the means of showcasing them. They would also be introduced to the methods of preservation and documentation using the latest technologies in the museum displays, aside from employing the Internet to introduce the cultural heritage. They would further be acquainted with the heritage museums activities in the UAE during the cultural and social occasions which enjoy active participation by private museums.

The official said that the itinerary of the visit to Sharjah includes a visit to the local heritage museum, the museum of Islamic civilization, Sharjah maritime museum, Sharjah aquarium, the science museum, Sharjah archaeology museum, the stations museum and vintage cars museum.

In Dubai the itinerary includes a trip to Al-Bastakiya, a historic district that boasts a number of museums, most notably the Dubai museum and currency museum and a number of heritage buildings.