On September 27th, during the weekend, the cultural creative space on the first floor of Inner Mongolia Museum was packed with tourists. Ms. Zhao, who was visiting Inner Mongolia with a tour group, left with her arms full of purchases. "I bought a plush incense burner, 'Golden Deer-Head Crown' refrigerator magnet, and 'Dragon-Head Bronze Stove' portable mirror," said Ms. Zhao with a beaming smile.

During this summer, Inner Mongolia Museum received an average of 25,000 visitors daily, with popular cultural relics merchandise like "Golden Eagle Crown" and "Golden Deer-Head Crown" selling out completely. Social media platforms featured numerous guides and shares - "How many steps to grab a 'Golden Deer-Head Crown' refrigerator magnet?" and "Who understands the joy of viewing artifacts in the morning and wearing replicas in the afternoon!"

Behind the excitement of "exhibition viewing in palm" and the trend of "visiting museums for cultural creative products" lies tourists' strong desire for upgraded museum experiences.

Previously, Inner Mongolia Museum, like many museums nationwide, faced common challenges: single-service offerings, rigid operational models, and other issues. Without reform, it couldn't meet people's growing demand for high-quality cultural experiences; without breakthrough, it couldn't unleash the enormous potential of cultural heritage resources.

How to reform? How to break through?

The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee emphasized "optimizing cultural service and cultural product supply mechanisms" and "improving public cultural service systems, establishing mechanisms for high-quality cultural resources to reach grassroots levels directly," providing direction for reform.

Under the top-level design of cultural system reform, this year the autonomous region's propaganda department and eight other departments selected five regional cultural and heritage institutions to pilot "public welfare + market" operational models.

The 200,000 pieces of museum collections represent the greatest resource treasury! Inner Mongolia Museum identified the breakthrough point, developing cultural creative industries with market-oriented thinking, exploring new paths of "earning through cultural creativity, supporting culture through earnings," and promoting systematic reforms in the cultural heritage sector.

In this "cultural creativity"-led reform, Inner Mongolia Museum broke through multiple barriers, achieving win-win social and economic benefits.

Breaking the "homogenization barrier": Currently, cultural creative products face homogenization issues, while "Inner Mongolia Museum Cultural Creative" stands out uniquely. The "Xiong Jiujiu" plush pendant is a bestselling product, originally based on the museum's treasure "Golden Eagle Crown." Through creative design, the crown's eagle became a portable accessory, with designers specially creating both "young eagle" and "adult eagle" versions, giving "Xiong Jiujiu" IP character storytelling appeal. This unique design not only meets people's diverse cultural needs but also enables multi-dimensional creative transformation of northern frontier culture.

To avoid homogenization, Inner Mongolia Museum strictly reviews cultural creative product development categories, types, and appearance styles. It established a cultural creative research and development base, organizing exchanges with design college faculty and students. Currently, the museum's new site logo has completed national collection and been registered for use. The "Inner Mongolia Museum Cultural Creative" brand system is complete, with sub-brands like "Dragon-Head Stove." The museum strengthens promotion through shop decoration, cultural creative design, and product packaging to enhance brand recognition and reputation.

Cultural creative space layout is crucial. Inner Mongolia Museum maximizes utilization of "corners" and transitional exhibition areas according to visitor flow, setting up various cultural creative zones. Currently, 4,791 square meters have been utilized to create 11 "small but beautiful" spaces including travel souvenirs, intangible heritage food, film and television performances, exhibition experiences, and digital arts.

Breaking the "mechanism barrier" activates market momentum. Inner Mongolia Museum abandoned the traditional "closed-door" model, introducing social forces and exploring cooperative cultural creative development modes. It selects cultural creative research institutions from society, with evaluation standards detailed into 22 items including "understanding of northern frontier culture," "comprehension of cultural creative policies," and "contemporary value of cultural relics." Business aspects use "brand licensing fees + sales revenue sharing" as bidding standards for comprehensive scoring. Cultural creative sales revenue is included in statistics, with all taxes paid locally.

Breaking the "content barrier": In recent years, Inner Mongolia Museum broke through the traditional "museums only for exhibitions" model. Combining current "emotional value" demands, it created night tour projects making museums more engaging. During the upcoming National Day golden week, the museum will launch night activities like "Inner Mongolia Museum Night" and "Mid-Autumn Festival in Cultural Relics," creating full festival atmosphere. It continuously introduces special exhibitions, launching temporary exhibitions like "Ming and Qing Colored Glaze Porcelain Exhibition," "Gansu Painted Pottery Culture Exhibition," and "Red Currency Exhibition" since June. For the first time in 10 years, it introduced foreign exhibitions like "Beauty of Ancient Greece - Italian National Museums Cultural Relic Masterpieces Exhibition," planning to introduce "Persian Art and Cultural Treasures Exhibition" and "Kuwait Al-Sabah Collection Exhibition" to meet different groups' spiritual needs with diverse exhibition categories.

Breaking the "incentive barrier": Cultural creative product sales revenue sharing is used for foreign exhibition introductions, cultural relic digitization protection and utilization that fiscal funding cannot fully guarantee, and increasing social education activity frequency. Educational spaces like "N Discovery Space" and "M Thinking Academy" conduct activities such as "Museum Exploration," "Inner Mongolia Museum Cultural Creative Workshop," and "Little Docent" programs, creating multi-dimensional interactive scenarios, promoting deep integration and mutual empowerment between cultural undertakings and cultural industries, enhancing northern frontier culture's communication and influence. A feedback mechanism is established with appropriate performance wage increases to motivate staff and unleash development potential.

Compared to spacious exhibition halls, cultural creative spaces occupy only "square inches" but possess extraordinary money-making capabilities. From June 20th when the new museum began trial operations through September 20th, over three months, visitor numbers exceeded 1.8 million, cumulative sales exceeded 750,000 items, and cultural creative product sales revenue reached over 28 million yuan, becoming a vivid practice of creative transformation and innovative development of excellent traditional Chinese culture.

From precise diagnosis to systematic problem-solving, from cultural creative blockbusters, extended lighting, and popular special exhibitions to record-breaking visitor reception and cultural creative sales, Inner Mongolia Museum's reform logic chain is clear and powerful: guided by public expectations, driven by policy innovation, with mechanism breakthrough as key, ultimately transforming "cultural warehouse" symbols into "vitality hubs" driving economic growth, promoting shared high-quality development results for all people.