More than 2,300 students from 6 public schools and 8 private schools in UAE took part in the virtual guided tours of Etihad Museum that were organised by Dubai Culture and Arts Authority via the Dubai 360 website and a virtual meeting platform. The visits highlighted the details of the museum, drawing inspiration from the story behind the establishment of the United Arab Emirates as recounted throughout the museum. Through this initiative, which was organised by Dubai Culture in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and the Knowledge and Human Development Authority in Dubai,67 virtual guided tours were provided for school students from the 28^th of April to the 28^thof May, marking a positive response from the community.

These virtual guided tours and workshops targeted school students across the Emirates, with the aim to enhance the importance of museums with the younger generations and strengthen their link to the Emirati cultural identity through innovative interactive channels.

This initiative came as part of the Authority’s efforts to provide an opportunity for Emirati students and residents to visit the Etihad Museum virtually through the Dubai 360 platform, the largest virtual tour on the Internet to explore the city, at a time when the museums were temporarily closed.

In a survey conducted by the Authority to solicit the opinions of the participants, 96 percent of them expressed their satisfaction with the experience and with its overall efficiency in providing an insightful walkthrough of the museum and its contents.

The initiative played a major role in consolidatingEtihad Museum’s premier position among the Ministry of Education’s approved destinations for trips for the year 2020 during the current situation and the start of distance-learning for all schools in UAE. It is worth noting that these virtual visits were the first ‘visit’ to the museum for approximately 80 per cent of the participants, and they expressed their desire to visit the museum in the near future to further explore its collections.

Dubai Culture also added AlShindagha Museum and its other museums to the virtual tours, all of which will be made available through the Dubai 360 website.

The virtual guided tours are to be booked in advance by the schools and will be accompanied by a cultural guide from the museum who leads a detailed walkthrough of the museum’s galleries and provides the students with an opportunity to interact with the content of the museum from the safety of their homes.