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Comment by kochikame | Hacker News Reader

This is the point that people who say "but what about tourism?" completely and spectacularly miss.

Versailles is one of the most visited places in the world. Having no royal people in there makes zero difference to that.

We could have the tourism without the actual royals, 100% no problem there

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Actually it does - the experience of visiting Versailles, a sort of preserved museum that exist solely for tourism, is entirely different from visiting an actual royal palace. Despite the historical significance it was one of the least memorable places I’ve been to in France.

Yeah, for one, you can actually enter the palace and not stay outside. The numbers of visitors in versailles absolutely dwarfs british palaces. I'm talking 'more visitors[0] than the british top 10 combined[1]'. And the fee to enter is not cheap. 20€.

[0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/991925/visitors-palace-o...

[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/373081/uk-royal-tourism-...

I think you've just proved the comment you are replying to correct though. You were still interested enough to visit knowing that it exists solely for tourism in advance, and presumably only came to your conclusion afterwards.

These are not the sorts of places that people typically visit on overseas holidays more than once. So once the ticket has been bought, whether or not it is "an actual royal palace" is irrelevant.

Of course people like to feel the glamour of being close to the mystique of living wealth, but once an attraction is firmly on the circuit it hardly matters. See Tower of London, Blenheim Palace, Edinburgh Castle, Hampton Court Palace, etc.

According to Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, Buckingham Palace would be around the 70th most visited attraction in the country, hardly a sign that you need a living monarchy to sustain tourism - https://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=423

I did not write this as a defense of keeping the monarchy around just for the curiosity value, or from the raking-in-cash angle, just highlighting that the experience is quite different for visitors.

That is because:

1. Versailles has a boatload of art in it and is massive.

2. Some rather dramatic things happened there.

Buckingham palace has plenty of art, but so does the V&A Museum.

And you can't re-create the historical drama and preserve stability.

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