Crowds of people headed to the Hong Kong Palace Museum on Monday in celebration of its first birthday.

Director Louis Ng said the museum in West Kowloon welcomed approximately 1.3 million visitors in the past year, with half of them coming from the mainland and overseas.

First time visitor Jane Lo said she wanted her two children to learn more about Chinese history and felt Monday was the perfect day to go. Another visitor, Christian Sietz, said he was surprised to see so many people.

"This is very exciting for me to join the first anniversary here. We are from Germany visiting so we are happy to be here," he said.

Ng said visitor numbers had surpassed their expectations, but hard work was still needed to ensure financial sustainability in the coming year. He said the cost of the exhibitions is very high, so admission fees may be increased.

"We decided not to continue the free admission on Wednesday because the show-up rate in the past year was very low. Only 35 percent of visitors who got a ticket [attended]. I think it is a waste of the opportunity," he added.

"Instead, we are going to seek more sponsorships from corporate institutions to provide more free tickets. We expect that there will be more than 120,000 free tickets given out to those underprivileged people."

Ng also said the museum will look into other revenue streams in the future.