I refer to Evarist Saliba's letter titled Hard-to-find Tickets for Hypogeum (October 28).

The Hal Saflieni Hypogeum is listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site and given its sensitive micro-climate, only a maximum of 10 persons per hour are allowed admission to the site. Booking is available online and the site is often fully booked weeks in advance.

In a bid to allow "last-minute" visitors to view the Hypogeum, Heritage Malta has introduced a noon tour. Tickets for this tour are made available as from 9 a.m. of the previous day and are available only from the National Museum of Archaeology in Republic Street, Valletta and the Archaeology Museum in Gozo.

On the day Mr Saliba tried to purchase such last-minute tickets from the National Museum of Archaeology it so happened that some other patrons were also purchasing tickets concurrently from the Archaeology Museum in Gozo. Due to a technical glitch, the two computer servers were not synchronised and a two-minute lapse between the two computers resulted in the patrons at Gozo managing to purchase the tickets before clients waiting in Valletta. The fault has since been rectified.

The admission price for this particular tour reflects the added costs which the national agency incurs so as to provide this extra tour.

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