"Can I tell the difference?" wonders Tish Chapman, a teacher from Nottingham, standing in the latest tomb to be opened to the public at southern Egypt's Valley of the Kings.

Chapman's answer could be a pointer to the future of mass tourism. For the tomb in which she stands is in fact a replica: an exact copy of the tomb of Tutankhamun, dug into the sand about a mile from the real thing. And on Thursday Chapman, who has visited pharaonic sites including Tut's original tomb for two decades, became its first paying visitor.

"No, I don't think I can," Chapman says finally, staring at murals first drawn over 3,300 years ago. "No. It looks good enough for me." Chapman's response will delight those who think the replica is a first step to a rethink of managing tourism at ancient sites.

One of the idea's chief proponents is Adam Lowe, a British artist and master restorer who led the creation of the Tutankhamun facsimile, and supervised its installation here in Luxor. He hopes the lifesize facsimile will provide as good an experience as the original to divert visitors and ultimately help to preserve it and other pharaonic treasures.

"What I hope you'll be able to see is that it's possible to create an exact copy that from a normal viewing distance looks exactly like the tomb," Lowe says, sitting beside the nearby house of Howard Carter, the man who first discovered Tutankhamun in 1922. "And more than that – actually feels like the tomb."

In an ideal world, Lowe would admit, there would be unrestricted access to tombs like Tut's. But the reality is that these delicate burial chambers, weathered by millions of tourists for decades, risk deteriorating beyond recognition. The majority are in fact already closed, and the most impressive one – that of Sethi I – has long been too fragile for visitors.

The first tourists take pictures in the replica tomb. Photograph: Patrick Kingsley for the Guardian

The hope is that Tut's replica will show that a facsimile can be a good compromise between celebrating heritage and preserving it – and lead to copies of Sethi's tomb, as well as Nefertari's, two stunning relics that tourists would otherwise never get to see. "This is not about taking things away," argues Lowe. "It is about bringing things back."

Sceptics scoff at his approach, but on Thursday it was hard to find a critic among the replica's first visitors. "You actually have a more personal interaction with the replica," argues John Chapman, Tish's husband, a former lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, and a veteran tomb visitor.

"Over the years, we've seen the [real] tombs change. They've put up glass screens, so the experience of seeing the real thing has been compromised. But in this replica you haven't got that problem."

Others liked it, but felt it lacked the aura of the original. "I don't think it can quite have the same feeling, the same ambience, can it?" asks Christina Beale, a 65-year-old retiree from Norfolk. "When you go down into the original you feel as if you're being pulled inside it."

But what the site lacks in aura, it may make up for with context. Uninitiated visitors to the original sometimes have little idea about the history and meaning of Tutankhamun's tomb. But the antechamber to Lowe's replica contains a series of panels explaining the significance of the real thing.

This is one of several aspects that excites seasoned Egyptologist Salima Ikram. "It was like going into the original itself, but with everything better explained," says Ikram, an Egyptology professor at the American University in Cairo, who was moved to tears when she entered the replica on Wednesday.

"It's quite fabulous – the display panels allow you to understand the tomb as it was when Carter first entered it."

The £420,000 facsimile is said to be the most detailed copy ever made. To measure the original tomb, Lowe's company, Factum Arte, used their own scanner, which can capture images as small as a tenth of a millimetre (and in the process created an unprecedented document that should be of sizeable assistance to future researchers).

The replica itself was carved with a machine that can make details as precise as a third of a millimetre in length. Now the plan is to train a team of Egyptians to record and copy future tombs so that Egypt can be at the forefront of the process in the future.

"I hope this is the beginning," says Lowe. "This could be a watershed moment where for the first time visitors can really start to talk about sustainable tourism, about how you can preserve the Valley of the Kings itself. It's my dream that it can actually be there in 3,000 years time."