March 2017
Featured in this insight: Culture, heritage & leisure
Top ten UK visitor attractions revealed: According to the most recent annual survey by AVLA, museums in London have topped the annual visitor tally for the top visitor attractions in the United Kingdom.
The survey covers just the leading visitor attractions in the UK, so it does not take into account smaller museums.
Of the top visitor attractions in the United Kingdom, London’s museums saw 66.7 million visitors in total, which is greater than the population of the UK (approximately 64.1 million).
The top ten UK visitor attractions were found to be:
- British Museum
- National Gallery
- Tate Modern
- Natural History Museum (South Kensington)
- Southbank Centre
- Somerset House
- Science Museum
- Victoria and Albert Museum (South Kensington)
- Tower of London
- Royal Museums Greenwich
The footfall to London’s top attractions saw little growth in the last year, which was attributed partly to some venue closures and also, a decline in foreign visitors to the United Kingdom earlier in 2017. As well as this, there were problems for people travelling to central London as a result of the Southern Rail dispute.
The British Museum remained as the most popular visitor attraction overall for the 10th consecutive year, with 6.4million visitors. Also, remaining in 2nd place was the National Gallery, with 6.3 million visitors – seeing a 6 per cent increase.
Third place was allocated to the Tate Modern, which saw 5.8 million visitors; the Natural History Museum moved to 4th place, and Southbank Centre was 5th.
The Royal Academy attributed their 17 per cent increase to several exhibitions including Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse and their annual Summer Exhibition, which attracted over 229,200 visits.
The big change to this year’s top 10 is that the Royal Museums Greenwich have entered into the top 10. This is because for the first time, they are counted as one attraction, whereas in the past, the four museums in Greenwich were listed as separate museums.
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