With the occasion of the English Tourism Week and Scottish Tourism Month, the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (Alva) has unveiled a list of the most visited tourist attractions in the United Kingdom in 2023. Numbers are based solely on data from the association’s members.
With a total of 146.6 million visitors, 2023 numbers were 19% higher compared to 2022. However, compared to the pre-pandemic 163.9 million visits in 2019, there is still room for improvement.
“There’s a change in the economy, of course, the cost of living crisis. And so people are being much more tactical, sensibly, about how they spend their leisure pounds”, Bernard Donoghue, Alva director, told Simon Calder’s Independent Travel Podcast.
Looking at 2023’s numbers, indoor activities in particular saw an increase in popularity compared to the year before. This can be explained by the Covid-19 pandemic which was still impactful in 2022 and made many tourists decide to opt for outdoor activities instead.
“Our members are not yet back to hosting the same number of visitors that they did in 2019, but they are really delighted that even in a challenging cost-of-living climate visitors are still prioritising spending special time with special people at special places”, Donoghue said in a statement. “Whilst the extension of tax relief for museums, theatres and galleries was a very welcome announcement in the recent budget, there was a missed opportunity to reintroduce tax free shopping for overseas visitors, which would have improved the UK’s international competitiveness, and reduce VAT for tourism and hospitality which would have helped businesses repair their balance sheets.”
The most popular tourist attraction in the UK turns out to be the British Museum, which saw 5,820,860 visits spread over 2023. According to Alva, that popularity was mainly due to the museum’s “China’s hidden century” exhibition, which was on from May until October 2023.
In second place stands another London classic: the Natural History Museum. With 5.7 million visits, it comes just before Windsor Great Park in Berkshire, which saw 5.5 million tourists pass its entry gates and which is also the most popular outdoor attraction. The Tate Modern, which counted 4,742,038 visits, and the Southbank Centre, with 3,193,966 visitors, complete the top five.
