Outdoor UK attractions bouncing back best after pandemic restrictions
Visitor numbers at Britain’s museums, galleries, zoos, castles and country houses increased by 25% last year, but are still down 57% on pre-pandemic levels.
Unsurprisingly, figures published on Friday showed striking rises over the year at outdoor attractions. However, those that rely mainly on overseas visitors have yet to claw back pre-2019 numbers.
The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) said its sites had a total of 67.8m visits in 2021, up from 45.4m the previous year, but still significantly down on 2019’s 156.6m.
The most-visited attraction was Windsor Great Park, which drew 5.4m visitors – the first time the list was not topped by a London attraction. In second place was the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, which saw a 61% increase in visitors to 1.9m.
Chester Zoo, normally the most-visited attraction in England outside London, was in third place. Other outdoor sites in the top 20 included RHS Garden Wisley, Jeskyns community woodland in Kent, Moors Valley country park in Dorset, Longleat in Wiltshire and London Zoo.
Overall, sites that are primarily outdoors saw just 17% fewer visitors in 2021 than two years before. Mixed sites such as cathedrals recorded a decline of approximately 51%, and predominantly indoor sites such as museums and galleries saw numbers fall 73% from pre-pandemic levels.
The most-visited indoor attraction in the UK was the Natural History Museum, which was in fourth place overall with a 21% increase to 1.5m visits, while the British Museum came sixth, with a 4% increase in visitors. Tate Modern, Britain’s most visited attraction before the pandemic, fell to seventh place after a 19% fall in its annual total, though daily visitor numbers were 60% higher in 2021 than after reopening in
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