The British Museum has the record for the most visited attractions in the UK in 2024 for the second consecutive year.
According to statistics recently released by Alva, the London Museum had 6,479,952 visitors in 2024, an increase of 11% from the previous year. The Natural History Museum in South Kensington is the second-largest pandemic attraction for 6.3 million visitors, an increase of 11% from 2023.
Tate Modern is the most visited 4.6 million visitors. The Southbank Center includes Hayward’s contemporary art gallery, with over 3.7 million visitors, an increase of 17% from 2023.
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Alva’s announcement also noted that visitors to the National Portrait Gallery last year increased by 36% after reopening in summer 2023. This helped the museum rise to 9 attractions from one year to 18th. The young V&A also reopened in June 2023, welcoming more than 596,000 visitors, a 47% increase.
Stonehenge also added 3% of visitors, exceeding 1.36 million in 2024.
The National Museum of Scotland is the most visited attraction in Scotland with 2.3 million visitors, a 6% increase from 2023, while the National Gallery of Scotland was a record year with a 9% increase from less than 2 million.
The most popular attraction in Wales is the St. Fargan National Historical Museum with 600,690 visitors, followed by the National Museum Cardiff with 373,382 visitors.
Other art institutions also attended a large number of leaps. The Fitzwilliam Museum is the Museum of Arts and Antiquities at the University of Cambridge, which has been recorded in its busy year, with more than 506,000 visitors, a 25% increase over the previous year. Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle, Tyne, England has more than 192,000 visitors, an increase of 57%.
In contrast, Alva said typical attractions in London increased by 3%, and the attraction of Scotland and Northern Ireland saw an increase in attendance by 3.2%.
Its director Bernard Donoghue acknowledged that most UK attractions have “stable but not significantly increased” in 2024 due to the long-term economic recovery of the economic recovery, the impact of the cost of living crisis on consumer spending, additional business expenses and modest visitors to the UK.
“The restoration of visitor attractions and the wider cultural and heritage economies remain vulnerable, but visitors show that in recreational spending, they still prioritize day trips to love attractions, they maintain membership of their favorite organizations and value special time in special places with special people,” he said in a statement.
