Another day, another dazzling item to squeeze into London’s figurative trophy cabinet. And today’s accolade comes courtesy of the lovely lot over at the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA). Each and every year, they take one for the team and dive head-first into the data to discover which UK attractions have welcomed the most visitors. And, rather unsurprisingly, a London museum has – yet again – reigned supreme.
The British Museum has taken the top spot as the most popular attraction in the country. A whopping 6,479,952 people walked through the doors of the beloved Bloomsbury building in 2024, which is an 11% increase from its previous year’s figures. The British Museum is no stranger to the first place podium, having been crowned the most-visited attraction last year, too. In fact, it’s only been knocked off the top spot a few times in recent years – most recently by the Natural History Museum in 2022, which (whilst we’re on the subject) happened to nab second place this time, having welcomed a pretty impressive 6,301,972 visitors in 2024.
Now look, we don’t want to sound too boastful, but sometimes you’ve just got to state the facts. And the fact of this particular matter is that out of the top ten most visited attractions in 2024, nine of them are in the capital city. Other London spots that earned themselves a comfortable spot near the top of the list include Tate Modern, Southbank Centre (which saw a rather hefty 17% visitor increase from the previous year), the Science Museum and Somerset House.
Interestingly, the new data also revealed that the top five most popular attractions have remained in the exact same order as the previous year. We’re nothing if not consistent, hey? In total, across the 400 leading UK attractions that were analysed, visitor numbers reached 157.2 million; a 3.4% increase from 2023, but still 8.8% down from pre-Covid numbers.
The top 10 most-visited UK tourist attractions in 2024
- British Museum (6,479,952 visitors)
- Natural History Museum (6,301,972 visitors)
- Windsor Great Park (5,670,430 visitors)
- Tate Modern (4,603,205 visitors)
- Southbank Centre (3,734,075 visitors)
- V&A South Kensington (3,525,700 visitors)
- The National Gallery (3,203,451 visitors)
- Somerset House (3,074,736 visitors)
- Tower of London (2,902,385 visitors)
- Science Museum (2,827,242 visitors)
You can read ALVA’s full research here.
