British Museum still on top

The most popular tourist attraction in the UK remains the British Museum in London.

Following closely behind is another London attraction, the National Gallery, according to the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA).

London is home to nine out of the top 10 most popular places for tourists, with the Library of Birmingham, opened in 2013, placing tenth.

The Library received some 2,414,860 people during the year, but is now on course to make half its staff redundant as part of council budget cuts.

London holds sway over the top 20 as well, with only two more – Edinburgh Castle and Chester Zoo – representing attractions outside the nation’s capital.

Although only Edinburgh Castle was the only Scottish site in the top 20, attractions across Scotland welcomed a 10% increase in visitor numbers. The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow no doubt pumped up numbers.

While Edinburgh’s National Museum of Scotland remains the most visited free attraction in Scotland, there was a massive 42% increase in visits to Glasgow’s Riverside Museum, and a 39% rise in numbers going to the Scottish National Gallery.

But it was London’s Imperial War Museum which experienced the greatest leap – 153% - with most people flocking to its new WWI galleries during the centenary.