Tourist sites hit hard in a turbulent year

Visitors to the Tate Modern art gallery fell by nearly 10 per cent last year amid an overall drop in business at British tourist attractions. The number of people visiting the gallery in 2001, before this year's highly successful Picasso-Matisse exhibition, fell by 8.3 per cent to 3.55 million compared with its opening year in 2000.

But it was still among the busiest tourist sites in the country in a year when business was hit hard by the foot-and-mouth crisis and 11 September attacks. Overall visits were down 2 per cent, figures from the English Tourism Council (ETC) show.

Visits to farm attractions fell by 25 per cent, country park visits were down 6 per cent and wildlife centres 4 per cent. Attractions that relied on foreign tourists were the worst hit, but some that depended more on domestic visitors had increases in business. Theme parks welcomed 4 per cent more visitors, Legoland at Windsor in Berkshire had a 9.5 per cent increase, Flamingo Land Theme Park and Zoo in Yorkshire was up 1.6 per cent, and Kew Gardens in south-west London by 15 per cent.

The most popular paid-for attraction was the British Airways London Eye with 3.85 million customers. The main free attraction was again Blackpool Pleasure Beach, but its 6.5 million visitors were 4.4 per cent down on 2000.