The British Museum has continued to be the most popular tourist attraction in the UK with 6.8 million visitors last year.

The British Museum.

The British Museum, Number one attraction for ninth year. Image by Ian Muttoo / CC BY-SA 2.0

The London museum topped the latest figures released by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA),  which saw the National Gallery  come in second with 5.9 million and the Natural History Museum placed third with 5.3 million.

Exhibitions such as Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum helped swell the number of visits to UK tourist attractions last year.

The launch of the AHOY! children’s gallery at the National Maritime Museum and Audrey Hepburn: Portraits Of An Icon at the National Portrait Gallery also boosted visitor numbers.

The theatrical, romantic and sometimes eerie exhibition of McQueen’s work is the V&A’s most visited show, with 493,000 people seeing it during its 21-week run, contributing to the venue’s overall figure of 3.4 million visitors.

The Library of Birmingham was the most popular attraction outside of London, in 11th place with 1.8 million visits.

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, at the Victoria & Albert Museum

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, at the Victoria & Albert Museum Image by Yui Mok/PA Wire

Edinburgh Castle took the overall top spot in Scotland for the first time in five years at 1.6 million visitors.

Alva director Bernard Donoghue said: “2015 continued to be a record year, mainly due to our members continuing to show how diverse the UK is to both domestic and overseas visitors.

“However, anecdotally our members told us that the poor weather had had an effect and our members in the South East did see a decrease during Operation Stack in Kent as well as following the Paris attacks.

“The current weakness of the pound to the dollar and euro is making the UK a more affordable destination and 2016 is on target to be another memorable year.”

This year’s tourism highlights include a number of events to mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, the unveiling of Land Of The Lions at ZSL London Zoo and Tate Britain hosting an exhibition devoted to David Hockney.

The 10 most popular visitor attractions in the UK last year:

  1. British Museum
  2. National Gallery
  3. Natural History Museum
  4. Southbank Centre
  5. Tate Modern
  6. Victoria and Albert Museum
  7. Science Museum
  8. Somerset House
  9. Tower of London
  10. National Portrait Gallery