The historic environment plays a major role in attracting inbound tourists to England and is often an important factor when we decide where to holiday in England. More tourists plan to visit historic sites than go to museums, theatres or sports events. When potential tourists are asked what they think about England, our historic environment is the highest rated attribute.
In this section, readers can find out more about tourism and the historic environment including numbers of visitors to heritage sites. Please visit our Valuing the Historic Environment pages for information on the economic impact of tourism.
For more general information about tourism please visit the VisitBritain or VisitEngland websites, where you can find excellent information on visitor motivations, visitor activities and the economic impact of the tourism economy.
Key statistics on heritage tourism
Want to find out more about tourism and the historic environment? Download the Heritage Fact Sheet on the right hand side of the page for all the key facts and figures.
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) recently published a report which estimated the economic impact of heritage tourism.
Heritage tourism trends
For more than 20 years we have been collecting data on the number of visits to heritage attractions. In 2010 there were at least 50.4m visits to heritage attractions in England, continuing a rise in visitor figures which coincided with the recession and has continued to the current date.
In the related documents on the right hand side of this page you can find information on tourist numbers by type of heritage site and region for the last three years (older reports are available on request). You can also find out about turnover, employment numbers, educational visits, origin of tourists and entrance fees. A summary of other tourism figures, including information on visitor numbers to English Heritage and National Trust properties, can be found on the Heritage Counts website.
