Healthy turnover at Falkirk Wheel as visits rise faster than any other UK attraction

Published on Wednesday 21 February 2007 01:46

THE Falkirk Wheel has enjoyed the largest rise in visitors of any British tourist attraction, figures released yesterday show.

The wheel, which transfers boats between the Union canal and the Forth and Clyde canal, showed a rise of 48 per cent, a larger percentage increase than Kensington Palace in London, which enjoyed the second largest percentage rise, a boost of 45 per cent.

The Scottish attraction last year welcomed 437,388 visitors, up from 296,000 in 2005. Visitors to the Falkirk Wheel were drawn by a combination of the warm weather last year and enterprising attractions such as the Winter Wonderland, created in the run up to Christmas.

The figures, published by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, show that Edinburgh Castle remained the most popular site in Scotland with 1,213,907 visitors, a rise of two per cent on 2005.

Among the other success stories on 2006 was the National Gallery of Scotland, where attendance rose by 26 per cent.

Exhibitions such as Harry Benson's photographs at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery were responsible for increasing visitor figures there by 29 per cent. An exhibition of the work of Robert Mapplethorpe pushed visitors to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art up by 11.7 per cent.

The largest drop in visitor numbers was recorded by the National Museum of Flight, where attendance dropped by 31 per cent. However, a spokesman for the museum said: "At the National Museum of Flight attendance has simply levelled off following the peak year of visits after the opening of The Concorde Experience in 2005."

The most popular visitor attraction in Britain remained Blackpool pleasure beach, with 5,730,000 visitors, while the least popular was the National Museum of Costume, based at Shabellie House in Dumfriesshire, which recorded a drop of 18 per cent to 10,717 visitors.