National Museum of Scotland most popular attraction outside London

THE newly revamped National Museum of Scotland was the most visited attraction outside of London last year, new figures reveal.

The museum, in Edinburgh, reopened in July 2011 after a £47 million redevelopment and welcomed just under 1.5 million people by the end of the year, surpassing its original target of one million visitors.

Edinburgh Castle remains the most popular paid for tourist attraction in Scotland with 1.3 million people passing through its gates.

The Riverside Museum in Glasgow, designed by architect Zaha Hadid, was also popular and attracted more than one million visitors from its opening in June last year.

The figures from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) showed that the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh experienced a 141 per cent increase in visitors following its refurbishment.

The British Museum in London attracted the most visitors for the fifth year in a row, with 5.8 million people visiting its exhibitions.

Bernard Donoghue, director of ALVA, said: “Scottish attractions successes demonstrate very clearly that political and financial investment in building new attractions or refurbishing existing ones results in real returns on investment for the Scottish local and national economies, for job creation, for regeneration and in delivering a truly quality Scottish experience and welcome for visitors from home and abroad.”

Dr Gordon Rintoul, director of National Museums Scotland said: “These results are testimony to our achievement in creating a truly world-class visitor attraction which brings and will continue to bring huge benefits to the country’s tourism economy.”