Visits to attractions

Summary

The national visitor attractions report for 2023 includes results for just 17 visitor attractions in the Lancashire-12 area and 1 more in Blackburn with Darwen, one of the unitary authorities that complete the Lancashire-14 area. In 2023 there were no figures provided for any visitor attractions in Blackpool, which clearly has many popular attractions. Only a small number of tourism attractions in Lancashire submit visitor figures for publication and some, like country parks, have to give estimations of their large numbers of visitors. The local results are therefore of only limited value, but of the 18 Lancashire attractions that submitted results four attractions recorded no change in visitor numbers, twelve saw visitor numbers increase from 2022 and  two saw small decreases. Compared to 2019 six recorded decreases which ranged from -12% to -70% and four recorded increases. There was no data available for the number of visitors to some attractions in 2019 so their percentage changes cannot be calculated.

The size of attractions ranged from the Martin Mere Wetland Centre in West Lancashire with 132,646 visitors, to the 164 counted at the Weaver's Cottage in Rossendale. Another nature reserve, the RSPB Leighton Moss site, had the second highest number of visitors with over 90,000.

This article also includes a separate table that shows visitor numbers at eight sites originally managed by the Lancashire Museums Service during the more recent 2023/24 season. Before 2018 there were 12 sites, but a budget review in 2015 began a process of transferring control or closure. Major repair work at some sites and the Covid-19 pandemic then caused further closures. The Fleetwood Museum is one attraction that was previously run by the Lancashire Museums Service, but now appears in Table 1 independently. The Clitheroe Castle Museum used to attract most visitors in this list, but the numbers have not recovered since the Covid-19 lockdown and in 2023/24 Lancaster Castle was top with 37,903.

The 2 tables are in the 'Further analysis' document which can be downloaded below and have also been incorporated into the Microsoft Power BI slides seen here. The other slides are the interactive map of the attractions listed in the Visit England survey, an interactive pie-chart which displays the results by category and district and an interactive map of the museums, which can be set for any of the financial years back to 2010/11. The 2 tables are also interactive, in that by clicking the column headers the table is sorted or ranked by that indicator, and Table 2 is supplemented by a time series chart which can be filtered by the relevant authority. 

Further analysis Visitor attendance in Lancashire 2023 and 2023/24 (PDF 373 KB)

Page updated August 2024