Insights from the Latest Visit England Visitor Attraction Survey

Insights From The Latest Visit England Visitor Attraction Survey

We’ve taken a closer look at the recent Visitor Attraction Survey released by Visit England, and particularly key trends for each category.

Across the survey results, Visit England have 12 core categories (explained fully in Appendix A).

Here’s what we uncovered:

Growth Across All Categories

Visitor attractions have experienced growth across all categories, each at different rates. According to Visit England, average growth ranged between 6-8%.

The most significant increases were observed in Museums, boasting an impressive average uplift of over 20%. This was followed by Visitor Heritage Centres with a +14% growth and Historic Houses/Castles with a +13% rise.

Certain categories, such as Leisure/Theme Parks, have a smaller share of the attraction sector responding and their results are not going to be quite as robust as other categories (See Appendix B for this breakdown).

Free vs. Paid Attractions

The 2023 Visitor England survey encompassed 1334 attractions, with 66% charging an admission fee.  Free attractions continue (in the main) to enjoy higher percentage increases compared to their paid counterparts; however, the percentage increase this year were not as pronounced as 2022, indicating an easing of financial pressures.

Attraction CategoryPercentage Uplift or Reduction
 FreePaid+/-
All Free14%8%6%
Museum/Art Galleries22%12%10%
Country Parks3%-2%1%
Farms6%4%2%
Gardens -1%1%
Historic House/Castles17%13%4%
Other Historic Attractions12% 0%
Visitor/Heritage4%26%-22%

Interestingly, Visitor Centre/Heritage sites, such as Bletchley Park or the Foxton Canal Museum, reported lower percentage increases for free attractions than paid. It seems this trend isn’t new to 2023, having been observed in the prior year. This begs the question of why free alternatives did not match the growth of paid options (like the other sectors). We plan to gather direct feedback from the sector to further explore this topic.

Country Parks saw a -1% shift in visitor numbers, likely due to sampling rather than external influences.

Notably steam railways, zoos, and leisure/theme parks, typically do not offer free alternatives.

Examining Pricing Trends

We wanted to explore visitor increase changes versus admission prices. As attractions continue to grapple with rising operational costs, door entry prices are only going to have to go up and some above the rate of inflation.

Interestingly, while free attractions experienced more substantial growth, visitors to paid attractions did not gravitate solely towards cheaper options.

This highlights the importance of effectively promoting the value and offerings of your attraction on your website.

Attracting Family Groups

The 2023 survey had a section on the growth of family visitors within the overall visitor mix. Obviously, for places that are predominantly families (ie. farms, leisure and theme parks) the shift in mix isn’t so relevant. These attractions though should find it useful other categories are increasing their market share of the family audience; families can only take so many days out.

The headline figures are that overall, 18% noted an increase in family visitors and only 5% of attractions reported a decline in family visitors. The rest remained the same.

The museum and art gallery sector emerged as a standout, witnessing a 6% increase of families in the visitor mix, with 33% of their total audience being families. Within this category, 28% reported growth in family group attendance, while only 5% experienced a decline.

Conversely, while gardens overall saw a reduction of families in the visitor mix (down 21% from 2022), 24% of them successfully increased family attendance. This suggests that gardens investing in playgrounds and other family-friendly attractions have not only retained their audience post covid but also expanded it.

Other sectors, like zoos, also noted an increase in family visitors, whereas workplace attractions (e.g., craft centres) and Visitor Centre & Heritage sites (e.g., Bletchley Park) faced declines.

Categories nearly back to pre-Covid Levels

Within the in-depth 91-page report, is a visitor number growth line that shows increases over time per category.

Until 2019, attractions in the last 30 years across England increased by 62%.

We’ve included the actual screen grabs from the report as this is the easiest way to explain it.  Visit England split the data into two groups; attractions that are faring well and those that still have some way to go.

Attraction categories faring well post Covid

The Visit England Index showed that Steam/Heritage railways and ‘Workplace Attractions’ have made a full recovery post Covid.

Wildlife attractions/Zoos and farms are also performing well with admissions higher than 2018.

Source: Visit England 2023 Visitor Attraction Survey
Source: Visit England 2023 Visitor Attraction Survey

Attraction categories not recovered post Covid

Positively, all categories are now operating above the 1989 benchmark for visitor volume, however there are huge shortfalls in comparison with 2019.

Gardens were quick to recover from Covid but seen limited growth since 2021 and the data obtained from Country Parks have shown a decline in the last couple of years.

All other categories (including Museums and Heritage, Historic Properties, Visitor & Heritage Centres and Leisure/Theme Parks remain substantially below.

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Source: Visit England 2023 Visitor Attraction Survey

Other learnings from the 2023 Visitor Attraction Survey

The Survey also identified some key similarities between all the attractions who had seen growth.

Successful attractions had:

  • Increase their marketing investment, ie. either changed the way they market or spent more.
  • Invested in community outreach; been more active in the local communities.
  • Were more visible through their social media platforms (ie. used it more)
  • Interestingly, had returned to the use of promotional leaflets (we were not expecting this one!)
  • Put on more targeted events and experiences
  • Extended their facilities – albeit play areas, exhibition spaces or tea rooms
  • Actively looked to attract new audiences through evens or extended facilities.

Key Takeaways for Marketing Managers

The Visit England Visitor Attraction Survey provides critical insights that can help marketing managers fine-tune their strategies. Here are some actionable steps based on our findings:

Maximise Website Messaging

With no reduction in growth for attractions with higher prices, it demonstrates visitors will pay but need to understand value. Worthy of mention to support this recommend is that at Agility we monitor 20+ websites for visitor attraction. This year we have seen website visitor traffic increase dramatically, which hasn’t been the case for visitor numbers.

The takeaway is tnsure your website has clear calls to action and effectively communicates the value of a day out at your attraction.

Don’t be afraid to discount …but do it wisely

With most categories seeing an increase in the free category alternatives, people are still seeking value.  For the core summer holidays, we’ve suggested 9 proven ways to increase revenues.  One of these was a bounce back offer or rainy-day guarantee.  Find out more here.

Invest in your marketing

For Marketing Managers, the Visit England Research is gold dust.  One of the common factors against those attractions that have grown was increased marketing expenditure.

Benchmark your marketing spend and results against others in your sector. And if your budget can stretch use marketing experts. A client of Agility’s who undertook a review with us last Summer, ended up having their best ever Summer. It’s worth the investment.

Often though, it’s not about just increasing expenditure.  It’s about using your budget wisely.  This year, we’ve totally changed the marketing mix for a new client; they increased visitors by 13% over May Half Term and in the first 2 weeks of July are 40% up.

Review your Email Marketing

We are surprised that only 58% of respondents are regularly using email as a promotional tool, a great opportunity for any attraction with a repeat visit opportunity.

If you are worried about GDPR, investigate the merits of legitimate interest.

Target new events or experiences to reach new audiences

This is a real opportunity for attractions and where customer personas really come into their own to create an event or experience that resonates.   This could be a totally new audience or an event in a shoulder season to stimulate off peak demand. 

Educational offering

The survey indicated that attractions have seen growth from school visits.  For our clients we are recommending they review their educational offering, postcode map existing visiting schools to identify the school drivetime and start a schools monthly E-news for schools that have previously visited.

Is it time for a new attraction?

We always remember Tony Sefton from Vision XS quoting that if you don’t provide something new every 3 years, your visitor numbers will go backwards. The Visit England research supports this. A new attraction can help you stand out against your competition and give visitors a reason to come back.  It also screams out a message that you care about re-investment. 

We hope you found Agility’s findings from Visitor Attraction Survey insightful.  Want to elevate your marketing results?  Please do get in touch for a virtual coffee. 

Appendix A

The categories explained

  • Country Park – a Forest Park that includes another attraction like a visitor centre or historical monument.
  • Farms – attractions that include farm animals
  • Gardens – botanical garden or arboretum
  • Historic House/Castles – house and garden or royal residence
  • Other Historic – ancient monument or standing stone
  • Leisure Parks/Theme Parks – entertainment park, park with rides
  • Museum/Art Galleries – including industrial, mining, science, transport museums and galleries of modern art.
  • Steam/Heritage Railways – railways in working condition (not museum)
  • Wildlife/Zoos – attractions that contain natural habitats for flora and fauna
  • Workplaces – operating industrial or craft attraction
  • Places of Workshop – attraction of any religion

Appendix B

The survey’s response per attraction category

  • Country Park – 3%
  • Farms – 3%
  • Gardens – 5%
  • Historic House/Castles – 33%
  • Leisure Parks/Theme Parks – 1%
  • Museum/Art Galleries -36%
  • Steam/Heritage Railways – 2%
  • Wildlife/Zoos – 5%
  • Workplaces – 2%
  • Places of Workshop – 3%

Written by Anita Waddell (MD) | Posted 22nd July 2024

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