British Museum most popular attraction in UK

The British Museum was the UK's most popular visitor attraction in 2012, for the sixth year running, said the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (Alva), Tuesday, indicating that the London venue attracted 5.6 million visitors. Despite bad weather and the Olympics, there was an overall 5.1 percent increase in visitors at all UK attractions, from 87.7 million in 2011 to 92.1 million. Visitors were briefly deterred from central London during the games, but Alva director Bernard Donohue called the recovery "almost immediate". At the British Museum, the exhibition curated by Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry, which explored the depths of the museum and showed 170 objects alongside 30 of his own creations, was in part responsible for helping it continue its reign as the most popular visitor attraction, the BBC, which reported the survey, noted. However the museums 5.6 million visitor figure was a 4.7 percent drop year-on-year. Tate Modern, the major art gallery on London's South Bank, moved up a place to second position with 5.3 million visitors - a 9 percent rise from 2011. Meanwhile, the Victoria Albert Museum here had its best year on record, with a 16 percent rise to 3.2 million visitors, thanks to its Hollywood Costume exhibitions in Autumn 2012. The National Portrait Gallery's Lucian Freud Portraits exhibit helped move it up one place to eighth position on an increase of 12 percent, with 2.1 million visitors. Although the Olympic and Paralympic Games affected visitor numbers in Central London for a brief period, it was the weather that had the biggest impact in 2012. Of the 30 attractions which saw more than a 10 percent drop in numbers, 27 were gardens or outdoor attractions.