London, Europe Brief News – Easing Covid-19 restrictions in the UK has had a big impact on British holidaymakers over the few months.
The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions said there was strong demand for gardens, parks, forests and zoos in the UK.
But while visitor numbers were up 25% on 2020, overall they remain 57% lower than 2019, before the Covid outbreak.
However, those figures are not like-for-like, because attractions were not open for several months last year.
For the first time, the most visited attraction was not in London. Windsor Great Park saw 5.4 million visitors, while the second most visited attraction was Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which saw a 61% increase to 1.9 million.
Other popular attractions included Chester Zoo, the Natural History Museum, the British Museum, Tate Modern. Somerset House, the Science Museum, RHS Garden Wisley, and Forestry England’s Jeskyns Community Woodland in Kent.
The average number of days that sites were closed in 2021 when they normally would have been open was 99, equivalent to 31% of regular opening days.
All visitor attractions were closed in the early months of 2021 during lockdown, but most restrictions were lifted by the summer. Even after that, some indoor attractions continued to open at reduced capacity and with reduced opening hours.
UK Removes All Travel Rules
The UK authorities earlier declared the decision to remove all remaining Covid travel measures this Friday.
Currently, everyone travelling to the UK must complete a passenger locator form before they arrive.
Travellers who did not receive full vaccination have to take Covid test before departure and book for PCR test.
UK Transport Minister Grant Shapps confirmed in a tweet that these rules will end at 04:00 on Friday.
His announcement means that vaccinated passengers will no longer have to take Covid tests. The passenger locator form will no longer be necessary either.
People planning an overseas trip will still need to be aware of other countries’ entry rules.
