Recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic slowed in 2023, with attractions in England only reporting an 11% increase in total visits from 2022 to 2023, leaving a shortfall against 2019 of 28%.
Inflation may have fallen during 2023, but costs continued to rise, affecting the majority of attractions in 2023.
Admissions to English attractions continued to increase in 2023, but at a slower rate than in the previous two years. Average growth was just 11%, which means that 2023 admissions were 28% below 2019 levels.
Gross revenue at visitor attractions increased by 10% in 2023. Indexing average levels of revenue growth suggests that this has returned to the growth trajectory it was on prior to the pandemic.
Marketing expenditure increased again in 2023, with 31% of attractions reporting an increase compared to their marketing budgets in 2022.
Nearly a quarter of attractions remain below pre-pandemic levels. This is most typically due to budgetary limitations, but there are a variety of reasons at play. Many sites are struggling to attract the right candidates for paid roles or volunteers, while others have restructured their operations to reduce the number of staff needed.
However, staffing levels did increase across all types of staff for all sizes of attraction in 2023.
Over half (53%) of attractions invested in enhancements to their accessibility provision during 2023. The most common is in staff training, with 2 in 5 sites including this within their training schedule; just over a fifth made changes to their built environment/ amenities/services (22%) and a similar proportion improved the accessibility of their communications (19%).
Attractions are conscious of their environmental responsibilities and 61% said that they have an environmental strategy in place.
See the full report here - https://bit.ly/3Wb19XK