Tourism in England

The timber-framed street of The Shambles in York featuring preserved medieval buildings, some dating back as far as the 14th century

Tourism in England plays a significant part in the economic and cultural life of England. The country's principal tourist destinations are London, Oxford, Cambridge, York, and Canterbury. In 2022, the United Kingdom as a whole was the world's 7th most visited country for tourists, and 17 of the United Kingdom's 25 UNESCO World Heritage Sites fall within England.

VisitEngland's stated mission is to build England's tourism product, raise its profile worldwide, increase the volume and value of tourism exports and develop England's and the wider UK's visitor economy. In 2020, the Lonely Planet travel guide rated England as the second best country to visit that year, after Bhutan.

Cities

The 15 English cities visited most by overseas tourists in 2019 were:

#	City	Annual visitors (millions)
1	London	21.7
2	Manchester	1.7
3	Birmingham	1.1
4	Liverpool	0.84
5	Brighton and Hove	0.64
6	Bristol	0.63
7	Oxford	0.58
8	Cambridge	0.42
9	Bath	0.4
10	Leeds	0.33
11	York	0.29
12	Newcastle-upon-Tyne	0.28
13	Stratford-upon-Avon (town)	0.27
14	Nottingham	0.24
15	Coventry	0.24

Tourist sites

Museums and galleries

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects.

Unlike other countries, most museums and places of cultural interest in England are free of charge to visit. Museums are an important aspect of English culture, and almost every citiy and town have extensive museums and art galleries. Some of the most visited places are:

• British Museum
• Tate Modern
• National Gallery
• Natural History Museum, London
• Victoria & Albert Museum
• Science Museum, London
• Royal Museums Greenwich
• Tate Britain
• Ashmolean Museum
• National Railway Museum

World Heritage Sites

17 of the 25 United Kingdom UNESCO World Heritage Sites fall within England. Some of the best known of these include Stonehenge, the Tower of London, the Jurassic Coast, Westminster, the Roman Baths in Bath, Saltaire, Ironbridge Gorge and Studley Royal Park.

The northernmost point of the Roman Empire, Hadrian's Wall, is the largest Roman artefact in the world, running a total of 73 miles in northern England.

Most visited sites

National rank	Site	Location	Visitor count (2009)
1	Tower of London	London	2,389,548
2	St Paul's Cathedral	London	1,821,321
3	Westminster Abbey	London	1,449,593
4	Roman Baths	Bath	1,196,481
5	Canterbury Cathedral	Canterbury	1,013,118
6	Stonehenge	Amesbury	990,705
7	Palace of Westminster	London	963,362
8	York Minster	York	797,100
9	Chatsworth House	Chatsworth	652,969
10	Leeds Castle	Maidstone	646,801
11	Hampton Court Palace	London	541,646
12	Blenheim Palace	Woodstock	537,120
13	Portsmouth Historic Dockyard	Portsmouth	532,158
14	Stourhead	Mere	356,816
15	Beaulieu Palace House and Abbey	Beaulieu	351,975

National Parks

Lake District National Park is one of England's many UNESCO World Heritage Sites and national parks.

Some notable National Parks in England include:

• Lake District National Park — mountains, lakes and woodlands; the land of Wordsworth
• New Forest National Park — a remnants of a great oak and hornbeam woodland that once covered Southern England
• North York Moors National Park — heather-clad hills, woodlands, sea cliffs and secluded beaches
• Peak District National Park — rugged moors and hills which form the northern spine of England
• South Downs National Park — the gentle rolling chalk downs of southern England

England possesses a wide range of natural environments, and continues to benefit from a significant ecotourism industry. Attractions include:

• Eden Project in Cornwall.
• The Lake District, a national park and mountainous region in Cumbria, including Windermere, the largest lake in England
• The Peak District, a national park and upland area lying mostly in Derbyshire
• Dartmoor and Exmoor, national parks and upland areas in Devon/Somerset
• The New Forest, a rural forest and national park lying mostly in Hampshire
• The Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site in Dorset and Devon
• The Broads, a national park and lowland area lying mostly in Norfolk
• The Yorkshire Dales, a national park and upland area in North Yorkshire and Cumbria
• The National Forest, covering parts of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire
• The South Downs, a national park stretching from Hampshire to East Sussex and comprising chalk uplands and sea cliffs
• Center Parcs, a European network of rural holiday parks

Preservation trusts

A number of umbrella organisations are devoted to the preservation and public access of both natural and cultural heritage, including English Heritage and the National Trust. Membership with them, even on a temporary basis, gives priority free access to their properties thereafter.

English Heritage has a wide-ranging remit and manages more than 400 significant buildings and Monuments in England. They also maintain a register of thousands of listed buildings, those which are considered of most importance to the historic and cultural heritage.

Travel

England's extensive bus services offer numerous, frequent and reliable transport around most towns and cities. Rural areas are less well served and hiring a car is often the best option to explore the countryside and villages.

The next most common methods of transports are trains and taxis. Great Britain's extensive rail network is used to travel between cities significantly more than aeroplanes, with a 2015 survey finding that only 1% of international visitors flew domestically after arrival.

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

The travel restrictions and lockdowns necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to a 76% reduction in "inbound tourism" to the UK that year. The same VisitBritain report also discussed the effects of the pandemic on domestic within the UK in 2020, citing a significant reduction in spending, for an estimated decline of 62% over the previous year. As of January 2021, the forecast for 2021 suggested that spending would increase by 79% over the previous year and that "the value of spending will be back to 84% of 2019 levels" by the end of 2021.

See also

• Lists of tourist attractions in England
• Department for Culture, Media and Sport
• Visit England
• Institute of Tourist Guiding
• Tourism in the United Kingdom

External links

• Text was copied from England at WikiTravel, which is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license.
• English Tourist Board
• England Wiki Travel guide
• www.pagemost.com, Interactive Google maps showing local places and attractions, complete with Flickr photographs. Search by UK place name or postcode.