London tourism bounced back ‘immediately’ after the Olympics, finds new survey

London’s main attractions saw an “almost immediate” bounce-back in tourist numbers once the Olympics were out of the way, says a new report.

The annual survey of the number of visits to Britain’s tourist sites, coordinated by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, found that such was the visitor traffic for the rest of 2012 that overall figures were up compared to 2011, despite fears the Games would hit tourism.

“We are delighted with the visitor figures and although the Olympics deterred visitors from Central London while the Games took place,” said Bernard Donoghue, head of the ALVA.

“The recovery was almost immediate after the Games left town.”

For the sixth year running, the British Museum came top of the table with nearly 5.6 million visits. Though that is 4.7% fewer than in 2011, other attractions posted big gains, with the Tate Modern rising 9% to 5.3 million visits and the V&A jumping by 16% to 3.2 million.

Full table at the ALVA site.