HC Deb 24 October 1989 vol 158 c419W
Mr. Atkinson

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what are the top 20 tourist attractions in the area covered by the Southern tourist board in numbers visiting; and if he will indicate the numbers in each instance for the previous comparable year.

Mr. Nicholls

The English tourist board's annual survey of visits to attractions gives the following figures for the Southern tourist board area in 1987 and 1988:

Number of visits
1988 1987
Needles Pleasure Park 600,000 600,000
Beaulieu 537,750 513,481
Winchester Cathedral 400,000 400,000
Mary Rose Exhibition 370,360 362,105
Paultons Country Park 366,100 372,930
Queen Elizabeth Country Park 340,530 292,126
HMS Victory 332,238 326,051
HMS Warrior 300,000 1
Marwell Zoo 280,405 248,052
Moors Valley Country Park 250,000 150,000
Osborne House 247,873 240,149
Birdworld and Underwater World 219,190 220,000
Natural World, Poole 181,700 170,522
Robin Hill Zoo and Adventure Park 180,000 180,000
Tank Museum, Bovington 175,469 169,746
Buckler's Hard Maritime Museum 164,795 170,180
Corfe Castle 161,754 149,279
Carisbrooke Castle 152,993 152,459
Poole Pottery 143,682 1
Studland, Dorset 142,510 144,294
1 Not known.