The Roman Baths & Pump Room has maintained its position in the top 25 UK tourist attractions, despite a slight fall in visitor numbers.
Some 1,302,381 people toured the unique attraction last year compared to 2017’s record of 1,318,976. However, despite the modest reduction, 2018 was still the second busiest year in its history. 
The figures, which include daytime visitors to the Roman Baths and customers in the Pump Room restaurant, make the attraction the UK’s 24th most-visited, according to new research for the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA).
The Roman Baths is the seventh most-visited charging attraction in the UK, and the fourth most-visited attraction in England outside of London.
Bath & North East Somerset Council head of heritage services Stephen Bird said: “We are delighted that the Roman Baths has maintained such excellent visitor numbers, thanks to ongoing improvements to the visitor experience and the outstanding customer service provided by its staff.
“Since the completion of accessibility improvements to the Temple Precinct in 2015, we’ve seen growth of 11% in our visitor numbers; this has also been supported by fantastic new interpretation in the East Baths. Construction work is now starting on the Archway Project which, when it opens in 2020, will provide a new Clore Learning Centre for the Roman Baths and create a World Heritage Visitor Centre for the city. The project will also open up new areas of the Roman Baths to daytime visitors.”
Domestic visitors remained the largest market for the Roman Baths, with more than 60% coming from the UK. The two largest overseas markets remained the US and China, making up 13% and 10% of the visitors respectively.
The most visited attraction in the UK was Tate Modern with 5.86m visits – up 3.7% year on year. The British Museum was second and the National Gallery third. For the second year, the most visited of the top 10 attractions outside London were in Scotland.
