Manchester’s most visited tourist attraction named as Dunham Massey as English Tourism Week 2023 begins

The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) has revealed the most visited attraction in Greater Manchester at the start of English Tourism Week 2023.

Dunham Massey, the National Trust run deer gardens and 17th century hall near Altrincham, received the largest footfall in 2022 out of the attractions listed with ALVA. The site atracted 525,819 people last year, up slightly from the year before. The next most visited attraction on the ALVA list was also an outdoors one - RHS Bridgewater, the 156-acres horticultural gardens in Salford , which attracted 520,000 people in 2022.

The most visited attraction across the North West was Liverpool World Museum, whereas the most-visited attraction in the UK continued to be Windsor Great Park, which is managed by the Crown Estate, and saw 5,636,844 visits – a 4% increase on 2021 numbers. The North West was the area which saw the biggest growth in visitor numbers outside of London, with museums and galleries helping to drive a rise.

You can read the top 11 most popular attractions in Greater Manchester in our article here.

The figures were released by ALVA to mark the start of English Tourism Week which runs from 17 March to 26 March.

Bernard Donoghue, director of ALVA, commented: “These figures show that visitors flocked back to their favourite places in 2022 to breathe, heal, repair and to enjoy special moments with special people in special places. The year ended strongly with attractions reporting a very busy Christmas, strong visitor numbers and strong retail sales. People clearly wanted to create special memories with their loved ones after two difficult years and a challenging economic climate.

“We are still experiencing the tourism equivalent of ‘long Covid’ with many attractions still not back up to 2019 visitor levels due, mainly, to the absence of international visitors, notably from China and the Far East, but I am confident that they will return this year and we will see a continuing healthy recovery."