Asma Anwar
Unit 9
Learning Aim A
The nature, role and appeal of visitor attractions
The two visitor attractions that I will be writing about are the Black Country Museum and
The Lake District National Park. I will explain the appeal of each attraction to visitors, how
each attraction is funded and the scale and scope of each attraction, including their
contribution to and importance for the local and national economy.
The Black Country Living Museum is an open-air Museum of historic buildings in Dudley and
the surrounding areas of the West Midlands. Black Country Museum has a voluntary/not for
profit ownership as it is run by the Black Country Living Museum Trust.
The Lake District is a region and National Park in Cumbria in northwest of England, in the
county of Cumbria. The National Park Authority owns less than four per cent of land in the
Lake District. The rest is owned by organisations such as the National Trust, United Utilities,
Forestry Commission and other private landowners. Most of the land in the park is in private
ownership, with about 55% registered as agricultural land.
Size and complexity:
The Black Country Museum has a size of 26 acres being one of the largest and most-visited
open-air Museums in the UK, having welcomed 8.4m people since it opened. The Museum
includes streets, shops, houses, industrial areas, cafes and restaurants. Black Country
Museum has locations that include the Canal Street, Carter’s Yard, Chain Making Shop,
Limelight Cinema, Photographer’s Studio, St. James’s School
and Folkes Park, all demonstrating what it would have been
like in that era.
The Lake District National Park covers 2362 square
kilometres. The park includes mountains, valleys, villages,
towns, coastline and lakes.
Visitor numbers per year and other statistics:
Black Country Museum had a “successive year of growth
achieving record visitor attendance of just over 355, 000.”
(https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/regional/17880163.peaky-blinders-draws-record-
visitors-black-country-living-Museum/) The article says that being one of the film locations
for Peaky Blinders, the popularity of the series has introduced BCLM to new audiences
making the attraction even more popular. The article also says that Visitor numbers to the
West Midlands region as a whole increased by 2.6% in 2018 compared with the previous
year which was revealed from the findings by the West Midlands Growth Company and
research body Global Tourism Solutions.
Tourism of Lake District:
The Lake District has 19.17 million visitors a year. (Source: STEAM 2017 - Cumbria Tourism)
The Lake District had 28.53 million tourist days. (Source: STEAM 2017 - Cumbria Tourism)
Visitors spent £1.41 billion. (Source: STEAM 2017 - Cumbria Tourism)
, Asma Anwar
Unit 9
Learning Aim A
Cumbrian tourism hits £3bn for the first time as
visitors flock to the Lake District
The articles says that the region had 47 million visitors in 2019 and has also seen an increase
in overnight stays, with an extra 410,000 bed nights last year. This shows that more people
were having overnight breaks in the Lake District.
https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/lake-district-beatrix-potter-cumbria-tourism-travel-floods-
500758
Between 2016 and 2017, there was an increase of 5.5% in tourist days, 4.8% in tourist
numbers, and 6.4% in tourism revenue. This builds on increases in 2013, 2014 and 2015. In
2017, the county welcomed an extra 2.2m visitors, and generated an additional £175m,
taking total tourism revenue to £2.9bn.
Contribution to the local and national economy:
The Black Country Museum contributes to the local economy by creating jobs for local
people.
The table shows that The Black
Country Museum ranked 4th place in
most visited paid attraction in the
West Midlands in 2018. This showed
that the Museum had a high number
of visitors, which meant their
admission fees contributed to the
economy.
Black Country Museum contributes
to the local economy by having a high number of visitor numbers to the Black Country area.
The news article https://www.the-blackcountry.com/news/black-country-tourism-
generates-825-million says that the Black Country tourism generated £825 million. Visitors
to the Black Country helped generate over £825 million in revenue for the local economy in
