Record visitor figures for Tate and V&A

Both the Tate Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum have announced record attendance figures for 1994. The Tate recorded 2,964,938 visitors, the highest figure ever recorded in the gallery's history (2,226,399 of these visited the Tate in London, while the remainder visited the gallery's three outposts, the Tate Gallery Liverpool, the Tate Gallery St Ives and the Barbara Hepworth Museum). The V&A has recorded the highest number of visitors in almost ten years. In 1994 1,440,334 visitors attended, 34% up on 1993, and the highest figure since 1985 when 1,733,314 were recorded. (Voluntary entrance charges at the museum were introduced in November of that year). Meanwhile a new report has raised the estimated number of annual museum visits in the UK to 110 million, thirty million greater than the latest statistics supplied by the British Tourist Authority (BTA). The figures, reported in "By Popular Demand: a strategic analysis of the market potential for museums and art galleries in the UK", are thought by the BTA to be an overestimate. "By Popular Demand" is published by the Museums and Galleries Commission, l6 Queen Anne's Gate, London SW1, price £15.