Visitor numbers plummeted at London's most popular tourist attractions last year because many people cannot afford a trip to the capital, a tourism industry leader has said.

The British Museum, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern and National Gallery welcomed a total of almost two million fewer people in 2017 compared with the previous year.

Attractions across London as a whole saw an increase of just 1.2 per cent, whereas the UK average growth across 238 sites was 7.3 per cent including 13.9 per cent in Scotland.

Stately homes, museums and organisations such as the National Trust are benefitting from the change, experts said, as families choose to invest in season passes to their local heritage sites instead of one-off major excursions.

Churches, which overall saw a significant drop in visitor numbers, were boosted slightly by “Champing”, the phenomenon of church camping, with St Nicholas’ Chapel in Kings Lynn seeing an increase of 8 per cent due to events including its first gin festival.