Do more people visit the British Museum than Belgium?
I was startled to pick up from POLITICO, quoting The Standard, that according to Boris Johnson, "We had more visitors to the British Museum alone than came to the whole of Belgium" in 2015.
Actually the 2015 figures have not yet been published as far as I can tell. But in "2014/15" (not clear precisely what period that is) the British Museum had 6.7 million visitors; whereas in the calendar year 2014, there were just over 17 million overnight visitors from other countries to Belgium - this figure omits day-trippers and those who stayed in private accommodation with friends or family.
So it's a fair bet that Belgium had at least three times as many visitors as the British Museum. But why let the facts get in the way of cheap rhetoric?
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Actually the 2015 figures have not yet been published as far as I can tell. But in "2014/15" (not clear precisely what period that is) the British Museum had 6.7 million visitors; whereas in the calendar year 2014, there were just over 17 million overnight visitors from other countries to Belgium - this figure omits day-trippers and those who stayed in private accommodation with friends or family.
So it's a fair bet that Belgium had at least three times as many visitors as the British Museum. But why let the facts get in the way of cheap rhetoric?
(FB, Twitter)