Last year’s fine British summer helped boost visits to outdoor attractions such as Stonehenge, tourist chiefs have announced.

Tourist hotspots such as Kew Gardens and London Zoo all saw huge leaps in visitor numbers in 2013 compared to rainy 2012.

Overall, the main visitor attractions in the UK – the second most popular destination for Maltese tourists – welcomed six per cent more people last year than in 2012, with outdoor attractions up eight per cent.

Kew in west London had 29 per cent more visitors last year, while London Zoo numbers rose 26.4 per cent and Stonehenge was up 18.9 per cent.

The figures, from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (Alva), also showed that the British Museum, with numbers up 20 per cent to 6.7 million, was the top attraction last year, followed by the National Gallery in London (up 14 per cent to 6.03 million) and the Natural History Museum in London (up 6.7 per cent to 5.35 million).

London attractions had a 12 per cent increase in 2013, with English attractions overall up five per cent and Scottish attractions also up five per cent.

Alva director Bernard Donoghue said: “2014 is sure to be a momentous year, seeing the 450th anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare.

“Therefore we are delighted that Shakespeare’s Globe in London and the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, along with the South Bank Centre in London, are Alva’s newest members.

“In 2013, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust saw a 13 per cent increase in visitor numbers, and they will build on this in 2014 by launching a brand new exhibition, Famous Beyond Words, later this month.”