When you think of the most iconic London landmarks, there’s a whole treasure trove to tick off your lists of places to visit.
There’s those that are vital to the city’s historical and royal makeup, such as the Tower Of London, or Buckingham Palace. Then there’s the newer kids on the block like the Shard, London’s tallest landmark and a centrepiece of hospitality that invites visitors to dine high up in the sky.
One landmark has trumped all of these to take the title of the UK’s favourite, however – and it’s the wheel of glass pods along the South Bank that let you drink in the capital’s skyline: the London Eye. Is it a spot of nostalgia for the Y2K celebrations, having been launched on New Year’s Eve 1999? Who knows, but there it is atop of this list.
A new study by Travelbag has crunched the numbers, collating a list of the UK’s favourite attraction. Using TripAdvisor, the London Eye was found to come out on top when comparing the number of reviews, average score and total of 5-star reviews.
Across nearly 90,000 reviews, the spinning wheel garnered a average rating of 4.5/5, with 52.7% (46,620) of these scores being five-star reviews. When you walk past and see those queues it has at any given hour, that’s quite the impressive feat.
The London Eye pipped Malham Cove – which, despite only having 1,583 reviews, boasted an impressive 84% rate of 5-star reviews – to the post to be named the UK’s favourite hotspot. Malham was also the only top five entry not hailing from the capital, with Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben making up the list.
Surprisingly, the home of the Royal Family didn’t make the top spots; despite Buckingham Palace earning a slightly higher rate of five-star reviews than the London Eye.
London Eye’s golden touch didn’t fully extended to the worldwide list, with Italy and France dominating the proceedings here. That top five is topped by Rome’s Colosseum, in a list that also features St. Peter’s Basilica and the Eiffel Tower. Ever wondered what the most underrated landmark in the world is? Probably not, but Travelbag have revealed the answer anyway: The Great Barrier Reef.
Not all of the UK’s landmark’s could sweep up the positivity, either – with Big Ben, The Shard and Stonehenge all featuring in a worldwide top 10 for negative reviews.
London Eye beats the royal landmarks to take the crown this time, so if you haven’t been, now might the time to brave those long lines. When you see how it looked on New Year’s Eve, maybe it’s not so hard to get why it won — read the study in full, taken using 1.5 million TripAdvisor reviews, here!