Millions of visits to The Royal Parks in London, and high ratings given by visitors

During 2013/14 Ipsos carried out a programme of visitor research for The Royal Parks, an executive agency of the Department for Culture Media and Sport.

The research was conducted in the eight Royal Parks: Hyde, Bushy, Green, St James’s, Richmond, Regent’s/ Primrose Hill, Greenwich and Kensington Gardens.

Three waves of visitor surveys were carried out in each of the parks to understand how the parks are used, what visitors think of park services, and the profile of park visitors. The surveys also looked at visitors’ opinions about commercial activity in the parks, such as sporting events and summer concerts.

• Aggregated data shows that the vast majority of visitors (98%) rate the quality of the parks as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’.
• Nine in ten visitors (92%) rate the tidiness and cleanliness of the parks as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’, and 96% gave the same rating to the quality of the natural environment.
• One of the highest results relates to safety, with 99% of visitors saying they feel ‘very safe’ or ‘quite safe’ in the parks.

Four waves of seasonal ‘counts’ were conducted to attempt to quantify the number of visitors to the eight Royal Parks over a 12 month period. This included careful measurement of pedestrians, cyclists and equestrians at key exit points over selected periods, extrapolated to provide overall seasonal and annual estimates.

• From these counts it is estimated that The Royal Parks received c.77.7 million visits between 23 November 2013 and 22 November 2014.

Technical note

Visitor research – Ipsos carried out three waves of face-to-face interviews with visitors to each of the Royal Parks, using ‘random stop’ methodology. Fieldwork dates: 8 – 22 August 2013; 8 – 22 May 2014; and, 7 – 19 August 2014. Results are based on 1,699 respondents across the three waves (approximately 212 per park). Data are weighted to ensure equal representation across the parks, but are otherwise unweighted. Data are subject to statistical sampling tolerances.

Visitor counts –Visitor count figures are estimates only. Ipsos worked with transport planning and measurement specialists Sky High Technology to take a sample of pedestrian, cyclist and equestrian counts using cameras installed at key exit points in each park. Sample counts were taken on a typical week day and weekend day at quarterly intervals. Visitors counted will not be unique. Counts took place on 24/11/13 and 26/11/13; 23/02/14 and 25/02/14; 01/06/14 and 03/06/14 (also 15/06/14 and 17/06/14); 31/08/14 and 02/09/14. Counts were then extrapolated to provide an overall annual estimate.