The Atomium remains Brussels' most popular tourist attraction, closely followed by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts and Mini-Europe, according to figures requested by Brussels MP Carla Dejonghe.
Belgians and international visitors usually flock to Brussels for its museums, but many also visit the capital to enjoy the atmosphere, shop and go out for dinner, Dejonghe announced in a press release on Wednesday.
"The top ten tourist attractions in Brussels are in line with our expectations," she said. "Of course, not all attractions were taken into account: passers-by at Manneke Pis are not counted, for example, because that would be an impossible task."
The top ten attractions also include quite a few locations linked to the city's EU institutions: the Museum of Natural Sciences – a neighbour of the European Parliament – ranks fourth, while the main Chamber of the European Parliament and the Parliamentarium are also visited often.
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The comic book museum, which usually ranks in the top three of the capital’s tourist attractions, dropped to seventh place, after Bozar (sixth). The Choco-Story Brussels chocolate museum and Autoworld remain at places nine and ten, respectively.
Additionally, tourism company Westtoer conducted a survey of 78,000 Belgians between June 2021 and June 2022 and found that the number of day visits to the Brussels-Capital Region reached 14.8 million.
What is striking is that most Belgian day visitors come from Hainaut (17%) and Liège (13.4%), while Antwerp residents hold third place. "I am pleased that tourism has recovered," said Dejonghe. "The problems following the 2016 terrorist attacks and the 2020-2021 pandemic have already been forgotten. Thanks to our efforts as a government, no crisis will destroy our capital in terms of tourism."
