Blockbuster art shows tourist magnet for London

LONDON, Oct 18 (Reuters) London laid claim to be art show capital of the world right now with a Velazquez exhibition joining a string of ''old master blockbusters'' pulling in the tourists.

''It is an amazing autumn. Everyone has got their big guns out,'' said Charles Saumarez Smith, director of the National Gallery yesterday whose Velazquez show has already attracted record advance sales.

Art fans are certainly spoilt for choice this autumn in the British capital with the Leonardo da Vinci, Hans Holbein, Auguste Rodin and David Hockney exhibitions all proving major crowdpullers.

Saumarez Smith, speaking to Reuters at the packed Velazquez press view yesterday, said: ''One in five of our visitors is from abroad.'' ''Having all these big exhibitions on is very important to the London economy. We are the heart of cultural tourism. I reckon you are talking about the best part of 750,000 people coming in for these exhibitions.'' But surely art fans could be suffering from a surfeit of blockbusters? ''No, I think it is mutually beneficial to have good exhibitions.

People will come to more than one,'' he said.

The Velazquez exhibition, already more successful at the box office than the National Gallery's Titian and Caravaggio shows, boasts 46 works by the realist storyteller who became the great image maker at the court of King Philip IV in Madrid.

Across town at The Victoria and Albert Museum, the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition of drawings and notebooks is a sell-out with queues of fans eager to catch works by the Renaissance master.

A spokeswoman at the Royal Academy said it was ''delighted with the success of Rodin. The exhibition has proved consistently popular and is performing above expectations.'' ''London is definitely a capital for art and I think that will increase in the buildup to the 2012 Olympics,'' said Elliott Frisby at the national tourism agency Visit Britain.

Without pinpointing what is the biggest crowdpuller, he said visitors were attracted to London for three reasons -- the museums, its theatres and classic cultural icons like The Tower of London and Buckingham Palace.

''One of the things about this country is our cultural appeal,'' he said. ''Admissions at the Tate Britain museum went up last year by 60 percent.'' Despite being hit by suicide bomb attacks that killed 52 people on the city's transport system, 2005 was still a record year for tourism in London with 30 million visits and total spend of 14 billion pounds.

''When the bombings happened, the general reaction was -- This will not put us off travel. The recovery time from these shocks around the world are much quicker. People are more resilient,'' Frisby said.

And his forecast for 2006 is a another record -- 31 million visits and total spending of 14.1 billion pounds.

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