Record Visitor Numbers For Hampshire Planetarium

The INTECH Science Centre and Planetarium near Winchester says it's seen a record number of visitors in the last year.

It had the highest number of visitors since the charity started in 1982. Figures for April 2012 to March 2013 show a total of 155,138 unique visitors to the purpose-built Science Centre in Winchester in this period a 33% increase on the previous year’s visitor numbers of 116,740.

32,629 were school children who received educational packages. An additional 6,314 school children received workshops in their own schools from the Science Centre education staff team or STEM Ambassadors visits. The majority of customers come on general family visits either to the Science Centre or The Astrium Planetarium; the UK’s largest capacity digital planetarium. 

The Science Centre says it draws large numbers of general visitors to Hampshire and has a clear economic benefit. Analysis of where visitors come from, undertaken by The Audiences Agency using data obtained from 46,263 visitors, shows that although a proportion of customers live within a 1 hour drive-time, some came from as far as the Shetland Islands.

Verena Cornwall, Director of INTECH Science Centre said:

“The results of our efforts in this period have clearly brought in record visitors. As a self-sustaining charity much of our attention is placed on providing a high quality visitor experience. When we polled our visitors in 2012 we found that recommendation was the number one reason that new customers came. We are delighted with the increase in visitors and the resulting impact of the charity’s work."