The Natural History Museum (NHM) will find it hard to maintain its position as one of Britain’s leading tourist attractions without more funding, a report has found.

Treasurehouse and Powerhouse, which compiled the report, claims that Government grants alone will not be sufficient to secure the long-time future of NHM.

It said: "Dependence on government grant will not be sufficient to compete adequately with private sector leisure and educational facilities that are able to charge for entry."

Currently, the museum relies heavily on a £38m government grant.

According to Treasurehouse and Powerhouse, the NHM adds £190m to the economy every year – the equivalent of £4 for each pound provided by its annual grant.

While the museum enjoys more than three million visitors each year, it also produces scientific research at a standard compatible to ones produced by leading Universities.

Tony Travers, part of the team compiling the report, said: "The Museum has been a great success in recent years – but this doesn’t make the maintenance of the position any less challenging. It is clear from our study that the present funding regime cannot fully support the wide range of cultural, curatorial and tourist needs of such a modern institution."

The NHM is currently the fifth most visited visitor attraction in the UK, with its three million visits a year, just behind Blackpool Pleasure Beach (6.2 million visitors a year), Tate Modern (4.6 million), British Museum (4.6 million) and the National Gallery (4.1 million).

Details: www.nhm.ac.uk