The biggest increase last year came from visits by Massachusetts residents, which rose 32 percent.
STURBRIDGE — The Old Sturbridge Village living history museum says attendance was up 12 percent last year, its best numbers in seven years.
On Tuesday, the museum announced it had 273,752 visitors in the fiscal year ending Jan. 30, compared to 244,008 for the same time last year.
The museum said it was its third straight year of gains. The biggest increase last year came from visits by Massachusetts residents, which rose 32 percent. Foreign visits were up 18 percent and out-of-state visits rose 11 percent.
The increases follow recent tough times at the museum, which portrays life in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The museum had as many as 600,000 annual visitors during the 1980s, but by 2006 had to sell 826 acres of land amid financial troubles caused by falling attendance.