Assessing the economic impacts of nature based tourism in Scotland

£million
Visitor Nights
(millions)
Total Holiday Visitor Spend 2,626 40.40
comprising
Total Spend by UK Visitors 1,986 30.55
Total Spend by Overseas Visitors 640 9.85
Total Holiday Visitor Spend excluding
Edinburgh and Glasgow Visitors 1,699 28.32
comprising
Total Spend by UK Visitors 1,381 23.02
Total Spend by Overseas Visitors 317 5.28
The visitor nights above were calculated by assuming an average of £65 expenditure
per visitor night. The average spend of all international visitors was £63.90 per night
(including business and VFR visitors) and £63.60 per night for all UK visitors.
Other assumptions:
Assumptions for spend by activity/interest not already identified above can be
summarised as follows.
The trip or expenditure totals to which the percentage attributions were applied are
taken from the survey figures in the different Sections of this report, except the
following, which were estimated based on our wider knowledge of tourism in Scotland
as well as the material in the reports assessed for this study:
i). Snow sports
ii). Horse riding
iii). Adventure activities (40% and 20% attributions)
iv). Other specialist interests
v). Scenery
The adjustments from gross (contribution) to net (impact) in Table 52 are for visitor
spending and relate to 50% of the Scottish visitor proportions of spend given in the
assumptions.
Most sea anglers are people living in Scotland on day trips, the exception being
Dumfries and Galloway which attracts day visitors from the north of England. Sea
angling tourism participation is difficult to establish as accurate figures distinguishing
between freshwater and sea angling are not collected. Some anglers may do both and
double counting with freshwater fishing participation needs to be avoided. The overall
findings of the sea angling report seem to suggest that, relative to day trips, levels of
sea angling tourism are low, particularly where sea angling is a prime trip motivation,
with more participating in a casual way as part of a wider trip.
For overseas cycling visitors, 3% was used as this figure was supplied by VisitScotland
as the percentage of visitors who claim to cycle as part of their trip to Scotland. A small
proportion of these will have cycling as the main motivation for their trip.
85