Every year, visitors contribute billions of pounds to the Scottish economy.
This makes our tourism and events industry one of the country’s fastest growing sectors.
Understanding what makes up Scotland’s visitor economy can help us make the most of its potential and make Scotland an even better place to live, work, study, and visit.
Visitor economy performance statistics
£10.8 billion
visitor spend
245,000
tourism jobs
16,045
tourism businesses
£5.5 billion
generated by events to the economy
What is the visitor economy?
In its simplest form, the visitor economy is all the money and jobs created when people travel to a place for leisure, business, or other reasons.
While this is significant, behind the headline figures and direct economic benefit to the tourism and events businesses, there is a wider impact. This ripple effect can be felt far and wide across other industries and communities that is just as important.
It's the taxi driver who welcomes visitors from the airport and the florist who supplies fresh flowers to hotels. It's the local coffee shop providing much-needed caffeine before a full day of exploring. It's the construction company building a new hotel.
The visitor economy includes every industry that contributes to and benefits from the visitor experience. It crosses through many different parts of our wider economy and communities.
Why is the visitor economy important?
A vibrant visitor economy, and tourism and events industry is a force for good. They provide stimulus and support to related industries and a wide variety of local supply chains across Scotland, such as food and drink, arts and culture, retail, construction, and transport.
Growing the visitor economy means creating more opportunities for businesses and communities to thrive. This helps make Scotland an even better place to visit, do business, work, study, and live. Growing the visitor economy therefore can:
- create jobs
- stimulate investment
- drive entrepreneurial activity
- encourage innovation
- sustain communities by improving local services
The wider impacts of a thriving visitor economy
As well as a range of economic benefits, a thriving visitor economy provides numerous social and environmental advantages too, including:
- building a strong sense of place
- preserving and enhancing local culture and heritage
- allowing businesses to connect and collaborate in their communities
- creating attractive business environments
- providing support for local facilities, services and infrastructure
- making Scotland a more attractive places to visit, work, study or live
- supporting visitors’ and our own health and well-being
Our role in the visitor economy
As the national agency for tourism and events, we have a clear vision: for Scotland to have a vibrant and dynamic visitor economy that creates better places for people to live, work, and visit. To do this, our work is focused on three key priority areas.
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Market development
Attracting inbound leisure, association conferences, business and corporate travel through a mix of strategic marketing, intermediary, partner and media relations activities.
Business and experience development
Delivering sector specific advice and support including helping tourism and events businesses to develop new products and visitor experiences, reaching new audiences and markets.
Read about our business and experience development focus area.
Place and destination development
Supporting regional economic strategies and developing our destinations by leveraging the opportunities of public and private sector investment across tourism and events.
Read about our place and destination development focus area.