Skip to main content
Visit Scotland | Alba

Looking for advice and support to start, improve, grow, or promote your business? View our Business Support Hub.

Article published 08/12/2025

Historic Environment Scotland has published its first Climate Change Adaptation Manual for Heritage Tourism, in a collaboration with VisitScotland.

Tiomóid Foley, our Net Zero Tourism Manager, is one of five primary authors of the manual.

The manual aims to provide guidance on how to safeguard Scotland’s heritage tourism sector from the impact of climate change.

Heritage sites are hugely important for the tourism sector and its supply chain, with the heritage tourism sector contributing £2.1 billion to Scotland’s economy.

The adaptation manual is designed to help a wide range of heritage tourism businesses, from guided tour operators and living heritage experiences to heritage museums and landscapes.

The manual is also suitable for broader heritage tourism supply chains that operate in and around, or depend on, heritage, but who may not be considered heritage themselves.

Adaptation is not a one size fits all. The manual offers suggestions and examples to help businesses understand the risks of weather-related events and implement effective strategies to protect the cultural heritage they work with.

The goal is to create a proactive approach to manage climate risks, share best practice, encourage collaboration among stakeholders, and foster innovation. 

The Climate Change Adaptation Manual for Heritage Tourism will be a real asset to the industry, helping them explore both the risks and opportunities that climate change poses and empowering them to take action that allows them to get ahead of these changes.

This project is a fantastic example of how the industry and public service can work together, as part of a wider tourism supply chain, to deliver a more sustainable and inclusive visitor economy; one that benefits all areas of the country at all times of the year.

Tiomóid Foley, Net Zero Tourism Manager, VisitScotland

We are grateful to everyone who contributed to this manual to ensure that it is a useful resource for the wide variety of businesses within heritage tourism.

It is essential that we build capacity within the sector to understand climate risks and how to improve their resilience in the face of ever-increasing impacts.

Nathalie Lodhi, Head of Climate Change, Historic Environment Scotland

Other things you might like