Our latest Tourism Insider

A future built on insight: key trends for Scotland’s visitor economy

In today’s rapidly changing world, having an informed outlook isn’t just important – it’s essential. As global trends evolve at pace, understanding their impact is vital to helping Scotland’s tourism and events industry continue to grow, adapt, and thrive.

At VisitScotland, insights drive everything we do. Through horizon scanning and secondary research, we explore the shifting interests, behaviours, and attitudes of consumers. By monitoring the wider environment, we identify the trends influencing how visitors choose to travel, what they value, and what motivates their decisions.

This year, we’re sharing a mix of new and familiar trends that will shape tourism in 2026. Central to this is the transformation economy, with visitors increasingly seeking meaningful, restorative, and enriching experiences. We’re seeing demand grow for community connected travel, multigenerational breaks, and products that offer value through flexibility and personal relevance. Technology also continues to play a role, with artificial intelligence and augmented reality evolving the visitor experience and creating new opportunities for engagement.

Our trends forecast supports our wider work to understand consumer motivations and help businesses shape products that better attract and connect with future visitors. Together, this enables sustainable growth in our visitor economy and helps ensure Scotland remains a must visit, year round destination. Read this and more in the latest edition of Tourism Insider.

Vicki Miller, Chief Executive, VisitScotland

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