Visit Scotland | Alba

Overview

  • Characterised by its rolling hills, valleys and moorland, the Scottish Borders is a paradise for those that enjoy the great outdoors. Its rich, poetic and sometimes bloody history told through the wealth of historic sites is not to be missed!
  • Statistics on the volume and value of visitors to individual regions of Scotland are collated from several national surveys. These include the International Passenger Survey, the Great Britain Tourism Survey and the Great Britain Day Visits Survey.
  • These national surveys were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and assocaited travel restrictions. Prior to the pandemic, three year average figures were produced for individual regions due to some having lower sample sizes on an annual basis.
  • We are currently reviewing the full year 2022 data to establish what is feasible at a regional level. It may be that some regions will require to be amalgamated to produce an indication of regional performance until more data is available.
  • The latest factsheet available is for 2019.

Scottish Borders factsheet 2019

Published January 2021

Updated: March 2021. This report provides a summary of statistics on tourism in the Scottish Borders. It gathers information from a suite of tourism monitors, national statistics and commissioned research.

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In this article:

1. Key statistics

369 thousand

overnight visits

2.7 million

day visits

1.3 million

nights

£144 million

total spend

Figures shown represent tourism performance for Scottish Borders, 2017-2019

2. Scotland Visitor Survey 2023

We are currently conducting a visitor survey across Scotland. We are speaking to overnight visitors on the ground in Scotland and then will follow up on their return home so that we get a full picture of their visitor experience.

We will be carrying out the research during 2023 and results will be available in 2024. It will gather insight on motivations for visiting, experiences in Scotland and how visitors have rated aspects of their trip. Where we have a robust sample size we will look at the data at a regional level.

Scottish Borders Visitor Summary 2015/16

Published July 2023

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