NEW statistics showing a surge in visitors to Scotland’s biggest tourist attractions brought a much-needed boost to a sector that has been through an enormous amount of turmoil over recent years.

Visits to the country’s leading hotspots, including famous castles, museums and galleries, leapt by 17.2% to nearly 49 million in 2023. It marked a return to the kind of visitor numbers such attractions had been seeing before the coronavirus pandemic struck, and came despite continuing pressure from the high cost of living.

Leading the way was Edinburgh Castle, which retained its spot as Scotland’s most popular paid-for attraction as visits increased by 41.5% to 1,904,723, and there were notable rises in attendances at several other major tourists site in the Scottish capital. The National Museum of Scotland remained the country’s leading free attraction, with visits up by 10.8% to 2,186,841, while St Giles Cathedral, also free, saw a 37.6% rise in footfall to 1,473,211.

And there was a welcome upsurge in visits to leading attractions elsewhere in Scotland, according to figures compiled by the Moffat Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University and the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions (ASVA).

The huge popularity of the Banksy exhibition, Cut & Run, in Glasgow last summer helped the Gallery of Modern Art report a 60.4% rise in visitors to 510,936, and visits to the city’s free-admission Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum surged by 32.2% to 1,283,882.

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Elsewhere in Scotland, the popular Culzean Castle and Country Park in Ayrshire, a National Trust of Scotland property, enjoyed a 30% increase to 291,674.

Overall visits to free attractions climbed to 30,605,269, up 4,354,960 on 2022, with visits to paid-for destinations up 19.2% to 18,080,369.

Such figures surely offer enormous grounds for encouragement for the Scottish tourism sector as it fights its way back from the devastation of the pandemic, and the inflation crisis which has followed in its wake.

Indeed, the report unsurprisingly received an enthusiastic response from Michael Golding, chief executive of ASVA, who was keen to highlight the role played by attraction providers in driving up standards to make them more appealing to tourists.

“The consistent upward trend in visitor numbers year after year is a result of the hard work of businesses,” he said.

“This resurgence of visitors is crucial, not only to our attractions and the tourism sector but also plays a significant role in bolstering the wider Scottish economy and supporting the communities that surround these attractions.”

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Yet, while last year’s resurgence in visits to Scottish attractions was welcome, neither Mr Golding nor anyone else across the industry will be thinking that the challenges the sector has been facing are over.

From the perspective of tourism operators, be it visitor attractions, hotels, bars, restaurants, or shops, there has been precious little easing of the cost of doing business crisis that has plagued the sector over the last two years, with the cost of energy, food, drink and labour all remaining at elevated levels.

Consumers, of course, have been feeling this pressure acutely too, as soaring inflation and rising interest rates continue to curb their spending power. That much was all too evident in the findings of the autumn industry survey published by the Scottish Tourism Alliance in October which, while reporting an encouraging revival of travellers to Scotland from overseas, also highlighted a “significant” fall in domestic visitor numbers.

This “most concerning” decline was attributed to the ongoing cost of living crisis, and this is especially worrying for Scottish tourism because the domestic market – in other words, tourism activity by people who live in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK - accounts for around 65% of the sector north of the Border.

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Of course, inflation has gradually fallen since October, with official figures published in February showing annual UK consumer prices index inflation was 4% in January. The rate was unchanged from December. However, while any fall in the rate of inflation will be welcomed by households, inflation of 4% remains double the 2% target set for the Bank of England.

The rampant inflation the UK endured over much of 2022 and 2023 has baked in the significantly higher costs and prices faced by businesses and households today. That will continue to exert pressure on Scottish tourism in terms of its domestic market, as people who have not seen their earnings keep up with inflation carefully weigh up where to spend their discretionary income.

Some respite did come from Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt yesterday, when he announced a further reduction in employee national insurance, a move he said will save the average employee a further £450 per year. It was a nakedly political move designed to catch the eye of voters as a general election looms.

The same may also be said of the Chancellor’s decision to extend the current freeze on alcohol duty from August until February, a move it said would benefit around 38,000 pubs across the UK, and continue the fuel duty freeze.

However, as the Night Time Industries Association in Scotland pointed out, the “overall tax burden remains at record high levels". A spokesperson added that "taking excessive amounts of money from the pockets of both consumers and struggling small businesses, and not increasing these duties further is simply not good enough. They must be reduced.”

Moreover, there was considerable disappointment across the wider tourism and hospitality sector that its campaign for reduction in value-added tax fell on deaf ears.

And there also widespread anger among hundreds of major companies and business organisations, including British Airways, John Lewis, Marks & Spencer and Heathrow Airport, which saw hopes of a return of duty-free shopping for foreign visitors to the UK dashed. In an open letter, more than 500 business leaders branded this “tourist tax” as a “spectacular own goal”, noting that the UK is the only country in Europe that does not offer tax-free shopping to tourists.

Sir Rocco Forte, chairman of Rocco Forte Hotels, said: ‘‘It is quite staggering that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have ignored the pleas of over 500 leading businesses representing the retail, hospitality, tourism and arts sectors and refused to scrap the tourist tax.

‘‘The case for reintroducing tax-free shopping in the UK is clear and overwhelming.”

It is certainly pleasing that people are flocking once more in their numbers to our leading tourist attractions here in Scotland. But it is certainly hard to escape the conclusion that the industry could be doing a lot better with the right kind of support.