Scotland popular with tourists

The number of visitors who came to Scotland from abroad last year totalled 2.4 million - which was 50% higher than in 2001. 344,000 of these came from USA, though that was well down from the 421,000 in 2001. But the number of Canadians coming to Scotland doubled in the same timeframe - to 181,000. That was quite a total, bearing in mind that Canada's population is just over 10% that of the US. Germany had the second highest number of arrivals, with 285,000, which was well up on the 155,000 four years earlier. The number of travellers from France more than doubled between 2001 (61,000) and 2005 (144,000). The biggest percentage increase was from Sweden - up from 23,000 to 131,000 in the same timescale.

Tourism Minister Patricia Ferguson put the growth down to an increased budget for marketing by VisitScotland, and the rise in cheaper air travel, with a significant increase in direct flights from a wide range of locations. The Scottish Executive announced this week that a further £800,000 has been allocated to the route development fund, which has so successfully encouraged airlines to start flights on new routes. The overall aim is to increase revenues from tourism in Scotland by another 50%, over the decade to 2015.

Picture right: Loch Maree from the Beinn Eighe Mountain Trail