Rural Tourism in Scotland Survey 

Member properties of Historic Houses Scotland and Scottish Land & Estates are invited to complete this survey, in order to provide data for our major new report on rural tourism in Scotland later in 2025.  Our members comprise some of Scotland’s biggest rural tourism businesses. Our report will look at the impact that these businesses have on Scotland’s economy and address the challenges and opportunities that they currently face.  

Scotland’s rich history and dramatic landscapes attract over 4 million international visitors every year, with over 12 million domestic overnight trips made in 2023. In some tourism hot-spots, the volume of tourist activity can place increased pressure on communities, public services, transport and facilities.  However, most of Scotland does not have these problems. Many areas are actively seeking to attract more tourists for the associated economic benefits, including job creation and visitor spend, as well as the social and cultural benefits.  

We want to remind government that, for many rural businesses, tourism is an important and rewarding part of the local economy and the potential to encourage visitors to a wider array of attractions beyond the hotspots to spread the benefits. We seek to offer evidence-based policy proposals, to feed into VisitScotland and the Scottish Government’s aims for growing tourism across Scotland in a sustainable and responsible way.  We need evidence from our members to provide a robust evidence base to do this. 

Thank you in advance for taking the trouble to complete the survey. We estimate it will take no more than 20 minutes of your time.  

Your data will be used anonymously: we ask for personal details in case we need to clarify any of your data, or to follow up on any of your answers.