So tourism is absolutely booming in Scotland, yet GLA can't seem to land any significant route development beyond a handful of outbound holiday routes and 1x weekly flights to NQY. It really puts in stark relief GLA's poor performance and failure to capitalise on what should be a massive gift.Scotland’s growing appeal as an international visitor destination has been underlined by figures published today, which show that the country's tourism sector continues to outperform other parts of the UK.
A total of 1,975,000 visits were made to Scotland by overseas residents in the first six months of the year, up 14% on the same period of 2023 and a rise of 46% on 2019. Visitors to Scotland spent £1.5 billion over that period, 2% higher than 2023 and 30% on 2019, adjusted for inflation.
European visitors were responsible for just over half of all trips during that period, followed by North American visitors who continue to show the largest growth in visits with a 54% increase on 2023, the latest Office for National Statistics figures for the International Passenger Survey show.
The numbers for North America are particularly eye opening. Up 54% year on year and well ahead of pre-covid in 2019, yet in the face of this GLA have lost all their scheduled flights to the US and 2 Canadian carriers too.
The visitBritain/ONS stats show that Glasgow is by a long way the 2nd most popular destination in Scotland with foreign vistors, consistantly in the top few in the UK and 3rd most popular in the UK for US visitors - so any suggestion that these visitors only want to visit Edinburgh and have no interest in Glasgow is questionable at best.