High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Monday, October 17, 2011
Expenditure and visits
Tourism is one of Scotland's largest business sectors. It is an important element in the social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being of Scotland, from major cities to rural areas many of which depend on the industry for jobs and infrastructure.
- In 2010, around 14.7 million tourists took overnight trips to Scotland.
- There has been a fall in the total number of overnight tourism visits to Scotland between 2005 and 2010.
- Expenditure by overnight tourists was around £4.1 billion per year (2010 data).
- There has been an overall fall in the nominal expenditure of overnight visitors to Scotland from 2005 to 2010, although there has been an increase in expenditure by overseas visitors.
- The tourism-related sector supports about 9% of employment in Scotland (2009 data). [source: Business Register and Employment Survey - for further information on tourism-related industries see also the Key Sector Statistics Database]
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