Scotland's centuries old castles and baby polar bear set new records for visitors: report

Three of Scotland's iconic castles featured in the 20 most visited Scottish tourism sites in 2018, cultural agency Historic Environment Scotland announced Tuesday.

Edinburgh, Stirling and Urquhart castles each featured in figures compiled by the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions (ASVA) after all experiencing a record breaking year in 2018.

ASVA, which represents the interests of the key visitor attractions sector across Scotland, has over 450 members comprising some of Scotland's most popular and iconic castles, galleries, museums, historic houses, heritage sites, wildlife parks, gardens and leisure attractions.

Analysis of statistics submitted by 232 of the organisation's member sites for its annual 'Visitor Trends Report' showed that more than 30.2 million visits were made to the tourism sites in Scotland in 2018.

Scotland's capital of Edinburgh continued to dominate the marketplace, with 10 of the top 20 attractions located in the city.

Number one spot in the top-20 went to National Museum of Scotland which welcomed the most visitors in 2018, while Edinburgh Castle retained its status as the most popular 'paid' attraction. Both sites each attracted more than 2 million visits.

It was only the second time that any visitor attraction in Scotland has surpassed the two million milestone after Edinburgh Castle broke the record in 2017.

Four other sites attracted in excess of one million visitors, two in Edinburgh (Scottish National Gallery and St Giles' Cathedral) and two in Glasgow (Riverside Museum and Kelvingrove Art Gallery Museum).

"We are delighted that heritage attractions across Scotland have seen an increase in visitors. These figures demonstrate the appeal that Scotland's heritage has on visitors and how important heritage attractions are to the tourism industry," said Susan Loch from Historic Environment Scotland.

Gordon Morrison, CEO of ASVA said: "These figures demonstrate that the visitor attractions sector in Edinburgh has excelled once again. Attractions that have invested in their visitor offer by providing fantastic customer service and innovative new products and services, supported by creative and effective marketing campaigns, are not only reaching new visitor markets but are actively encouraging their existing visitors to return time and again."

Dr Gordon Rintoul, director of National Museums Scotland said: "It is terrific that the latest ASVA visitor figures have once again confirmed the National Museum of Scotland as the most popular visitor attraction in Scotland. In addition we recorded the highest ever visitor numbers across all our sites with over 3.2 million visits."

Away from Scotland's two big cities, in the Scottish Highlands, the Highland Wildlife Park near Aviemore saw a 68 percent increase in its visitor numbers, driven in part by the birth of Hamish, the first polar bear cub to be born in Britain for 25 years, while the prehistoric archaeological site of Jarlshof in Shetland recorded a 41 percent increase in numbers.