Rise in Stirling Castle visitors

New figures show a 15% rise in the number of people visiting Stirling Castle.

594,938 tourists went to the historic site in 2024 - making it the eighth most visited attraction in Scotland.

There was a 9% rise for Doune Castle - with nearly 120,000 people visiting last year.

Meanwhile, Bannockburn Heritage Centre attracted more than 106,000 visitors in 2024.

Bernard Donoghue OBE, Director of ALVA, commented: “For most visitor attractions 2024 was a year of steady but not significant growth. The long economic recovery from lock-down during COVID, the effects of the cost-of-living crisis on consumer spending, increasing business costs and modest inbound visitor numbers to the UK mean that 2024 was a financially changing year for visitor attractions. The increased National Insurance costs and the decrease in the Employer Allowance threshold, plus raising the rate of national minimum wage, have effectively wiped-out planned surpluses for many attractions or derailed their investment plans, and for some, these unbudgeted unanticipated costs will result in cuts and job losses.”

He added: “The recovery of visitor attractions and the broader cultural and heritage economies remains fragile, but visitors have shown that in their leisure spending they still prioritise day trips to loved attractions, they are keeping up their memberships of favourite organisations and they value spending special time with special people in special places.”