A collaborative Visitor Management Plan for Scotland:

Post lock-down, many local communities felt unprepared to deal with the large increase in visitors, particularly day visitors, campers and campervans. To address some of the negative impacts on communities, VisitScotland led a successful, large-scale collaboration aimed at engaging stakeholders and visitors on responsible enjoyment. 

Launched in March 2021 with a Responsible Tourism Visitor Pledge, the partnership includes National Park Authorities, Police Scotland, nature, land and transport bodies, as well as local authorities, to provide a robust and practical strategy with short, medium and long-term actions and benefits. 

Leading a collaborative, cross-organisation approach to marketing and communication, a fully realised campaign has now been delivered to provide information, guidance and education around outdoor access, camping, fire & water safety, motorhomes & campervans, littering & waste. Activity encourages greater access to, and enjoyment of, Scotland's outdoors – especially amongst new audiences – so we all #RespectProtectEnjoy. 

VisitScotland and partners will continuously update information on the Plan’s actions and impacts in a publicly available strategy framework and action log: 

https://www.visitscotland.org/about-us/what-we-do/working-in-partnership/visitor-management-plan. 

This includes reporting at the regular virtual summits of the collaborating stakeholders. As visitor management activity is wide ranging and involves many partners, each organisation involved has its own specific targets and KPIs, all aligned to the overarching strategy. 

The Visitor Management Action Plan is regularly monitored to ensure progress is being made and activity is supporting the strategy. Success is measured through reduction in issues relating to littering, fires, water safety, anti-social behaviour and inconsiderate parking.

A strategic framework pulls together the current and planned actions into a cohesive and aligned direction of travel towards a vision of how the visitor experience will develop over a 10-year period. The collective action log records progress against strategic pillars - covering not just VisitScotland as the official tourism organisation, but all partners involved in delivery of the visitor management strategy. 

A future focus for the visitor management work is on three areas: digital solutions (e.g. monitors of visitor volume); camping and motorhome management and infrastructure; and transport solutions. These will complement the ongoing work on education, promotion of key messages and support for park rangers (which have been critical to the success of the work to date by engaging on-site with visitors and providing advice and guidance).

For all partners, the role of technology in visitor management and visitor experience will become increasingly important as we progress, with current projects already providing learnings for future.