City’s galleries are a top tourist draw
TOURISTS travelling to Glasgow are more likely to visit an art gallery or a museum than any other city in the country, according to a VisitScotland survey.
With draws like the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, The Riverside Museum, The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery and others in the city, 70 per cent of those coming to Glasgow take in one of these sites.
The city’s culture and history was also the most important reason for tourists visiting Glasgow in the first place.
More than half of all respondents stated that this was the primary factor for travelling to the city, much higher than the national average of 33 per cent.
Liz Buchanan, VisitScotland’s regional partnerships director, said: “This is the biggest Scotland visitor survey we have ever produced, and I am delighted to see Glasgow’s museums and galleries standing out as one of the highlight experiences, especially with such strong ratings for customer satisfaction.
“Cultural tourism is at the heart of the newly launched Glasgow Tourism & Visitor Plan to 2023, so these results also show that the city has the strategy right for growing tourism in the years ahead.”
The survey, which spoke to al- most 1,300 tourists in the city last year, also showed that Glasgow is fairing well when it comes to luring back previous visitors, with more than a quarter of those visiting citing a previous visit as the main motivation for returning.
However, visiting friends and family was the second most popular reason given for coming to the city behind Glasgow’s culture.
Shopping was also a more popular activity in Glasgow compared to the whole country, while more than half of all people visited historic or religious buildings.
Overall, Glasgow was also the second most visited area of Scotland by all of the visitors surveyed, falling behind Edinburgh.
Last year, Glasgow had more than 2 million overnight visitors, with 30 per cent of those coming from overseas, the biggest of these groups travelling from the USA.
According to the VisitScotland survey, Glasgow hosted the more tourists using AirBnB than any other area, with 7 per cent of those staying in the city using that or another home-share or shortterm letting service.