The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
V&A effect
Success of museum has helped boost national tourism.
The success of the V&A museum in Dundee has helped to boost tourism at other attractions across Scotland.
Research carried out by Glasgow Caledonian University’s Moffat Centre for Travel and Tourism made the claim as part of its annual visitor attraction monitor.
The tourism experts analysed the performance of 680 paid-for and free tourist sites for the 2018 study.
The conclusion was the Dundee-based museum is benefiting sites elsewhere in Scotland, as tourists flock to them after visiting the City of Discovery.
Across Scotland last year the number of visits fell by 0.5% to 61,419,965, largely due to the hot weather affecting trips to indoor attractions.
Figures for the V&A however show in the first three months since it opened in September 341,265 people headed there.
Prior to the museum’s opening, bosses expected 500,000 visitors in the first year and then 350,000 each year after that.
The success of the museum has given a boost to nearby attractions, with Discovery Point, next door, seeing numbers surge by 40.5%.
Last year 64,627 people visited RRS Discovery, which tells the story of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition to the Antarctic in 1901.
This is up from 45,451 visitors who went in 2017, claims the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions (ASVA).
Philip Long, director of V&A Dundee, said: “It is wonderful to see more evidence of the positive impact V&A Dundee is having on the city and the surrounding area.
“Dundee and across the wider Tayside region have a very great deal to offer visitors from across Scotland, the UK and much further afield.”
The Moffat Centre states that The National Museum of Scotland and Edinburgh Castle remain the most popular attractions in Scotland in 2018.
A total of 2,227,773 visitors headed to The National Museum of Scotland while 2,111,578 went to Edinburgh Castle.
This equates to a 2.9% rise for the museum on the year before and rise of 2.3% for the castle.
Professor John Lennon, director of the Moffat Centre, said: “There is no doubt visitors are seeing more of the country and the benefits of tourism are being spread across Scotland.
“There’s been a lot of interest in the V&A but that interest has spread out and has had an impact on nearby attractions, like Discovery Point, the McManus Art Gallery, and the Botanic Gardens.
“It has brought tourists to a part of the country that was not really on the visitor map.”
The study has been released as 200 delegates attend the first Tay Cities Regional Tourism Conference at Dundee Rep Theatre.
The event aims to look at the future of tourism over the next five years.