Visitors deliver verdict on ‘eating out’ experience

Visitors were asked by Visitscotland what they felt could be done to improve the eating out experience in Scotland?

Many of the responses echoe findings that availability of local produce and value for money when eating out are two of the lowest-performing areas of the “visitor experience” in Scotland.

Here are a selection of responses provided by visitors over the past couple of years. n “Access to a fishmonger. It is easier to eat Scottish shellfish in Belgium and the Netherlands than to eat it in Scotland itself. n “Fish is seen as an export first and foremost. It was hard, but not impossible, to find it.” n “At times it was difficult to find places to eat. Many days we were trying to find a place to eat dinner around 7pm and we struggled to find restaurants or pubs that were still serving food.” n “Better food availability. We were disappointed by the limited range of places to eat given that we were in sparsely populated areas. Even the ‘quality’ hotels and restaurants seemed to offer rather bland food unfortunately.” n “Eating out in the middle of the day is not always available across the board. Many places still serving lunch over a restricted period. Due to the relatively short season in some areas it seems bizarre to have restrictions such as 12 noon till 2pm to order food.” n “Better value-for-money eating establishments that offered more than burgers.” n “Better local food availability that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.” n “More choice outside the inevitable restaurant chains.”