Date :
26/07/2013
Each year, thousands of visitors come to Scotland to explore their origins, and get a true feel for where their ancestors called home.
There’s a big market out there, with a potential worldwide audience of 50 million, worth £2.4 billion over the next five years.
These figures represent the potential value of the market in Scottish ancestral tourism according to VisitScotland’s research. The message is clear: it pays to do a little research of your own to secure a share.
There are lots of resources out there to help ancestral tourists track down their family roots, but it can be tough. Bewildered visitors are reported to shuttle from national centres to local authorities, to independent centres.
There’s plenty your business can do to improve your visitor experience. Get to know basic Scottish history and heritage and investigate what help is on hand locally
Aside from national resources, you’ll be surprised how much knowledgeable help there is in community heritage museums from Stow to Stromness.
There’s no peak season or region for ancestral tourists as they visit all over the country. They also stay twice as long as the average visitor, typically ten nights. Big spending baby boomers are the keenest family history hunters.
You’ll find plenty more insight in our Opportunities for Growth Guide, featuring good advice, case studies, and information from VisitScotland’s Summary of Ancestral Research.
Ancestral tourism by the numbers
- There are 800,000 current annual visitors, with potential growth to 4.3 million in five years
- Average ancestral tourism stay is 10 nights, compared with just 4.5 nights for all visitors
- 91 per cent of ancestral tourists are are empty nesters, tending towards time-rich high spenders
- 50 per cent of ancestral tourists visit the Highlands, 23 per cent visit Dumfries and Galloway, 16 visit Orkney
- Three-quarters of ancestral tourists visit communities with family historical interest