New figures reveal that day trips to Scotland by people in Great Britain rose in the first quarter of the year.

According to the Great Britain Day Visits Survey, the number of tourism day visits in Scotland taken by British residents between January and March was up 12% on the same period last year.

There were 20.6 million tourism day visits taken to Scotland — equating to £1 billion in spend.

“We know the cost of living is affecting the decision making of UK holidaymakers, so it’s encouraging that Scotland was performing comparatively well with the rest of Great Britain during the first quarter of 2023,” said VisitScotland.

“It shows Scottish tourism is gradually recovering from the pandemic.”

VisitScotland CEO Malcolm Roughead said: “The total number of day trips taken in Scotland between January and March was higher than the same period in 2022 and the £1 billion spent by visitors during the first few months of this year underlines the importance of UK visitors to our wider visitor economy.

“Every time visitors – whether here for a day or longer – use a restaurant, order a drink at the bar or buy a souvenir to remember their holiday experience, they are contributing to our valuable visitor economy, in turn creating jobs and sustaining communities.

“This is vitally important for the long-term recovery of our industry.”