Organisations came together in 2021 to develop a Scotland-wide approach to visitor management. Partners continue to meet regularly to identify challenges and decide how best to mitigate these. VisitScotland leads this national partnership, working with NatureScot, Police Scotland, National Park authorities, Forestry and Land Scotland, local authorities, Scottish Water, Transport Scotland, and other partners.
Our coordinated Scotland-wide strategic approach educates key audiences to enjoy our countryside responsibly. It pulls together current and planned actions into a cohesive and aligned direction of travel.
We have created a vision for how the visitor experience will develop over a 10-year period. An action log records progress against our four strategy pillars:
Published October 2025
The strategy and its implementation is overseen by the strategy steering group that we chair. Other members are:
Subgroups of the steering group bring together regional and national partners. Together, they cover the following three workstreams:
Communication
Operational
Co-ordination
There are also three working groups which feed into the co-ordination subgroup. We established these to:
The Visitor Management partnership works to develop a more coordinated and consistent approach to promoting responsible tourism and encouraging visitors to enjoy Scotland's natural and cultural assets in ways that protect them for the future.
Our approach aims to educate, inspire and inform visitors about how they can travel and behave responsibly, using clear and positive messages around issues such as:
We use engaging and accessible content, including humour where appropriate, to make these messages relevant and memorable. We also work with travel influencers and content creators to reach younger audiences and share responsible tourism messages through channels they use.
This partnership-led approach enables us to extend our reach, provide greater consistency in messaging and support a shared ambition across the tourism sector to encourage visitors to experience Scotland responsibly.
We have created a collection of free-to-use images themed around responsible tourism that business and partners can use for their own social media and marketing activity.
The collection includes images covering the following aspects:
Agencies and local authorities work in partnership to address the issues on the ground.
This includes long-term strategic planning and permanent infrastructure developments alongside immediate measures. Some of these include infrastructure and the provision of additional rangers.
Specific plans and initiatives which we and our partners lead include:
VisitScotland manages this infrastructure development fund on behalf of the Scottish Government.
The fund aims to improve the visitor experience in rural parts of Scotland that are experiencing visitor management issues as a result of additional visitors.
Since its inception, across seven rounds of RTIF, £24.5 million of grant funding has been awarded to 86 projects across rural Scotland. RTIF has also helped to leverage more than £20.6 million in additional funding for these rural areas.
This initiative helps to meet the growing demand for motorhome and campervan stopping places. It also encourages visitors to stay a little longer and provides a boost to many small rural businesses.
The Active Cairngorms Action Plan 2023-28, section, "Managing for visitors" sets out key actions that manage visitor distribution and behaviour.
For the latest updates on the Cairngorms National Park's work to manage visitors, browse their managing for visitors webpage.
Learn more about the challenges and solutions for Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park on their tourism website and stay in touch with the latest updates on their visitor management page.
Local councils have specific planning and visitor management responsibilities, and some councils have created visitor management plans to guide their work.
More information on the Highland Council Sustainable Tourism Strategy 2024-2030.
More information on the Aberdeenshire Visitor Management Plan 2026.
Growing volumes of visitors and increasing coverage in the media and across social media, has placed unsustainable visitor pressures on some key locations, to the detriment of visitor experience quality, the quality of life in local communities and our natural heritage.
As a result, visitors may find that our partner agencies implement management measures to ensure those visiting enjoy their time, whilst minimising the impacts on local residents and the environment. Some of the measures that visitors might expect to see include:
A range of projects are in development by partners across the country. They focus on technology and data to address visitor management challenges, encourage responsible visitor behaviour and assist visitors. These include:
This ongoing project, led by Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park, alongside partners, has been designed to use digital technology and live data capture to reduce visitor pressures at hotspots by:
The live dashboard, fed into by data collected by rangers in the field and from sensors, helps those working in visitor management to tackle issues more quickly and to plan more effectively. A next phase working towards 2027 will deliver integration of non-sensor data sources to build a richer picture, support dashboards for business and communities, and improve the presentation of insights which can support decision making.
Forestry and Land Scotland uses ranger reporting data to better understand visitor needs and pressures across its sites. By analysing parking demand and visitor behavioural issues, they can make more informed management decisions. They have also worked with VisitScotland data scientists to identify data sources for modelling future visitor demand.
The team is looking at how to map data to measure activity on the Trail and inform future management decisions. The Trail will also be supported by a dedicated website providing route planning tools for visitors to plan their journey, connecting communities, attractions and facilities along the route.
The team at National Trust for Scotland (NTS) Glenfinnan are exploring uses of technology and data to help address the impact of high visitor volumes at the popular heritage site. This includes how to ensure that visitors get the right information when searching online to plan their visit.
The team will collaborate with University of Strathclyde management students to understand how AI and user generated content is impacting on what visitors find when searching online and explore ways of managing this to ensure they get accurate information when planning visits.
Page last updated: 1 October 2026.