Welcome to the first edition of the ASVA e-zine. We are delighted to be working with Attractions Management to produce this. You will continue to receive our two weekly e-updates as well as the periodical The Reporter and this new communication is designed to complement both these publications.

The new e-zine will feature current features and news on what is happening in attractions. In that way, you should have more information about developments happening in attractions both here in Scotland and elsewhere.

Many of you have contributed to this first edition and we look forward to hearing more from you and others in the future. If you have a story you think would be of interest to others, please e-mail that to [email protected] or add her on your media release distribution list. Similarly if you have any comments or suggestions on content, please feed those back to us.

With the recent good weather we could almost be tempted to believe that summer is upon us with the promise that this might herald a good season. Despite the findings of the recently published VisitScotland Visitor Attraction Monitor 2005 which suggested that overall visitors to attractions showed an increase of 2.8 per cent, it was a disappointing year for many operators. There were some star performers such as the Museum of Flight and Rosslyn Chapel, both of whom have iconic status at the moment thanks to Concorde and The Da Vinci Code respectively. But paid attractions were down by 1.6 per cent, and at the same time free attractions were up by 5 per cent.

In the Editor’s Letter in the last edition of Attractions Management, Liz Terry expressed some concerns about the lack of data on which policy decisions can be made. The Visitor Attraction Monitor does have some excellent data but it is how we analyse and use that data that is more important. Simply using the headline figure of 2.8 pre cent overall increase to apparently indicate that the year was good does not really tell us what is going on and until we address the underlying issues we cannot start to deal with them.

It is a concern that paying visitor attractions saw a decrease in visitors in 2005 and one that is shared by colleagues south of the border. It isn’t even as simple as saying there has been displacement to free entry attractions as the increase there could be construed as misleading. Visitors to country parks are included in the calculations of the ‘free’ category. The biggest country park – Strathclyde – had an estimated 5.2 million visitors in 2004 but in 2005 they estimated that 6.25 million had visited – an increase of over 20 per cent. There is no questioning of the veracity of those figures but when the single biggest free attraction sees over a million additional visitors in 2005, that will skew the figure not just for free attractions but also the overall figure to include paid attractions.

If you take out the Strathclyde Country Park figure, the increase to free attractions would be 2.7 per cent and the overall figure would be a more modest increase of 0.9 per cent. This illustrates the point, a meaningful increase at such a large attraction does appear to help with the conclusion that things are really better than they are. And while there are some very good news stories at both free and paid attractions, the picture is very mixed. When you look at Scotland’s 14 regions, only three indicated an increase – so surely something to be investigated?

Visitor numbers are just one indication of success but without the continuing basic footfall, there is limited opportunity to convert those into sales in other areas of the business such as retail and catering. These revenue streams are becoming increasingly important, along with other areas ranging from corporate hospitality to concerts. There is plenty of evidence that operators are sweating their assets and raising their game in the increasing competitive marketplace.

But the devil is in the detail and if we are to capitalise on our successes and address our weaknesses, we need to look in behind the headline figures to find exactly what is going on. Our future depends on it.

Eva McDiarmid