Scottish Household Survey: Tourism Sentiment, 2025

Community involvement in tourism decisions

In 2025, 11% of adults in Scotland agreed that people in their local area were involved in making decisions about tourism (2% strongly agreed; 9% tended to agree), while almost a quarter (24%) disagreed (13% strongly disagreed; 12% tended to disagree). Around two-thirds of respondents either said the question was not applicable to them (23%), neither agreed nor disagreed (21%), or did not know (20%).

Perceptions varied across local authority areas (Table 14), with the highest levels of agreement recorded in Argyll and Bute (32%), Shetland Islands (32%), Na h-Eileanan Siar (31%) and Orkney Islands (30%). However, these areas were also among those recording the highest levels of disagreement: Orkney Islands (44%), Moray (37%), Shetland Islands (36%), Scottish Borders (35%), Argyll and Bute, Dundee City and Na h-Eileanan Siar (all 33%). This suggests that views on local involvement in tourism decision-making were more divided in these areas.

In rural areas, the proportion of adults agreeing that people in their local area were involved in decisions about tourism (23%) was broadly similar to the proportion disagreeing (21%) (Table 13). However, in island areas, a higher proportion disagreed (38%) than agreed (32%) (Table 15). Views were also stronger in island areas than on the mainland, with respondents in island areas more likely to either agree (32%) or disagree (38%) than those living on the mainland (11% and 24%, respectively) (Figure 5).

Figure 5:  Views on whether people in their local area were involved in making decisions about tourism were more divided in island areas than on the mainland

Percentage of adults agreeing that people in their local area were involved in making decisions about tourism, islands and mainland, 2025