VisitScotland has cut its workforce by around a third since 2022/23, with its headcount falling from 493 to 323 full-time equivalent posts. Over the same period, its total income has fallen from £53.6 million to £45.9 million. Now the agency is warning that further cuts to its core budget would threaten its ability to deliver its priorities and grow Scotland’s visitor economy.
This is being presented as a question of funding. But it raises a more fundamental question about what Scotland thinks it is doing when it promotes itself to the world.
Tourism is estimated to generate £11.4 billion in annual visitor spending and support 239,000 jobs across Scotland. VisitScotland argues that growing international demand presents an opportunity to expand that contribution, provided Scotland invests enough to compete with other destinations.
Yet the agency has already closed all 25 of its remaining visitor information centres and undertaken a major restructuring programme. Its core Scottish Government revenue budget has fallen from £41.41 million in 2022/23 to £38.86 million in 2026/27, before accounting for inflation.
The Government responds that public bodies must deliver value for money. Of course, they must. But reducing expenditure is not the same thing as improving value, particularly when the purpose of that expenditure is to generate economic activity elsewhere.
There is a difference between asking whether VisitScotland can operate more efficiently and assuming that it can achieve more with progressively fewer resources. If the Government wants to grow tourism, it needs to explain how that ambition can be reconciled with the continued erosion of the agency responsible for promoting it.
The contradiction becomes clearer when we look at what tourism actually involves. VisitScotland does not simply produce advertisements encouraging people to visit Scotland. Its work includes supporting tourism businesses, developing regional destinations, attracting major events and helping visitors discover experiences beyond the most familiar locations. Its own strategy identifies destination development, business support and international marketing as interconnected priorities.
These activities depend on one another. Marketing can persuade someone to visit, but it cannot compensate indefinitely for underinvestment in the places, services and experiences that make a visit worthwhile. Nor does attracting more visitors automatically ensure that the benefits reach communities across Scotland.
This matters because the recovery in tourism is uneven. According to the figures reported by VisitScotland, international visits rose by 8% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, while international visitor spending increased by 12%. Domestic visits, however, fell by 3%, and spending rose by just 1% in cash terms, representing a decline after inflation.
The agency attributes this domestic pressure partly to household finances. People still want to travel, but are finding ways to spend less. That should concern us. A tourism strategy cannot be judged solely by how many overseas visitors it attracts if people living in Scotland increasingly struggle to afford holidays and experiences within their own country.
There is also a question about what kind of international presence Scotland wants to establish. VisitScotland points to Ireland’s substantially larger overseas tourism marketing budget as evidence that Scotland risks falling behind competing destinations. But a national identity cannot be built through advertising expenditure alone.
Scotland has a distinctive cultural inheritance, landscapes, languages, literature, institutions and communities. These are not simply assets to be packaged and sold. They are living parts of the country, sustained by the people and institutions that maintain them. If those foundations are neglected, Scotland risks becoming better at marketing an image of itself than investing in the reality behind it.
This is part of a wider problem in how Scotland approaches its place in the world. We are often comfortable presenting Scottishness through recognisable symbols and international branding, but less convincing when it comes to developing a coherent vision of what Scotland wants to contribute internationally. Tourism should be part of that vision, alongside culture, education, research and the relationships Scotland builds with other countries.
That requires more than attracting visitors. It requires a country confident enough in its own cultural and intellectual life to share it with the world, and willing to invest in the institutions that make that possible.
None of this means VisitScotland should be immune from scrutiny, or that every existing activity must be preserved. Public money should be spent carefully, with clear objectives and evidence of what it achieves. But if ministers want tourism to generate jobs, support communities and contribute to economic growth, they must be clear about what investment is needed to deliver those outcomes.
That means funding more than overseas advertising. It means supporting the development of regional destinations, helping tourism businesses reach potential customers, attracting major events and encouraging visitors to explore Scotland beyond its busiest locations and peak seasons. It means ensuring that international interest can translate into bookings, sustainable businesses and economic benefits for local communities. It also means recognising the importance of the infrastructure, transport links and cultural institutions on which a successful visitor economy depends.
VisitScotland’s own figures suggest that international demand is growing while domestic visitors remain under financial pressure. A serious tourism strategy should respond to both realities: attracting overseas spending while ensuring that Scotland’s tourism economy remains accessible to the people who live here.
Ultimately, this is about more than the budget of one public agency. Scotland needs a coherent vision of how it presents itself internationally, what it wants visitors to discover and how tourism can benefit the country beyond generating headline spending figures. That vision should connect tourism with culture, education, regional development and the institutions that sustain Scotland’s distinctive character.
Scotland cannot keep talking about the value of its international reputation while treating the work required to build it as a cost to be minimised. If we want the world to take an interest in Scotland, we need to invest in the people, places and experiences that make Scotland worth knowing.