Scottish Marine Recreation & Tourism Survey 2015

In 2014, the Scottish Government commissioned Land Use Consultants to undertake a study to fill data gaps on marine recreation and tourism activity in Scotland and to provide baseline information for marine planning.  The project was designed and undertaken with the industry and co-funded by the Scottish Government with additional contributions from The Firth of Clyde Forum, The Crown Estate and The Scottish Coastal Forum.

The Scottish Marine Recreation and Tourism Survey (SMRTS) was carried out between August and October 2015.  It was designed to gather information for 23 different recreation and tourism activities undertaken at sea or around the Scottish coastline.  For the purposes of this study marine recreation and tourism is defined as: ‘including those activities which involve travel away from one’s “habitual” place of residence, which have as their host or focus the marine environment and/or the coastal zone’.  SMRTS comprised a web-based survey which gathered spatial information on the activities people had undertaken during the previous twelve months and asked detailed questions about their one or two most important activities.  A survey of businesses was also undertaken. 

The final report and the accompanying maps can be found in the map and data tables below.

All the maps below are set to 'restricted zoom' to avoid over interpretation of the data.