Destination Audit of Edinburgh: Key Attributes, Impact Factors, and Strengths

This report provides a destination audit of Edinburgh, exploring its key attributes, impact factors, and strengths. It discusses the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental factors affecting the city's growth. The report also highlights the main attractions, accessibility, amenities, available packages, activities, and ancillary services in Edinburgh. Additionally, it examines the positive and negative impacts of these factors on the city. The key strengths of Edinburgh, such as Edinburgh Castle and cultural festivals, are also discussed.

Destination
Experience
Management
Infographic

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PROJECT TASK.............................................................................................................................3
Destination audit to ascertain the key destination attributes.......................................................3
Evaluation of the impact of economic, socio-culture and environmental factor on Edinburgh. .4
Key strengths of Edinburgh.........................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Destination audit is being undertaken in order to explore the key features of particular place.
It is also being conducted so that individual is able to know about the various factors that affects
growth of the destination. Present report will undertake destination audit of Edinburgh. City is
capital of Scotland and is also considered as crown of destiny. City also have 32 local councils.
City has attracted 1.75 million of visitors in year 2016. The main attraction in city is Edinburgh
castle which is being visited by numerous visitors every year. Present report will lay emphasis on
the ley attributes of Edinburgh. It will also lay emphasis on factors like environmental, economic
and social that is affecting growth of city. Key strengths of city will also be discussed in report.
PROJECT TASK
Destination audit to ascertain the key destination attributes
Destination audit means to analyse the current situation of a particular place. It also
ascertains potential of development and also help in utilizing short term actions. Below will be
discussed the attributes of Edinburgh.
Attractions: Edinburgh is the Scotland’s hilly capital. It has various manmade and natural
attraction points. Like for example Edinburgh Castle is the heart of Scotland, it is one of the most
visited tourist attraction (Sumner and Quinn, 2017). This Castle is famous for its mesmerising
collection of crown jewels. Another famous attraction to visit in Edinburgh is the palace of
Holyrood house. In this palace James II and James IV were married.
Accessibility: Edinburgh can be visited by travellers through car, train and they can even
use flights. Edinburgh airport was considered as the busiest airport of Scotland during the year
2018. Haggis adventure is one of the most famous tour operators in Edinburgh that also provide
care rental services. They are engaged in providing the travellers with best package price so that
they can comfortably finish their tours. Even travellers can reach Edinburgh through water
transport.
Amenities: Travellers who are going to visit Edinburgh can stay in five-star hotel such as
Sheraton Grand Hotel, The Glasshouse Autograph collection and many more. There are various
other services such as pub, restaurants, catering are also being given to travellers. The Edinburgh
catering services provides high quality dining experience to them. They make sure that they
provide tourist with first class service. There are various shopping malls in Edinburgh like for

example Cameron toll in which a variety of high street retail stores are being opened (Albrecht,
2016).
Available packages: The tour operators in Edinburgh gives the opportunity to explore
various places in destination. They are involved in providing packaged tours to them which is
also of low price and variety of services are being included in it. There packages include
adventure tourism where travellers can explore the remote areas of destination. In this they can
explore man made and even natural places at Edinburgh. The tourism industry of Edinburgh is
mainly involved in laying emphasis on business and conference tourism.
Activities: Edinburgh organises various events for its travellers which can be attended by
them to enhance their experience of visiting destination. Like for example Edinburgh
international magic festival which is popularly known as Magic Fest is an annual art festival by
which they promote magical art to people exploring that place. Edinburgh Mela is also been
organized in each year in August where they promote music, folk and art over there. It is
something very unique that is being organized by destination, it is basically for their Southern
Counterparts (Todd, Leask and Ensor, 2017). Various other festivals are also being organized in
Edinburgh, as throughout the world city is famous as festival city.
Ancillary services: Other extra services that is being provided by destination is travel
insurance, whosoever is exploring the city is given benefit of it. In this travellers are being given
medical insurance. This insurance gives the medical expenses to travellers who are visiting
Edinburgh. Medical expenses given is also unlimited. Tour operators also provide tourist with
lost luggage assistance in which travellers are re-imbrues with the amount if their luggage has
been lost.
Evaluation of the impact of economic, socio-culture and environmental factor on Edinburgh
There are various factors that can affect the destination, the factors which are discussed
below can have positive as well as negative impact. This can include the following:
Impact of Economic factor: It has bene analysed that tourism has been considered as one
of the most important part in economy of Edinburgh. Destination has showed significant growth
in sustainable tourism. In the year 2016 near about 207000 people were being employed by
tourism industry in city. Edinburgh has been the most successful tourist place in Scotland.
Number of visitors visiting city is growing each year (Grenier, 2017). Edinburg organizes
various festival which has about 4.3 million visitors who are exploring these festivals. Business

and conference tourism also generated about $74 million each year. The festival organised also
generates revenue of about $100 million each year. Thus, this has led to a growth in Gross
domestic income of the destination.
Impact of socio-culture factor: It includes factors like values, beliefs, thoughts and attitude
of people that can lay impact on decisions which is being made by travel and tourism industry in
Edinburgh. As Scotland is popularly known for its tradition, the tourism sector makes sure that
the culture is being liked and respected by every individual who is going to visit the place. It has
been analysed that to make visitors explore the culture, large public meetings and conversations
are being held in Edinburgh in every 9 months. In this they discuss about how the natural and
manmade sites can be given protection from worsening environment and also discussion is made
about what the topics which matters most to people across country. Their aim and ambition is to
launch strategy that supports culture. The destination also enhances cultural leadership, in this
leaders focus on maintain the cultural environment of art galleries and museum that is being
developed in Edinburgh. The strategy which has been implemented in Our place in time, in this
they focus that sustainable tourism is being promoted so that future generation can also have the
benefit of exploring the historic Edinburgh Castle.
Impact of environmental factor: Government of Scotland is being engaged in taking
various initiatives to keep environment of Edinburgh safe and secure. They have taken various
measures for sustainable development of tourism in place. They make sure that every individual
who is visiting the place is not engaged in any unethical activity that can hamper the situation at
that area. Edinburgh castle has been placed in Green tourism business scheme because of the
sustainability and environmental issues. In this they make sure that waste has been managed
properly and also there is an effective utilization of resources that can help in saving
environment. This helps in maintain bio-diversity in the city. While constructing so many man
made sites government makes sure that no specie is being harmed by them.
Key strengths of Edinburgh
The heart of Edinburgh lies in Edinburgh Castle. It has been one of the major tourist
attraction as the castle as attracted about 1.4 million travellers in year 2016. It has been analysed
that the Edinburgh military Tattoo festival was being broadcasted all around the world. They
have attracted around 2,20,000 visitors and the festival were also being broadcasted in television
by which they have increased 1,00,000 more viewers in about 30 countries (Beattie and

Schneider, 2018). City also has given rise to traditional football and to watch it many visitors go
to the stadium. Tourism industry in city has also given rise to number of Job opportunities to
individuals who are living over there. Holyrood place also attracts large number of visitors as
this palace has been built upon the extinct volcano that rose about 350 million years ago. It has
also been analysed that folk dance and traditional music is also one of the major attraction that
attracts number of visitors to the place. Gross domestic income has also been increase because of
this.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been summarized that Edinburgh as a city is been involved in
providing various high quality of services to travelers who are visiting the place. They have been
providing them with excellent food and catering services that has led to increase in consumer
experience. Various ancillary services are also being provided by destination like for example
travel insurance. In this medical expenses are being given by government of city. This has led to
growth in number of tourist visiting the place. It has also increased the Gross domestic income of
place. City has also taken various environmental measures in order to enhance sustainability.
They have made sure that resources are being used effectively. It has also been analyzed in
report that various festivals have been organized by travel and tourism sector in city which has
attracted large number of travelers.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Beattie, J.M. and Schneider, I.E., 2018. Does service type influence satisfaction?: A case study
of Edinburgh Castle. Tourism Management.67. pp.89-97.
Grenier, K.H., 2017. Tourism and Identity in Scotland, 1770–1914: Creating Caledonia.
Routledge.
Todd, L., Leask, A. and Ensor, J., 2017. Understanding primary stakeholders' multiple roles in
hallmark event tourism management. Tourism management.59.pp.494-509.
Sumner, M. and Quinn, B., 2017. From concierge to Superman: perceptions of the contemporary
hotel concierge in Edinburgh. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality
Research.11(2). pp.243-254.
Albrecht, J.N. ed., 2016. Visitor Management in Tourist Destinations (Vol. 3). Cabi.
Todd, L., Leask, A. and Ensor, J., 2017. Materialities, Memories, and Lived Event Tourism
Experiences. Critical Tourism Studies Proceedings.2017(1). p.16.

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