Overseas visitors to Scotland's capital Edinburgh top a million

Scotland and in this case it's capital Edinburgh have been experiencing a rise in popularity with visitors from overseas. Recently Edinburgh has complained that the national tourism body VisitScotland doesn't do enough for it and there has been talk of setting up their own organisation again, but now, with visitor numbers to Edinburgh at over a million a year, officials are saying the figures should silence the critics.

Meanwhile the rest of the country feels the opposite - most promotion focuses on the capital and the icons to the detriment of all else in Scotland.

Certainly since the centralising that has been going on in the tourism promotion sector has gathered momentum, with the regional tourist organisations becoming mere offices of VisitScotland, the impression is that less and less is done for less iconic regions, such as Dumfries and Galloway, Ayrshire or the Borders, or far-flung corners of the north of Scotland, while the big cities of the Central Belt (i.e. Edinburgh and Glasgow) and a handful of other icons attract the bulk of attention and funding.

On the other hand, VisitScotland has a range of sectoral promotions running, such as walking or hiking vacations, cycling and mountain biking, Scotland golf vacations, fly fishing and wildlife (e.g. bird watching vacations). These do tend to highlight those areas that offer the particular pastime and thus appeal to the kind of people that might profit from regional and local strengths around Scotland.

Does anyone - from Scotland or outside Scotland - have a comment on this?

Scotsman.com News - Scotland's holiday industry - Overseas visitors top a million