Coastal & Marine Tourism - Businesses

The North East Scotland Marine Region (NESMR) plays host to many businesses that offer marine tourism services  ranging from wildlife tours to rock climbing lessons, photography  to surfing and everything else in between. The Scottish government defines coastal and marine tourism as any tourism and recreation business that is located within 100m of the coastline and includes "activities which involve travel away from ones habitual place of residence, which have as their host or focus the marine environment and/or the coastal zone" (Scottish Government, 2023a). 

Respondants to the Scottish Marine Recreation and Tourism Survey (SMRTS) highlighted that 60% of businesses across Scotland operate year round with the remaining 40% mostly active between April and October, this includes businesses that support marine recreation and tourism such as accommodation provider (SMRT, 2016).

 The Scottish governments marine economic statistics estimated this marine tourism to be worth £494 million in 2021, an almost 150% increase on the year before (fig.1) and almost 11% of the total marine sector GVA (Scottish Government, 2023b) . 

Aberdeen city accounted for 38% (£1.7 billion) of the total marine industry GVA with Aberdeenshire accounting for 18% (£796 million) (Scottish Government, 2023b) . As it was estimated that marine tourism sector contributed around 11% to the total GVA for the marine sector as a whole, it suggests that Aberdeen City marine tourism contributed £188 million and Aberdeenshire contributed £87 million.

The North East Adventure Tourism (NEAT)  project aims to increase adventure tourism across aberdeen city and shire by "collaboratively developing high-quality, sustainable facilities and infrastructure supported by a dynamic industry cluster of businesses, providers and support services." They also supply a list of coaches/ guides, facilities and accommodations in the adventure and tourism industry across the region however, the list is limited to those that are collaborating with NEAT.

As of 2021, The Northeast Scotland Marine region contributed £24.8 million (5%) to marine tourism GVA (fig 2. ) with an employment headcout of 1800 (6%) (fig.3) of the sector . The trend for both GVA (fig.4)and employment (fig.5) shows a sharp decrease between 2019 and 2020 which may be related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both GVA (fig.4)and employment (fig.5) show a sharp recovery from 2020-2021.