Scotsman.com Heritage & Culture - News - Scots abroad create a heritage of profits

Scotsman.com Heritage & Culture - News - Scots abroad create a heritage of profits: "Ancestral tourism... somehow manages to suggest a coachload of wandering ghosts, but the Scottish tourist trade is finding, much to its advantage, that those visitors embarked on tracing their Scottish roots will soon be going beyond the tartan tosh and the obvious tourist destinations, visiting those parts of Scotland normal holidaymakers don't reach. Research for the Scottish tourist board, VisitScotland, through its Ancestral Scotland family and clan history website (www.ancestralscotland.com), revealed that in 2001 genealogy had been the motivation behind an estimated 260,000 tourist trips to Scotland - contributing �153 million to Scotland's economy. Family history buffs also stayed longer - 13.5 nights compared to an average 4.1 - and spent at least 10 per cent more than average tourists.
The research was commissioned by the Ancestral Tourism Steering Group - which involves VisitScotland along with other parties including the office of the General Registrar for Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, tour operators and heritage agencies - and also estimated that the number of 'ancestral tourists' could increase to between 300,000 and 800,000 trips annually - and its value could expand to between 5 and 13 per cent of annual tourism expenditure in Scotland.
With an estimated 50 million people of Scots descent around the world, VisitScotland and related concerns are clearly rubbing their hands in anticipation. "