East Lothian Visitor Management and Destination Plan

Client: East Lothian Council
The coastline is a key asset in the county’s tourism offering and is home to a number of popular ‘sites’, including John Muir Country Park and the John Muir Way, Gullane Bents, Yellowcraig and Aberlady Bay Local Nature Reserve. East Lothian has seen a significant rise in visitors, with unprecedented numbers at the beaches; in addition, several coastal and countryside locations not previously known for attracting visitors also saw a significant rise in visits, causing parking and access issues. Most of the East Lothian coastline falls under national or international designations, or both.

The capacity of the coast to accommodate this number of visitors was severely strained, and there was a negative impact on the designated features and the quality of the visitor experience. The additional visitor numbers proved extremely challenging for both council services managing the destination and communities unaccustomed to such large numbers of visitors.

Projected growth in East Lothian’s residential population will also place further pressure on visitor sites and supporting infrastructure such as car parking, toilets and trails.

Planning Solutions Consulting was commissioned to work with Council and a range of stakeholders to identify and evaluate opportunities to address issues relating to the tourism experience and visitor management planning. The visitor management plan considered: Transport – parking and charges, public transport and active travel options, visitor flows, toilet facilities, business opportunities, alternative locations, specific community issues, seasonality, environmental sensitivities, water-based activities, motorhome aires, visitor facilities at beaches and sustainability implications which had been identified by East Lothian Council officers as key priorities for visitor management and destination development. We prepared a strategic development framework and supporting action plan for ELC assets to guide investment priorities, manage visitor flows, and mitigate the negative impacts of increasing visitor numbers.

A critical element of our work was ensuring the identified solutions assist the Council and support tourism businesses in reaching a Net Zero carbon position.

As part of this commission, we also produced an integrated Sustainable Destination Development Plan for the county, which identified strategic actions to support the ongoing sustainable development of the tourism offer. These were developed around a number of core strategic themes: Sustainable places (e.g. visitor management, connectivity and accessibility, welcoming towns etc); responsible visitor products (e.g. cycling and walking, artisanal food and drink, visitor accommodation); successful people (e.g. opportunities for all, community entrepreneurship etc), and; better insights (e.g. intelligence, smart data etc.) This included visitor apps and better people and vehicle counters to give real-time data.

How can we help?
If you have any questions or would like to discuss our work within the visitor management, sustainable tourism or destination development sectors please don’t hesitate to call Richard Linington on 07866 742628 or email richard@pslplan.co.uk. We have worked on a range of tourism, heritage and visitor experience projects across Scotland please click here to find out more.