SCOTO | Community Wealth Building

Community Tourism

COMMUNITY WEALTH BUILDING IN ACTION

Community tourism is not new. Communities across Scotland have been providing heritage centres, events and festivals for decades.

What is new is that with Scotland’s pioneering community empowerment and asset transfer legislation, more and more communities are opting to own assets and many have a visitor facing element to what they offer.

Tourism is an export industry so can readily provide much needed revenue to sustain local services and can also be the trigger to celebrate local heritage and culture in ways that matter to local people.

With the landmark Community Wealth Building Act now introduced in Scotland, community tourism deserves a spotlight as a robust means to build even more social, environmental, cultural and economic wealth in our rural, island and urban communities.

Communities stepping in where the public sector step back

Increasingly, as public bodies face unprecedented financial pressures, much needed local services and facilities are being cutback and often closed– toilets, visitor information, transport, libraries and local hubs and halls.. Meanwhile communities are recognising the absolute need to provide these services to ensure not just our local but also our visitors’ basic needs are met and the overall Scottish visitor experience is the best it can be in their community.

Communities are seeing the opportunity to take over these services and be innovative in making these viable and also as a prime means to grow local social, environmental, cultural and economic wealth. But they are currently doing this on an individual and quite precarious foundation.

Case Studies

– building social, economic, environmental and cultural wealth across Scotland’s communities.

In 2026, SCOTO attended the Royal Highland Show as part of the Scottish Government's marquee programme, taking part in the Community Wealth Building – Ideas That Travel Home With You reception. The event organised by Scottish Rural Action brought together MSPs and many of our community partners from across Scotland to explore how community-led approaches can strengthen local economies and create lasting benefits for communities. We had several of our network showcased in a case study booklet which sparked several conversations.

Click below to Read the full booklet for a plethora of examples of how community tourism creates community wealth.

Read Here >

Measuring what Matters

Tourism measurement currently focuses on economic value and visitor volumes, rather than benefit and impact in and on our communities.
To sustain these community innovations, and safeguard our global reputation as an outstanding safe and welcoming nation, a national priority is to firstly establish a measurement framework for the impact of tourism on and in Scotland’s communities.

By measuring the community wealth that is being generated through tourism, we have the evidence needed for the sustained investment required to support these innovations, recognise their collective value and to ensure tourism is re-framed from being extractive to being regenerative and delivering net positive impacts in all of Scotland’s communities.

If you would like to talk more about measuring what matters email us below.

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