Wildlife tourism in Scotland is bucking the trend and performing strongly despite the credit crunch because holidaymakers are choosing to stick to the UK.
Wild Scotland has revealed that business in 2008 has been as good as - or better than - 2007 for the majority of their members, who have together added £9.3m to the economy without counting secondary spending on accommodation, transport and food.
Experts from Scottish Natural Heritage, VisitScotland, the International Centre for Responsible Tourism and other organisations met last week at Wild Scotland's annual conference near Perth and called on wildlife operators to seize the opportunities being presented by the financial crisis.
'We feel wildlife tourism is very well placed to weather any recession, provided we keep focused and make sure people planning to holiday in the UK know what's available,' said Caroline Warburton, manager of Wildlife Scotland. 'People are choosing to holiday in the UK because money is tight and the exchange rate is not in their favour abroad.
'Although a lot depends on the economy and how bad it gets, we are quietly confident that next year will be better than this one.'
Wild Scotland, whose 80-plus members represent one quarter of the country's wildlife tourism businesses, was formed in 2003. More than a third of businesses contributing to a survey said their income had risen compared to the previous year's, and 51 per cent said that they planned to take on more staff in 2009 as a result of the increase in demand.
Warburton said that the trend towards more responsible tourism was a result of increasing numbers of people looking for more authentic experiences, local food and links with culture and the environment. She said that the planned reintroduction of beavers into Scotland next year as part of a pilot project will be good for wildlife tourism.
Last week the project to reintroduce beavers to the UK after a 400-year absence took a major step forward after the arrival in the UK of four families of the animals from Norway.
The mammals were captured after being tracked for two months and will spend the next six months in quarantine before experts release them into the Scottish countryside next year.
'The sea eagles on Mull are an excellent example, where a species has been reintroduced and has captured the public's imagination,' added Warburton.
'People want to go and see those animals in the wild. A survey carried out by the RSPB calculated that the sea eagles generated between £1.4m and £1.6m a year to the local economy, and that's just one species.
'The beaver reintroduction presents an ideal opportunity for the future. It'll be a few years before there is a proper tourist industry around it, but it will encourage people to visit rural communities that they might not otherwise have gone to.'
