Forth Valley attractions have had another strong year in the newly published Visitor Attraction Monitor, led by a big increase in visits to the Falkirk Wheel.

The Falkirk Wheel attracted 513,907 visitors throughout 2007, an increase of 17.5% on the previous year. The success keeps the Wheel at number 8 in the national table of free-admission attractions in Scotland, just behind Glasgow’s Museum of Transport.

The wider Forth Valley area seems to have had a good year of it too. Other attractions reporting increases in this year’s monitor include:

• Blair Drummond Safari Park (up 7.5%),
• the National Wallace Monument (up 13%),
• Stirling’s Old Town Jail (up 12.4%),
• Alloa Tower (up 21.5%),
• Birkhill Fireclay Mine (up 13.6%)
• and Kinneil Museum in Bo’ness (up 14%).

Stirling Castle, Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway and Callendar House have also shown gains over the year to December.

The figures are published in the annual Visitor Attraction Monitor, compiled for VisitScotland by independent research body The Moffat Centre for Travel and Tourism Business Development at Glasgow Caledonian University. The Monitor documents figures from approximately 700 visitor attractions throughout Scotland.

The full Visitor Attraction Monitor 2007 is available to download.