Scotland attracted four million more visitors last year following the opening of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and the relaunch of the Riverside Museum in Glasgow.
In total, 47m people visited Scotland in 2011 The National Museum was the busiest attraction, drawing almost 1.5m visitors, which was a 141% rise on the previous year.
According to the Glasgow Caledonian University’s Moffat Centre, which looked at 649 tourist sites across Scotland, the new Riverside Museum, which opened last June, attracted more than a million visitors. It said St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh saw 20% more visitors last year.
Edinburgh Castle was the biggest paid-admission attraction, with more than 1.3 million visitors.
VisitScotland chief executive Malcolm Roughead said: "These are extremely encouraging figures, helped in no small part by the continuing trend for Scots holidaying at home and the ‘daycation’ market, which last year contributed £6.2bn to the Scottish economy."
