VisitScotland books the Moffat Centre

The Moffat Centre will continue to produce the Scottish Accommodation Occupancy Survey (SAOS)
The Moffat Centre will continue to produce the Scottish Accommodation Occupancy Survey (SAOS)

The Moffat Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University has secured a major new contract with VisitScotland to continue its work at the heart of the Scottish travel industry.

The UK's largest university-based consultancy for tourism and travel market research has been recommissioned to produce the Scottish Accommodation Occupancy Survey (SAOS) for another three years.

Researchers will gather and analyse bedroom occupancy data across the country in four sectors: serviced, self-catering, hostel and touring/camping accommodation, as part of the contract, which is worth more than £200,000.

The figures will be compiled into 12 monthly barometer reports and an annual report each year. The data will also feed into the United Kingdom Occupancy Survey.

Professor John Lennon, Director of the Moffat Centre, said: "It is a great commendation that the Moffat Centre were able to win this tender again despite a range of international competitors.

"It is the major commercial tourism tender in Scotland and is vital in the estimation of the value of tourism in the national economy."

Meanwhile, the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions (ASVA) has agreed to work with the Moffat Centre as part of a new collaboration.

For a number of years, both ASVA and the Moffat Centre have separately compiled data for and reported on visitor attraction performance in Scotland. From 2020, both organisations will work together.

Gordon Morrison, chief executive of ASVA, said: “We are thrilled to announce that we will be working collaboratively with the Moffat Centre, combining resources and expertise to ensure that the most comprehensive and robust visitor attraction performance data is made available to the industry.

“By working together and pulling resources, we are confident that our members will see great benefits, not only because they will no longer be dealing with duplicate requests for data, but also because they will have access to comprehensive, easily digestible, visitor attraction performance data, delivered to them in a timeous fashion every single month.”