Tourism is one of Scotland's largest business sectors, providing direct employment for over 200,000 people and generating visitor spending of more than £4 billion a year. Since 1999, the Moffat Centre has worked on behalf of VisitScotland to compile the national statistical performance indicators of the country's cultural tourism attractions.

Each year, the Moffat Centre produces the Visitor Attraction Monitor which supplies detailed data on public and private sector Scottish attractionsfrom large operations like national museums and galleries to small independent operators. It is the most comprehensive range of data on visitor attraction performance in Scotland with data available back to 1991.

Information covers visits data as well as more operational information such as staffing, average revenue and dwell time. Some qualitative information is also collated to probe negative and positive factors affecting the industry.

This report is used at a local and national government level to inform policy as well as being an important tool of tourism performance analysis.Industry use it as a benchmark tool, e.g. to compare their performance with competitors that have similar tourist attractions, or are located within the same region.

The Moffat Centre also produces a monthly Visitor Attraction Barometer on behalf of VisitScotland. The reports map trends, visitor numbers, and other key variables of more than 500 visitor attractions across Scotland. The Barometer is one of the earliest indicators of tourism performance in Scotland with only one month data turnaround. It is used by the Bank of England as one of their economic monitoring tools.