Using data to ease pressure on Edinburgh during festivals season
Expanding evening and late-night transport services would play a crucial role in easing pressure on accommodation in Edinburgh and the South East of Scotland during the summer festival season, according to a new report.
Smart Data for Smarter Tourism highlights how improved travel options could help manage the annual influx of visitors each August, when the city’s population swells to over one million for major events including the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe.
Using data to reduce strain on the visitor economy
According to the report’s analysis more than half of guests hoping to attend future events in the city and surrounding areas at peak times during the Festival, are unlikely to be able to find accommodation within a 90-minute commute of their venue due to lack of public transport options after events.
It also highlighted the benefits of a data-driven strategy to better co-ordinate accommodation and transport needs, including the creation of a live dashboard for event planners, and also recommends introducing event-specific shuttle services between the city and periphery accommodation.
The proposed dashboard would forecast accommodation availability and transport connectivity in real time, helping organisers avoid scheduling clashes, enabling transport providers to put on additional services, and assisting hotels and guest houses to manage occupancy rates more effectively.
The report’s authors argue that better data sharing could significantly reduce strain on the city during its busiest season, improving the experience for residents, visitors and businesses.
Neal Christison , VisitScotland Regional Director and lead for the Visitor Economy and Culture project, said: “The influx of visitors in August creates pressure on the city’s transport infrastructure, accommodation availability and residential areas.
“This can cause a real headache for visitors who want to stay in the city but don’t want to pay a premium for centrally based accommodation or for taxis to travel back at night to their accommodation from more peripheral locations. Greater co-ordination between event bookers, hotels and transport operators would ensure that times of peak demand were more evenly distributed.”
Modelling visitor number scenarios
The report authors used information from historic ticket sales, accommodation and transport providers, although did not have access to Airbnb and short-term let figures so accommodation figures are slightly lower than in reality, to demonstrate the importance of improving transport links.
They modelled three scenarios – Scenario A, a busy non festival day with The Open, Hearts vs Hibs and Harry Styles playing; Scenario B a busy festival day with Edinburgh Festivals, Fringe by the Sea, Pittenweem Arts Festival, Innerleithen Music Festival, Party at the Palace, Connect Festival and Beyond Borders, and finally Scenario C – a stress test with all the events happening at the same time.
For each of the three scenarios at least half of guests requiring accommodation could not be allocated to an accommodation within a 90-minute commute.
In Scenario A, all of unallocated guests were attending the Open Championship in St Andrews, where there were only 72 providers within 90-minute catchment despite demand for accommodation from 37,000 attendees. However the report’s authors did not have access to data on short-term lets and seasonal bed spaces in student halls and did not factor in the number of people using private cars.
Scenario B contained more events outside the Edinburgh city region and therefore guest accommodation providers throughout the South East of Scotland. This led to almost a third of guests being allocated to accommodations that were at most 30 minutes (arrival and departure) from the events they were attending.
In worst case scenario C, strong demand driven by multiple big events happening at the same time meant that almost two thirds of guests (103,520) could not be allocated to an accommodation within 90 minutes arrival and departure travel of their event location.
Dougie Robb, CEO of Smart Data Foundry, said: “Our research highlights how existing data sources can be brought together to produce valuable and actionable insights for the travel and tourism sectors in the region.
“In the long term, our analysis could be integrated into a live dashboard for event management stakeholders. This platform would provide interactive insights on transport, accommodation, and visitor movement, enabling data-driven decisions. This would allow stakeholders to consider different scenarios in order to optimise resources, and improve co-ordination for large-scale events.”
The Visitor Economy & Culture project
UKSPF funding from the six local authorities within the Edinburgh and South East Scotland Region was used to commission the report through the Visitor Economy and Culture project under the Regional Prosperity Framework. The report was produced by Smart Data Foundry in collaboration with Travel Tech for Scotland and Workforce Mobility.
