Edinburgh's Old Town is one of Scotland's most important visitor destinations, welcoming millions of visitors each year and supporting a unique mix of residents, communities and businesses, including cultural organisations, charities, independent enterprises and larger employers that collectively contribute to the character and success of the Old Town. Its unique combination of heritage, culture, hospitality, retail and visitor attractions makes a significant contribution to both Edinburgh's and Scotland's visitor economy. The area is home to some of Scotland's best known attractions and experiences, helping to shape the reputation of the city and the country as a quality place to visit, live, work and invest.

It also plays an important role in supporting the ambitions of Scotland's national tourism strategy (Outlook 2030) and events strategy (Scotland the Perfect Stage), including delivering sustainable economic growth, enhancing places and communities, improving the visitor experience and ensuring tourism and events benefits are shared by residents, businesses and visitors alike.

As the national agency for tourism and events, VisitScotland works to benefit Scotland by driving growth in value of the visitor economy. We work closely with Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) across Scotland and Scotland's Towns Partnership, supporting destination development, visitor experience improvements and business engagement. Through this work, we have seen how partnership approaches can help bring businesses and stakeholders together to address local priorities and deliver benefits for businesses, communities and visitors.

One aspect of the early stages of the Old Town BID process so far has been the commitment to early, transparent and inclusive engagement with businesses. Taking time to listen, gather views and understand local priorities at an early stage is essential to ensuring informed discussions about the future of the Old Town.

The visitor economy is most successful when it delivers value not only for visitors and businesses, but also for local communities and residents. Issues such as quality of life, safety, public spaces, accessibility and the overall experience of living, working and visiting an area are closely connected. Exploring how these interests can be balanced and supported is an important part of any conversation about the future of the Old Town.

We have also seen the work undertaken by Essential Edinburgh in the city's New Town, providing an example of how a BID can operate in practice. Through collaboration with businesses and partners, it has supported activity that helps enhance the visitor economy, strengthen the city centre and support Edinburgh's appeal as a place to visit, live and work. This demonstrates how collective working can help deliver benefits that individual organisations may find more difficult to achieve alone.

The current exploration of a potential Old Town BID provides an opportunity for businesses to engage with the process, share their views and consider the potential opportunities as proposals continue to develop. VisitScotland does not have a role in determining the outcome of any future ballot and encourages businesses to review the proposals as they emerge and reach their own conclusions. Whatever individual perspectives may be, broad participation throughout the process will help ensure discussions are informed by a wide range of experiences, priorities and viewpoints.