Published October 21, 2026 | Version v1

SUMMARY

White paper providing evidence for the Highland Council statutory Visitor Levy consultation (7 September to late November 2026). The paper analyses 58,140 deduplicated public Instagram posts tagged #NC500 alongside the 2026 BiGGAR Economics resident survey and comparator scenic routes (Wild Atlantic Way, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Great Ocean Road, Loch Lomond) to assess where visitor pressure on the North Coast 500 (NC500) concentrates and whether the proposed levy design reaches the highest-impact travel mode.

Key findings: campervan and motorhome travel is the dominant named mode (14–31% of posts); online attention and resident-reported strain concentrate in the north-west corridor (Durness, Ullapool, Assynt, Applecross); traffic on the route grew +83% between 2014 and 2025; and the proposed levy, which charges fixed accommodation (£5 hotel / £2 campsite per night), does not reach campervans parked off-site. Estimated annual levy revenue is ~£9 million, none collectable before mid-2028. The paper makes six dated policy recommendations centred on extending the Highland Campervan and Motorhome Scheme, building low-cost aires, and tying VisitScotland marketing to less-visited locations.

Link to document here.