The Royal Yacht Britannia, announced yesterday that, for the 12th year in a row, it has been rated as Scotland’s Best Visitor Attraction by Scotland’s national tourism agency, VisitScotland.

The Queen’s former floating palace, now a popular visitor attraction in Edinburgh, takes great pride in delivering an exceptional customer experience to every visitor who steps aboard.

VisitScotland’s Quality Assurance Scheme is the official measure of quality for tourism businesses in Scotland, benchmarking visitor attractions, accommodation providers, and catering establishments across Scotland. Tourism businesses are assessed based on the welcome, attitude, knowledge and efficiency of staff, as well as audience level, interpretation, maintenance and cleanliness of the attraction.

The Royal Yacht is also celebrating its most successful year to date, since opening 19 years ago, with visitor numbers running 13% up on last year. To date, over 5 million people from across the world have visited The Queen’s former floating palace, since it opened in 1998. The iconic attraction has also featured in TripAdvisor’s UK Top 10 for the last 5 years, with over 16,500 reviews and the highest percentage of ‘Excellent’ reviews (72%).

Commenting on this outstanding success, Britannia’s Chief Executive, Bob Downie said, “To be the best in Scotland once is a fantastic achievement, but to do this for twelve consecutive years is a phenomenal tribute to our staff who go the extra mile to ensure that all our visitors have a great experience when they visit Britannia. The true test of any great organisation is consistency of performance, delivering great value for time and money, year in year out, and there is no doubt that our pioneering approach to providing great customer experiences has underpinned our success.”

Lord Thurso, Chairman of VisitScotland said: “This is a remarkable achievement for The Royal Yacht Britannia. To retain the accolade of Scotland’s best attraction for the 12th year running is no mean feat and very well deserved for such an iconic attraction. We need to think bigger about Scotland as a tourism destination to ensure we fulfil our potential – every visitor must get a quality experience every single time – and Britannia is leading by example and setting the bar high for excellence.”