Forest adventure company Go Ape has swung to a record high with its most successful year in Scotland to date, welcoming 50,000 customers during the 2014 season.
The forest adventure brand’s three tree-top adventure sites across Scotland Aberfoyle in Stirlingshire, Crathes Castle in Aberdeenshire and Glentress Forest in Peebles enjoyed a combined growth of 18% over the past 12 months.
The company notched up a 28% revenue increase to £18.2 million in 2014 across the UK, where it has a further 25 sites.
In total, 820,000 people visited Go Ape last year 1% of the UK population enjoying a range of activities.
Overall visitor numbers reached the four million milestone in August, highlighting the growth in popularity of the Go Ape experience since the first site was launched in 2002.
The success has paved the way for future investment and growth this year, with the planned launch and rollout of urban adventures, as well as development at existing locations with more sites offering Tree Top Junior and Forest Segway in addition to the traditional Tree Top Adventure.
Go Ape also recently invested £2m in a new leisure concept for Scotland, with the launch of the country’s first indoor trampoline park and Europe’s largest freestyle jumping area at Air Space in East Kilbride.
Managing director Jerome Mayhew said: “Go Ape enjoyed record visitor numbers in Scotland in 2014, which we believe reflected the upsurge in visitor numbers and the feel-good factor of the Commonwealth Games.
“We also selected Scotland as the ideal location for our first trampoline park, and Air Space is already exceeding our expectations.
“As a result, we have exciting plans to roll out the concept to a number of new sites across the UK.
“We believe this diversification is important, both from a business perspective and also to offer our customers new and exciting leisure opportunities.”