As the crowds flock to Festival venues and wonder which toilets they can use in safety, the usual arguments about “over-tourism” will doubtless surface as bins overflow and carefree visitors stumble into the traffic on The Mound.

According to Edinburgh Council’s most recent figures, tourism contributes nearly £1billion to the local economy, but as they are from 2022, it will be significantly greater now. The Edinburgh by Numbers report published in March this year puts accommodation and food, where most of the tourism revenues are captured, 11th in a league table of sectors, but visitors will also make a significant contribution to retail (£1.36bn, ninth) and the bric-a-brac category with no specific designation (£3.7bn, second).

Although tourism doesn’t dominate in cash terms – financial services is by far the biggest at over £7bn – it certainly does in employment, supporting over 30,000 jobs, with accommodation and food the city’s third biggest employment sector behind health services (56,000) and finance and insurance (42,000). Education is fourth with 36,000. Unless someone blows up the Castle and closes the hotels, tourism will always be here, so no wonder councillors are already salivating at the prospect of raising £40m annually after the Tourist Tax – sorry, Visitor Levy – is introduced next year.

Publicly funded health services aren’t going anywhere, in both senses, but alarm bells should be ringing off the walls in other sectors about the challenges – not quite threats as yet – of technological advances now unfolding at breakneck speed, so vital for the future of both financial services and........

© Herald Scotland