Seventy-Two and Counting: What Do We Really Want for the Royal Mile?

POSTED ON July 28, 2025

It’s a number that’s hard to ignore. As of this year, there are at least 72 tourist gift shops operating along the Royal Mile. That’s more than one for every 25 metres of one of the most historic streets in Europe. For a thoroughfare that links a royal palace to an ancient fortress, framed by centuries of civic and cultural …

Concerns have continued to surface in recent months, with coverage by BBC Scotland helping to reignite public debate. Their report captured the views of residents and heritage advocates who feel the street is becoming saturated, overrun with the same shortbread tins, mass-produced tartans, novelty T-shirts and clan memorabilia. While no one disputes the value of tourism to Edinburgh’s economy, there is a growing sense that the balance has tipped too far. In a city that markets itself on heritage, imagination and authenticity, the dominance of identikit shopfronts jars.

This isn’t a new concern. As far back as 2014, audits conducted by the University of Edinburgh found that 58% of the Royal Mile’s retail units were gift shops aimed squarely at tourists. Five years later, Edinburgh World Heritage reported that visitors overwhelmingly associated the Mile’s authenticity with its buildings, streetscapes and historic atmosphere, not its retail offering. Only 7% of respondents said they visited for the shops, while more than 70% came for the architecture, history and sense of place. Yet when asked what they found inauthentic, the most common answer by some distance was the shops. Visitors from Italy, Scotland, Spain and the United States were especially candid on this point, suggesting that the retail mix was undermining the very character people came to experience.

Shop staff told the same story, albeit from a different angle. Interviews carried out as part of the 2019 EWH report revealed widespread concern about quality, transparency, and business ethics. Many assistants admitted that much of the stock was mass-produced abroad and that provenance was often vague or misleading. Some said they wouldn’t shop there themselves. Even among those doing their best to offer genuine Scottish goods, there was a palpable sense of fatigue, of competing in a market where pushing the boundaries was becoming the norm.

Meanwhile, the experience of residents continues to evolve. Not long ago, one of the frequent complaints was that it was impossible to buy a pint of milk on the Royal Mile. That has changed. A number of small supermarkets and food stores are now within reasonable walking distance, marking some improvement in day-to-day urban liveability. However, the deeper challenge remains: how can we restore a retail mix that serves both residents and visitors, and feels rooted in place?

The Old Town still hosts a significant local population, but the pressures are intense. Short-term holiday lets, crowding, noise and the daily churn of footfall have all taken their toll. According to VisitScotland’s 2025 resident attitudes survey, tourism contributes around £2.2 billion to the Scottish economy and supports over 40,000 jobs. But almost half of respondents expressed concern about its localised impacts: particularly congestion, litter, and the sense that city centres are losing their civic character. There is clearly support for tourism in principle, but also a widespread feeling that it needs to be managed more sensitively.

So what do we really want the Royal Mile to be? Not just in abstract heritage terms, but in practical, street-level reality? What do we want to offer our visitors, and what do our residents need in return?

It’s striking that for all the talk of visitor demand, very little has been done to directly consult tourists about their retail preferences on the Royal Mile. We assume they want souvenirs, and many do, but do they want 72 versions of the same ones? Do they feel well served by what they encounter? There is evidence to suggest not. The 2019 research showed that visitors value quality, authenticity and provenance. They are looking for goods made in Scotland, ideally by local craftspeople. They notice when shops all look the same. They notice when things feel cheap, loud or exploitative. And they are disappointed when the promise of heritage turns out to be little more than a sales pitch.

Equally, we need to ask residents what would make the Royal Mile feel more like their own again. Once a working street full of tenements, trades and community life, it now risks becoming a stage set. The term “tourist ghetto” has been used, perhaps too freely, but not without reason. When everyday shopping disappears, when independent traders are priced out, when bookshops, newsagents and grocers give way to tartan overload, the street ceases to function as a civic space. It becomes something else: a corridor of consumption, visually striking but spiritually hollow.

This is not an inevitable outcome. Other cities have acted. Amsterdam capped the number of waffle and ice cream outlets in its historic core. Paris not only subsidises bookshops but bans Amazon from selling books at a discount, in order to protect small, independent sellers. Such examples show what’s possible with political will and planning foresight.

That said, it’s important to be clear about what Edinburgh can and can’t do under current powers. The city has no direct authority to control what is sold inside a shop or café. Even where it owns premises, it cannot restrict the content of a menu or product line. The shift toward deregulation and the erosion of older licensing frameworks, intended to promote flexibility and market choice, has paradoxically had the opposite effect. It has made it harder to preserve genuine diversity. In practice, freedom of use often results in monoculture, not plurality.

Some tools do exist. The City of Edinburgh Council owns several retail units on the Royal Mile and could include community and cultural criteria in future leases. There is scope to develop a “Made in Scotland” certification scheme, helping visitors distinguish between authentic, locally produced goods and those that merely trade on the name. Retail diversity could be monitored as part of the city’s broader economic and heritage strategies, as recommended in the original Royal Mile Action Plan. Even modest interventions, supporting local artists, offering fair rents to independent traders, encouraging transparency in sourcing, could begin to shift the tone.

But more than anything, we need a collective conversation. Not just about what we don’t want, but about what we do. What kind of shops should be on the High Street? What do tourists value most? What do residents miss? What would make the Royal Mile feel like a richer, more layered, more welcoming place, for everyone?

Seventy-two gift shops may serve a market, but they don’t tell the full story of Edinburgh. They don’t do justice to the Royal Mile’s past, and they certainly won’t sustain its future. If we are serious about protecting our city’s heritage, not as a static postcard but as a living place, we need to ask better questions, listen more carefully, and start planning for a retail environment that reflects the best of who we are.

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