Cultural tourism

Cultural tourism brings huge economic benefits to an area. We’re leading the way in Fife by bringing tourists to visit our many museums, galleries, theatres and libraries. A string of awards are helping to attract visitors from outside of Fife to Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries. Fife’s fascinating stories are being brought to life by the creation of guided and digital tours. We’re also investing in a campaign of AA roadsigns on all the major roads in Fife to direct tourists to our exhibitions in the galleries and museums.

Ballet LORENT

Dunfermline Heritage Quarter

Fife Contemporary Exhibition

William MacTaggart

Cruise Forth Tours

Tanyalee Davis, Canadian comedian

An international audience at St Andrews Museum

The programme of exhibitions and events at St Andrews Museum welcomes visitors all year round. Each summer we plan a high-profile exhibition during peak tourist season. Famous artists such as William McTaggart, L.S. Lowry, Joan Eardley, Alison Watt, Glasgow Boy, E. A. Hornel and four Scottish colourists – Peploe, Hunter, Cadell and Fergusson – delighted over 8,500 people, including many international visitors as part of Art in Trust – Highlights from the Paintings Collections, which ran from 16 June until 22 September 2018.

Kirkcaldy Galleries

As well as our exciting plans for the Adam Smith Cultural Hub, which will have a significant impact on cultural tourism, Kirkcaldy Galleries, which already provides a Visitor Information Service as part of its designated VIP status, attracts many visitors with its stimulating permanent and temporary exhibitions.

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall continues to drive footfall into Dunfermline town centre. Big names such as Francis Rossi, Amanda Palmer, Jason Donovan and Bwani Junction continue to attract crowds from the rest of Fife and beyond.

Beautiful paintings & dazzling jewellery

A Brush with Colour showcased our 20^th century paintings by the Edinburgh School, including William Gillies, Anne Redpath, and Elizabeth Blackadder. The exhibition, 23 June until 4 November, attracted 8,324 visitors to Kirkcaldy before it moved to Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries.

Through our partnership with Fife Contemporary, NEXUS: Meetings at the Edge, was at Kirkcaldy Galleries from March until June 2018. The striking exhibits centred on jewellery and included other beautiful objects created where different disciplines meet. The exhibition was curated by Dr Elizabeth Goring, formerly the curator of Modern Jewellery with the National Museums of Scotland, in collaboration with the Ruthin Arts Centre. This was its only Scottish viewing and it attracted nearly 5,000 visitors.

Dunfermline Heritage Partnership and digital tours for Fife

Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries is now established as a high-profile gateway tourist attraction in the heart of Dunfermline’s Heritage Quarter. We are a key player in the Dunfermline Heritage Partnership, an unprecedented coming together of all the major heritage bodies in Dunfermline, including Historic Environment Scotland, VisitScotland, Welcome to Fife, Fife Council, the Abbey Church of Dunfermline, Carnegie Dunfermline Trust and Delivering Dunfermline. Such coordinated plans have raised nearly £1million in funding and implementation of the heritage tourism plans started in April 2018. We started work on our contribution with the appointment of a project manager to create a series of six digital tours.

Complementing this innovative approach are personal, face-to-face tours with local people. With financial support from Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, the Project Manager began a campaign to recruit local volunteers as Welcome Ambassadors leading free daily Welcome Walks in Dunfermline. These started in July 2019.

St Monans Windmill on the BBC!

St Monans Windmill got a starring role alongside presenter, Jamie Crawford on the BBC Scotland from the Sky Coast programme. Filmed against the brilliant blue sky in October 2018, the programme was broadcast in January 2019.

From Australia to Cupar

As well as staging live music, craft and family activities which attract footfall into the town centre, Cupar Library hosts the Fife Family History Society. The service attracts visitors from all over the world, keen to trace their roots in Fife. On 22 January 2019, Cupar Library hosted an Ancestry Discovery Day which attracted visitors from Fife, Australia and New Zealand.

Sew Fine in St Andrews

Stitchers and embroiderers from all across Scotland, and even further afield, came to see the deft needlework and textiles in Exploration 2018, St Andrews Museum, 6 October until 23 February. Organised with Dundee Embroiderers’ Guild, its popularity led to the Museum becoming the first venue in Scotland to host the 100 Hearts Project to mark 100 years since the end of World War One.

Tourism 'Oscars'

Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries visitor numbers and profile also benefited from a continuous stream of awards, with The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors judging the Dunfermline venue to be the best new building in Scotland in 2018 in terms of benefit to the local community.

In October, at the SPACES (Society of Public Architecture, Construction, Engineering and Surveying) Awards, we went on to scoop two UK-wide prizes with the Heritage Category Award and Civic Building of the Year.

And in November, we won one of Scottish Tourism’s ‘Oscars’ when Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries collected the Best Heritage Tourism Experience Award for the Central, Fife & Tayside region.