2018 has been quite the year for us here at Mercat Tours! Now is the perfect time to look back at some of our highlights.
In January we started off the year with the only way us Scots know how – whisky! We celebrated our Whisky Burns event to mark Burns Night on the 25th January with a Burns themed whisky tasting including two whiskies from Dumfries named after Burn’s poems.
In February we announced our support for a campaign to raise money for a statue of Dr Elsie Inglis. Not only did Elsie establish a medical practice in Edinburgh but set up a small maternity hospital on the High Street for Edinburgh’s poor in the city.
In March we celebrated Scottish novelist Muriel Sparks. We held our very own Spark100 walking tour to mark the centenary of her birth. Our tour was even part of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival to remember the author of Miss Jean Brodie.
In April we introduced our brand new tours to further explore Edinburgh's history; Mile to the Museum and the Scottish Storytelling Supper offered visitors new locations and new formats to enjoy the city!
In May we headed back to Scotland’s national drink to celebrate World Whisky Day with the most Tour and Whisky tastings in one day!
In June we were delighted to welcome the cast and crew from BBC’s Bargain Hunt. Our very own guide Simon showed the crew around the Blair Street Underground Vaults to give them some history of Edinburgh’s Old Town.
July was an exciting month for Mercat Tours as not only did we celebrate our 33rd birthday but we also received our Visit Scotland 5 star rating.
In August we launched our new look website! It has lots of new nifty features including the daily tour timetable which makes it much easier to see which walking tours and ghost tours are running on which day!
In September we visited Linlithgow Palace to perform “A Believer in the Cause” part of our bespoke character costume work!
Come October we embraced one of the busiest times of the year for all those fans of our ghost tours – Halloween. We had tours aplenty as well as costumes aplenty!
In November we held our Day in Edinburgh. 85 S2 pupils from a local Edinburgh partner school got the opportunity to experience tourism in their own city. Our outreach educates local students on the tourism sector and shows them our industry as potential future careers. During their day they joined us for an underground ghost tour!
We’ve ended the year in December by giving our office a wee makeover! We love the artwork as well as the artefacts - pop in to see us - we're just on Blair Street!
Thank you to all who made our whole 2018 so successful! Here's to 2019.