A Hollywood epic has been credited with increasing visitor interest in a Moray town famed for its history.
Forres has experienced a 135% increase in holiday queries this year already, the second largest rise in inquiries for locations near the Scottish coast.
The Moray Speyside Tourism group said that a large factor in the upswing could be last year’s Macbeth movie, which shone new light on the town as a key location in Shakespeare’s original play.
The group made the most of the Michael Fassbender film’s “strong links” to Moray in a bid to drive visitor numbers.
Operations manager, Laurie Piper, said: “We undertook a programme of activities and events associated with the film, which I think helped to raise the town’s profile on the national stage and beyond.”
Locals said the figures, revealed by the Trip Advisor website, were a testament to the work undertaken by community groups.
Forres councillor George Alexander said: “The Forres Heritage Trust group is very active in promoting Nelson Tower, and I expect that to become more popular in the coming years.
“It has a collection dedicated to Admiral Lord Nelson which more people are finding out about and wanting to visit.
“We also have events like the Findhorn Bay Arts festival and Piping at Forres which draw huge crowds into the town.”
Mr Alexander also singled out the Forres in Bloom community group for praise.
The volunteers spend countless hours beautifying parts of the town, and last week received a gold award in the medium sized town category at a Beautiful Scotland prize giving ceremony.
He added: “Hopefully, with word of mouth, interest in Forres will continue to grow.”
Nearby village Burghead has also experienced an increase in tourist inquiries.
The quaint seaside community has seen visitor queries rise by 39% from last year.
Mr Piper said his tourism group had been “working hard” to promote the region’s coastal beauty spots such as Burghead.
The organisation produced a video highlighting Moray’s coast which has been viewed 90,000 times online.
Mr Piper added: “Complementing the video was a special coastal leaflet, which has been distributed far and wide outwith the area.”
Earlier this week, Moray Speyside Tourism reported that the area’s visitor income has rocketed by more than £10million over the past two years.
