ASVA Cards: More than just free entry

Added: 15 Oct 2026

From staff learning and sharing ideas to supporting fellow attractions, our latest member survey reveals the wider benefits of ASVA Cards.

ASVA Cards help your staff experience other attractions, find ideas for your own site and recommend places they know to your visitors. Our recent member survey gives us a clearer picture of how the cards are being used and the value they offer.

For your team

Members told us how much their staff appreciate using the cards to visit other sites. They also described how those visits help staff recommend attractions to their own visitors.

“I know that my team will recommend attractions to our visitors based on their experience.”

The Royal Yacht Britannia, ASVA Card Usage Survey

Based on estimated card use, ASVA Cards can provide an average of around £1.50 in admission savings for staff for every £1 spent on membership. That is before the rest of your membership benefits are counted. How much your team saves depends on how often it uses its cards.

When you welcome card users

Staff who have visited your attraction are better placed to recommend it to their own visitors. Welcoming colleagues helps them get to know what you offer and become ambassadors for your attraction.

Using the café, shop and other secondary spend figures you told us about, we estimate around £15 of spending per card visit. This includes approximately £8 on food and drink, £5 in shops and £2 on other purchases. For a site welcoming 100 card visits, that would suggest around £1,500 in secondary spending. Actual spending will vary.

Across the membership

Our survey suggests that ASVA Cards account for around:

50,000 visits to member attractions each year.
£700,000 in annual admission savings for card users.
£760,000 in estimated annual café, shop and other secondary spending.

That works out at around 15 visits per card issued each year. The cards support ASVA’s work by helping members learn from each other and share their knowledge of Scotland’s attractions.

Getting more from your cards

Choose where to visit. Use our member map and directory to find attractions, and the Quality Scheme information and published gradings to help plan visits. Think about what you would like to learn or improve at your own site.
Check the arrangements. Read the card conditions and the attraction’s directory listing before you travel. Book ahead where required and bring your card. Cards are for individual staff use; accompanying family and friends pay the normal admission charges. Contact the attraction first if more than two staff want to visit together.
Cancel if your plans change. Please let the attraction know promptly so it can offer the space to someone else.
Share what you learned. Bring an idea back to your team and discuss how you could use it. Complete the short ASVA Card feedback form to let the attraction know about your visit.
Make the cards easy to use. Put the information in your staff room so everyone knows how to borrow a card and plan a visit. If you welcome card users, keep your directory entry up to date. Contact ASVA to add or change restrictions to suit your attraction.

Figures are annual estimates from a voluntary member survey. Spending estimates use the visitor averages supplied by attractions, with an adjustment to retail spend. Spending by card users was not directly measured.

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