Mobile accounts for up to 35 per cent of online revenues for Edinburgh Castle during some months of the year, with an average of 23 per cent of all online ticket sales now mobile.

Having launched its mobile commerce and information site in March last year, the the UKs second most popular tourist spot has seen it become an increasingly important aspect of its proposition.

Tourists are more likely to make a purchase on mobile than desktop, the organisation has found, peaking at more than 10 per cent in August. It sees an average conversion rate over the year of 5.9 per cent – compared to 3.4 per cent on PC. Average revenue per visitor across mobile and desktop is just under £2.00.

Dotter, the company behind the site, says it has reduced the number of clicks in the user journey and the length of the checkout process from five steps to three. Although the mobile development firm has also halved the amount of details needed to make a purchase, the site doesnt give users the option to use Paypal or operator billing, instead asking users to enter all of their card details – probably not ideal when youre on the move with a pack of kids in tow. 

“The results have exceeded our initial expectations considerably – we never expected mobile conversions rates would exceed desktop,” said Kari Coghill, head of business development at Historic Scotland, which looks after Edinburgh Castle. “Dotter’s Open Commerce platform allowed us to provide a fully optimised m-commerce experience without the need for IT resource.”

Although the mobile site would not work on my (yes, slighty dated) Samsung S2, we managed to have a poke around using the Editors S2. The site has received some updates, Dotter said, and some of the page re-directs had been missed, but they couldnt explain this problem.