The success of TV show The Traitors has sparked an entrepreneurial drive in the Scottish Highlands, where the programme is filmed.
Website company GoDaddy tracks micro business density by measuring the concentration of business owners against local population sizes. The score for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey grew from 0.76 in 2024 to 1.34 in 2025, an increase of 76%.
The consistuency of Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross, home to Ardross Castle which is the setting for The Traitors’ famous roundtable and breakfast meetings, saw a 53% uplift.
Series two of The Traitors aired in January 2024 and it became a cultural phenomenon. Viewing figures almost doubled to 6.9 million on average, compared to 3.4 million in season one.
The report said Scottish Highlands micro business growth has matched, and in some cases outpaced, key areas including Glasgow South West (+69%), Edinburgh South West (+73%), Leeds Central (+44%), and Bristol West (+61%).
A BBC report released last year said The Traitors added £21.8 million to the Scottish economy between 2022 and 2025.
Alexandra Rosen, economist and head of the GoDaddy Small Business Research Lab, said:
“Major TV moments can act like an economic spark for the places they spotlight.
“While the business of filming provides a short-term boost to local economies, the real opportunity lies as viewers become inspired to visit and book experiences to get a taste of what they have seen on screen, or local residents become inspired to pursue passions and fulfil local and widespread demands.
“It is inspiring to see that a surge in attention is being paralleled by entrepreneurs across the Scottish Highlands, delivering benefits to their local economies.”
According to GoDaddy and Frontier Economics, a 10% increase in digital micro business density is linked to an average rise of £360 in median annual pay, 5.1 additional jobs per thousand residents, and over £26 million in additional GDP for a typical local authority of 200,000 people.