FOREST adventure company Go Ape has swung to a record high with its most successful year to date, welcoming 50,000 customers during the 2014 season.

The UK’s multi-award winning forest adventure brand operates three Go Ape Tree Top Adventure sites across Scotland – including Glentress Forest in Peebles - which enjoyed a combined growth of 18 per cent over the past 12 months.

The company saw revenue increase to £18.2 million across the UK in 2014, a 28% increase on the previous 12 months. In total, 820,000 people visited Go Ape in 2014 – 1% of the UK population – enjoying the range of activities across the 28 sites including Tree Top Adventure, Tree Top Junior, Forest Segway and Zip Trekking Adventure.

Overall visitor numbers reached the four million milestone in August 2014, highlighting the growth in popularity of the Go Ape experience since the first site launched in 2002.

The success has paved the way for future investment and growth in 2015 with the planned launch and roll out of urban adventures, as well as development at existing locations with more sites offering Tree Top Junior and Forest Segway in addition to the traditional Tree Top Adventure.

Go Ape also recently branched out, investing £2 million in a new leisure concept for Scotland, with the launch of the country’s first indoor trampoline park, Air Space in East Kilbride.  Europe’s largest freestyle jumping arena opened in December 2014 and the company now has plans for rapid growth with finance in place to create a UK-wide footprint for the brand.

Jerome Mayhew, managing director of Go Ape, said: “Go Ape enjoyed record visitor numbers in Scotland in 2014 which we believe reflected the upsurge in visitor numbers and the feel good factor of the Commonwealth Games.

“We also selected Scotland as the ideal location for our first trampoline park and Air Space is already exceeding our expectations. As a result we have exciting plans to roll out the concept to a number of new sites across the UK.

“We believe this diversification is important, both from a business perspective and also to offer our customers new and exciting leisure opportunities.” Go Ape adventures are open from February to November 2015 and further information is available at www.goape.co.uk