More than 70 people a day on average visited the Inverness Castle viewpoint in its opening month.
A total of 2,259 visitors ventured up the city’s latest visitor attraction after a week of no charging in which all 1,500 slots were filled.
A spokesman for the viewpoint operator High Life Highland said: “Following a week-long ‘come and try’ opportunity for local residents, the castle viewpoint officially opened to the public as a paid attraction on April 22.
“Since then we have been pleased to welcome 2,259 visitors during the first full month of opening, all of whom have been extremely positive about the city’s newest attraction.”
The viewing platform at the castle’s North Tower, which gives 360-degree views of the city and beyond, was fully booked in its first week – but in its second week, the number dropped to about 600.
But numbers have stayed the same in the weeks since.
The viewpoint is the first phase in a wider project to convert the castle building into an attraction of “national significance”, which is due to open at the start of next decade.
Inverness’s main castle building solely serves as the city’s courthouse, but the court service has indicated it aims to move into the new justice centre in Longman Road in 2019. It is hoped the new attraction will have the same impact as the £80million Victoria and Albert museum under construction in Dundee.
The council boss hopes to furnish the new tourism centre with artefacts from across the Highlands in a bid to encourage tourists to travel farther afield to sites such as the Cuillins in Skye, or the beaches of north west Sutherland.
A total of £15milion from the City Region Deal will be used to convert the castle, and an application will be submitted for lottery funding as part of the project.