In brief

Edinburgh takes the top two places in a survey of the most popular admission-charging tourist attractions, published this week by the Scottish Tourist Board.

Edinburgh Castle topped the list, despite a 5% drop in visitors last year to just over 992,000, with the zoo seeing a 2% rise to 526,000. The biggest rise of 24% was seen by the Edinburgh Crystal Visitor Centre.

In the free admissions survey, Glasgow Art Gallery & Museum retained top spot with more than 903,000 visitors, up 13% on 1993.

Solihull's St John's Swallow Hotel is to spend £1m refurbishing its Versailles conference and banqueting suite. A further £1.5m will be invested in 1996 on the hotel's reception and restaurant.

Staff at the Criterion on London's Piccadilly , which is due to close at the end of July, are telling customers that Marco Pierre White is to take over the restaurant.

But, as Caterer went to press, a spokeswoman for Forte, which owns the site, said no deal had yet been signed.

Nando's, the Portugese chicken concept, is opening its third London establishment, in Camden, this week.

More openings are planned in Kingston and Putney this year, followed by further outlets in London, the home counties, Wales and Scotland in 1996-97.